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Spring Festival Travels 26 - Leshan 2

2008-04-25T16:25:00.003+01:00

10th February 2008 // Day 27 // Leshan (Sichuan) --> Chengdu (Sichuan)

I was woken up very early by a rooster. If I knew where it was, I would've rung its bloody neck. What a way to be woken up. Grr. On this day we had to go back to practically the same place we'd been yesterday (more fandango with the number 13 bus) to see the Oriental Buddha Museum, where various famous Buddha sites from round China and the rest of Asia are recreated. It also contains the world's longest sleeping Buddha at 170 metres. Pretty huge, until you realise that they actually have only carved the head and the feet and then left the rest of the rocks, where the body would be, covered by thick trees. Conceivably the whole thing could be carved, but it's not. In the Oriental Buddha Museum, which is an outdoor park, we had seen most of the Buddha sites in person already, and the real thing is always more impressive. We got to see some of the Han Dynasty tombs which we'd neglected to visit the day before (very dull), and the other Asian Buddhas, which inspired much more interest in us. I am slightly worried by my ability now to distinguish between the types of Buddha: Tibetan, Thai, Sinicized... I couldn't tell you the differences, but when I see them, I know.
We got the 3 back into town, as I knew it went the way we wanted, and went to find the man who had sold me the fruit kebab the night before. I had seen him in the same spot out the bus window that morning, so I knew his haunt. First we went to our kebab seller of the night before to get lunch, and got chicken wing kebabs, lamb kebabs, and chicken 'bits' (essentially deep-fried chicken nuggets, but better). We tried out spicy fried potato kebab which was made of heaven and angels. I got five fruit kebabs from the fruit seller man, as I had honestly never tasted anything so incredible in my life. Liam got one and though he doesn't like strawberries proclaimed it amazing too. We realised that we literally hadn't eaten a single thing in Leshan that didn't come on a stick. My kind of life, that.
We got our bags from the hotel and got a taxi to the bus station. It was a different bus station to the one we'd arrived at, and a lot more efficient looking. When we'd arrived at the bus station we'd thought Leshan threatened to be a dump, but in fact I liked it so much, just the general casual, relaxed atmosphere, that it is one of my favourite places in China. Admittedly I was only there for two days, and it might get pretty boring after a short while, but I preserve the memory of it as an amazing place.
We got an express bus back to Chengdu but it still took a while. At the bus station in Chengdu (again different to the one we went from) we were pestered by taxi drivers who offered 30 to take us to the hostel we wanted, and then when we began to walk off, raised it to 60! Erm... ¿qué? We walked some way before we hailed a taxi and it was such a distance to the hostel that it actually made it past 30 on the meter. Goddammit. We got a 6 bed dorm for an incredible 15 kuai (the cheapest we've ever found in China). That's around 1 pound. We booked to see a Sichuan Opera performance that night and went to check out our dorm. It was annoyingly dark and messy but very good for just 15 kuai. The whole hostel had a teahouse sort of feel - open spaces and lots of twisted bamboo. I think it would be gorgeous in summer, but in the winter it was a bit cold and gloomy.
We tried out a recommended restaurant. Normally the restaurants we're recommended are good, but this one was awful. We ordered return to the pot meat and kungpao chicken (both Sichuan specialities) plus rice. Both the dishes lacked flavour - definitely not the famous Sichuan spice we were expecting! We get better, spicier kungpao chicken at our local in Urumqi. Our rice didn't turn up. The boss was seated next to us cooking the books and admonished the staff for leaving us unattended - they had forgotten our rice and left our tea untopped-up. But by then it was too late. The service had been unsatisfactory and we left the newly brought over rice completely untouched.
Back at the hostel, a minibus took us to the opera along with a Californian called Claire. She said she was actually British and I internally groaned and thought 'oh here we go, the typical 'oh wow, you're British? I'm an English American - my step-great-grandfather-once-removed lived next door to someone who was once married to a British guy!' but this one was genuine! She lived in Battersea until she was nine years old, then moved to California. Nice girl but she was leaving the very next morning. Another one that was teaching in Shanghai, I think they're breeding.
The opera was more like a cabaret than an opera with various performances such as puppetry, shadow-hands, a famous comedy sketch which I believe is called the Rolling Oil Lamp, plus an incredible performance on the erhu, Nolan's instrument of choice, by some expert or other. The Sichuan Opera is different from the Beijing Opera, and is famous for its Changing Faces and fire-breathing. When we eventually got to that, it was breath-taking! Especially as the puppetry expert also got her puppet to change faces and breath fire! How?!?! Just... how?! They wear masks and change the mask so quickly that you can't see it being done. We checked the internet to see how it's done, but it's actually a classified national secret and a guy that let slip was immediately silenced and got into Big Trouble so we still don't know. Liam's theory is that they pull it up from the chin strap, but who knows really. Surely letting out something that simple couldn't carry a charge of treason? It was a nice end to the day. Then to bed - sightseeing tomorrow!

The sleeping Buddha - you can see the head in the top left-hand corner, and the legs just about fit in the photo on the right.

A very Thai Buddha at the Oriental Buddha Museum.

Mmm fruit kebab - food of the Gods!

Spring Festival Travels 25 - Leshan 1

2008-04-25T16:09:00.002+01:00

9th February 2008 // Day 26 // Chengdu (Sichuan) --> Leshan (Sichuan)

The night on the train, despite the lack of people, had been awful. I woke with a headache and feeling sleep deprived. We had recently decided to add Dunhuang (old caves) and Jiayuguan (western end of the Great Wall), both in Gansu, to our itinerary and had also planned to go straight to Leshan from Chengdu, see the sights there, and return to Chengdu. What with adding stuff to our itinerary and still thinking we had to be back to start class on February 25th, we were getting quite tight for time. We arrived at Chengdu and instantly got a taxi to the long distance bus station to get a bus to Leshan. The driver in fact took us to the tourist bus station but that was okay because Leshan was one of the destinations. Soon we were on a bus, Leshan-bound. Driving through Chengdu I got the impression it was a nice place and looked forward to seeing it for real when we returned.
When we got to Leshan we were dropped off at a bus station on the outskirts of town. It was worryingly reminiscent of Tangkou. We were surrounded on all sides by annoying hollering taxi drivers but we ignored them and headed off in the direction where the town seemed to lie. My back was having none of it though and so we gave up and got in a taxi. We had a very sensible taxi driver who upon being told that we didn't know where to go took us to a Lonely Planet recommended hotel. The prices were steep but the English-speaking receptionist, on hearing our dismay, plummeted the price down to 120 yuan per night per room. 60 each was not half as bad and we took a twin room for one night. We left immediately to see the Giant Buddha, the main attraction of Leshan and the reason we were there. They advised us in the hotel to get bus number 13, which we tried. The bus driver asked us where we were going, and when we told him shook his head. The next number 13, which we tried just in case, let us on. The same thing happened the next day; it appears that every 1 in 2 of the number 13 buses goes to the tourist sites, and the other one doesn't!
The Buddha is world record breaking as the world's tallest sitting Buddha at 71 metres. It was a climb to reach the head and we missed out on many parts of the scenic area due to time constraints, such as the temple. Though having said that, I am sick to the back teeth of temples. The views from the cliffs into which the Buddha was carved were not wonderful, but we could see the confluence of the three rivers which had at a time been so dangerous that they had inspired the building of the Buddha, whose presence would calm the waters. In fact the waste stones from the carving were dumped into the rivers, which calmed them into docile little waterways. It is hard to now imagine how dangerous they once were. The Buddha was huge but I must say seemed rather out of proportion. To walk down the winding cliff steps to his feet we had to queue and snake down at a very slow pace. But at the bottom the views directly up to the huge Buddha were awe-inspiring. His mere toe was bigger than me!
After the obligatory photos we left to go back to the hotel. We couldn't spot the bus stop though and didn't have an address for our hotel, so we ended up walking back. It was surprisingly enjoyable and relaxing, though it did rain practically the whole way back and our trouser legs were soaked through. It's weird to have any kind of precipitation living in Xinjiang!
At our hostel we regrouped and, absolutely starving, went out to find a restaurant. We went to a recommended restaurant but when we found it they said we needed reservations. On the way I couldn't resist buying a candied fruit kebab stick and I think it was the nicest thing I've ever tasted. Looking for the recommended restaurant we had gone up and down the same long street over and over again, before realising it was split into sections and the house numbers started again in each section. We passed kebab stalls several times over and after being turned away from the restaurant, we finally succumbed. The kebabs here were not barbequed on an open fire like back home (home being Urumqi) but deep-fried. I had a chicken wing in batter and a few little lamb kebabs, to stave off my hunger till we found somewhere to eat.
We walked back along the route we'd walked home along earlier, as we'd seen a few busy looking restaurants. On the way we passed another kebab seller, who was clearly a Uyghur and as we can't resist Xinjiang kebabs we stopped and got a couple from him. We greeted him in Uyghur but he didn't seem in any way surprised that we would do so! Turned out he was from Kashgar and was pleased to find out that we'd been and seen his hometown before. His kebabs, though advertised as Xinjiang style, had been totally Sichuanified.
The busy restaurants we'd seen had emptied by now and refused to serve us. Finally we decided to get street food. We found a perfect kebab stall which had an area behind the roasting fire with benches and fires and we stopped there. First we tried out a few of the kebabs: 3 lamb, 3 beef, and 1 rabbit each. The kebabs here were much much smaller than the ones we were used to in Xinjiang, but it seemed like the kind of place where you get pick-and-mix - considering the things on offer! I also got a chicken drumstick that was gorgeous once it had been on the fire, and Liam got a entire flattened bird which may have been pigeon. I tried it but it was so hard to get any meat off it we both thought it was hardly worth it. We got loads more beef and lamb to take away, plus a couple more rabbit as it had been nice. I then couldn't help but brave some huge black bugs on a stick. If the choice is there in front of me, I think it's always good to try new stuff! Back in the hostel, with Liam filming me in case my reaction was extreme, I began to eat. I had a shudder as it first touched my lips because I imagined it coming to life and crawling over my tongue, and it was one vicious-looking breed of beetle. But then I thought stop being such a wimp, it's clearly dead and cooked, so I took an entire big bug off the stick and ate the whole thing. Extremely crispy, but with very little flavour. After a bit of convincing, Liam tried one too but was not a fan of the texture of antennae and crunchy legs in his mouth. Fair enough! On a full stomach of bug, we went to bed.

The now peaceful confluence of three rivers.

Me and the world's official biggest sitting Buddha. Or, his head.

At the bottom of the Buddha, looking up in awe.

Mmmm kebabs! And so many to choose from.

Starting off with some simple tasty rabbit.

Bugs, oh yes. Nyam nyam nyam.

Spring Festival Travels 24 - Xi'an 4

2008-04-25T16:01:00.003+01:00

8th February 2008 // Day 25 // Xi'an (Shaanxi) --> Chengdu (Sichuan)

For this, our final day in Xi'an, we had very little left to do. We got up and showered and had breakfast. Liam had beaten me downstairs and greeted me with the news that his camera had been stolen. He was surprisingly calm actually but obviously seriously annoyed at this turn of events. What was worst was not the camera, which is just an (albeit expensive) material possession, but the loss of his memory card, which had all his photographs from the travels stored on it. Fortunately Liam and I often take very similar photos, so he had that to fall back on if nothing else, but it's not the same and he had some better quality or different photos than mine that I had asked to borrow from him later. Liam worked out that his camera must have been taken on the busy bus of the day before. He'd been holding the overhead rail with one hand and was protecting his bag with his other, and had completely forgotten that he'd left his camera in his pocket. A seedy-looking man on the bus had bumped into him a little too much but Liam had thought it was just the movement of the bus. A real shame.
We left for our massage. We were about 5 minutes late already and had decided to check out before going off. There was a huge queue at reception as a tour group were just checking in (I HATE tour groups), so I went out to meet the masseur, Hans, as agreed. He was practically hiding round the corner but I saw him and told him what was going on. He asked very nervously if we'd told the hostel about the massages. I said no and he seemed pleased and relieved. After finishing checking out, we went back outside and he walked us to the massage parlour. It was all very cloak and dagger, and I started to get suspicious until he told us that he was obliged to hand over to the youth hostel 50% of his takings for each massage booked through them. Which is frankly unfair. 50% is a bit steep! If that was all true, then I'm glad I didn't tell the hostel. Particularly as later on he told us about his baby son and how he was saving all his earnings for his son's education. He seemed like a really nice guy and we found out he'd lived in Urumqi. However the old myths had been perpetuated and he thought all Uyghurs were thieves, and that their kids didn't go to school but just learnt how to be thieves and went to cities all round China to steal. Oh yeah, and of course, they all like to dance. His very first comment really took me by surprise though: "Oh yes, I lived in Urumqi. The Uyghur women, they are so very beautiful." VERY strange coming from a Han! Liam told him he had his camera stolen. Hans said: "I think it was a Uyghur." Liam told him he KNEW it was taken by an old Han Chinese man on the bus. This surprised the masseur but he seemed a lot more open to new arguments than the average intolerant Han, and I hope we left him with a slightly different view on the Uyghur people as we jumped to their defence instantly. This seems to be our role almost constantly these days - I am fed up of prejudiced people, when almost all the Uyghurs I have ever met have been extremely friendly and trustworthy.
Seeing as we hadn't paid through the normal channels we were worried about being ripped off, but aside from not telling the hostel, it was all above board and Hans was a really nice guy. Liam chose the Tui Na massage which improves circulation and helps head and backache. I chose the slightly longer and much more extreme Hong Kong style, which involves cracking of various bones and back stamping, which I was really excited about. Hans did me and Liam's was done by a woman who we think is Hans' wife.
The massage itself was incredible. It was hugely painful to the extent that sometimes I could barely take it and I spent a lot of the time wincing, but it felt like a good pain, like it was getting right to the root of my aches. It was all-over body and Hans somehow managed to use every single part of his body to massage mine. The back stamping was in fact better than any massage I've ever had with hands, and not at all painful. I asked Liam how he was doing it, was he holding on to anything, and he said no, he was just balancing on my back. Amazing. He also expertly cracked my neck and spinal column, like my osteopath when I'm having back problems. My body felt worked but healthy. Liam's massage, being shorter, had finished but the woman offered him free cupping, so he tried it. At the end of my massage I couldn't help but try it too. First they rub deep heat onto your back and then they attach little plastic cups and suck them into a vacuum so your skin is pulled up. This supposedly releases toxins. Then you're left for a while, and after a bit they pop the cups off. The back ends up with raised lumps all over it, but it doesn't especially hurt. We were told we had no toxins as our backs were just red and not darkened. I find it hard to believe somehow!
After our massage treatments walking felt easy and comfortable. We went next to get Liam a new camera. He had just bought the last one in China a few months previously, so it really was a shame. He bought one identical to the stolen one. Next stop was Starbucks. We were both relaxed after our treatments and could barely be bothered to stand. Liam managed to though and went off to buy souvenirs while I stayed for a chocolate volcano cake. I went down to the market to look for him, but I couldn't find him and as I didn't fancy buying my souvenirs all alone, I returned to the hostel to see if he'd turn up. I was playing around on the internet when he walked in, so we went back out together and got some Terracotta Warrior figurines and other general tacky rubbish. I also got me a blown sugar rat on an ox's back. In case anyone doesn't know, the Chinese divide their time cycles into 12 year periods, each year being represented by a different animal. To decide the order, 13 animals decided to race over a river. The clever rat realised it was never going to win, so jumped on the back of the ox, and the cat tried the same technique. The rat pushed the cat in the water, so it never came in the order. Incidentally, according to legend, this is why cats chase rats (for revenge) and why they don't like water! As the ox came up to the water's edge, the rat jumped off his back and won. So the rat heads the list of animals. The order is rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, dog, pig. So for the New Year all the sugar blowers make rats on top of oxes, and I bought one. They had been tempting me for days. I was disappointed that they tasted not like sugar, but like licquorice, which I don't really like.
Before going out we tried to get our laundry back so we could pack it into our monster rucksacks. They wouldn't give it back without the receipts, though they hadn't told us we needed them before. Cue frantic search for little torn piece of paper. Our stuff was soon ready to go, and we stopped in the street to get a fried omelette thing and takeaway Starbucks for the wait at the train station.
The wait for the train was not long, and it was nice to find that we were alone in our sleeper compartment. We had the two bottom bunks, which are more expensive. On the sleeper train from Wuhan to Xi'an I had also been on the bottom bunk and realised why they are pricier - because getting in and out of them is so convenient! As per usual, they turned the lights out without ceremony, though this time at something idiotic like 9.30pm. Ah well, if the Gods tell me to sleep, then I sleep : )

Hong Kong style back stamping. How he balanced is beyond me!

Cupping - during.

And after. Check out those beautiful red welts.

Me and Hans. If you see this man, get a massage from him! He's the dude : )

Blowing up a sugar rat at Beixuanmen in Xi'an.

Nyam nyam...

Spring Festival Travels 23 - Xi'an 3

2008-04-25T15:39:00.003+01:00

7th February 2008 // Day 24 // Xi'an (Shaanxi)

A true disappointment of a day if ever there was one. It being Spring Festival and New Year's Day, we were hoping for a display of Chinese tradition similar to the one I saw in Chinatown in Newcastle the year before (dragon dances, lion dances, the works) but it didn't seem forthcoming. The night before we'd asked the female receptionist where was a good place to go to see the traditional New Year stuff, and she looked completely confused then finally suggested KTV (karaoke, Chinese style). Needless to say, KTV was never going to be on the cards for us. In fact, we thought she wasn't understanding our question, as her English was not very good. Instead, we'd ended up going out with everyone from the hostel, which worked out well for New Year's Eve, but wouldn't cut it for New Year's Day. I dragged myself out of bed relatively early given the time I'd got in it, and Liam and I went to breakfast and handed over more laundry. The Dutch girl had said she wanted to come out with me and Liam to look for New Year's celebrations, and Heidi and Lucy said they were going to wander the streets so we all planned to go out together. It was taking a while to get everyone to go out, and Marian was clearly itching to get going as it was her first day in Xi'an. Liam and I also really wanted to get a move on. We went down to reception to ask about New Year's stuff and this time it was the male receptionist, who had excellent English, and he explained that there wasn't really anything planned on the day, as most people just spent New Year with their family. He said we could try the Big Goose Pagoda or by the south gate of the wall, where we had in fact seen a stage set up the day before.
While we were talking to him we figured we could perhaps book a massage for the following day and then when Marian starting asking him questions, we perused the poster advertising all the different types of massage offered by a local masseur in conjunction with the hostel. To our surprise a man suddenly popped up next to us and said he was the masseur and discussed the massage types with us. He said if we wanted one we should meet him tomorrow outside the hostel and seemed to be making quite the effort to keep it on the downlow. Nevertheless, we agreed to meet him at 10am the next day, before our train.
We walked out of the hostel without Lucy and Heidi because they were just taking too long! We crossed the road and I saw a man doing portrait sketches. I decided to get one done. Halfway through the police turned up and everybody scattered, just like they do in Uyghur areas when there's a Han police patrol. My artist just took me to a nearby doorway and carried on. It was taking rather a long time so Liam and Marian went to Starbucks round the corner. They left me to be drawn which I always find quite a strange experience; slightly too intimate and yet also distant. A woman turned up to gaze on, as is to be expected really, and the artist asked if it looked like me. The woman very enthusiastically said it did, and upside down it looked like it did, but when he turned it round to show me I was fairly disappointed. I have never looked so Russian before in my life! I guess all white people look the same to them.
After that Liam turned up and said he'd bumped into Lucy and Heidi in Starbucks, so we went off to meet them. They seemed pretty intent on sitting around though. After a few hints, and some cheesecake, we finally were on the move again, this time as a group of five. The ground next to Starbucks, the site of a massive Coca Cola monument, was coated in firecracker remains. Guess we missed all that when we were in the club! We followed what seemed to be a pre-planned trajectory towards the Islamic Snack Street and market area. Liam and I had definitely decided to buy tack but thought we'd do it later when we had more time, and instead wanted to get to the Big Goose Pagoda to see if anything was happening.
Finally bored of the meandering pace, I said quite firmly "we're going to the pagoda now, are you coming?" They all decided yes and Liam and I decided the best way was by bus. Clearly used to using taxis all the time, the two Australians followed us like sulky little children, though Marian was obviously glad to be doing something at last. After checking 3 nearby bus stops, the fourth proved lucky and we caught a bus to the pagoda.
The grounds were full of people milling around, and it some ways it was like a fair with stalls set up everywhere. We saw a man shouting away on stage and wandered over but disappointingly he was just promoting his company by throwing jeweller's boxes containing tacky fake jewellery at everyone in the audience. We moved on to the Ci'en Temple, where the Big Goose Pagoda is situated. It was much like any other. On the way down to it, we passed more stalls and people flocking around statues of famous Chinese sages and touching the statues head and then their own to symbolically get some of the wisdom. We also saw a lot of kite-flying - this seems to be the done activity around national holidays. I finally got another rice grain made up with my name, but it was done a bit haphazardly and I wished I still had my Pingyao one! Upon entering the temple Heidi and Lucy went straight to a food stall to sit down and eat, and we left them to it. Liam and I climbed the pagoda, and Marian preferred to stay outside and explore a bit more. The pagoda offers panoramic views of the city of Xi'an, but sadly the city is now just like any other big Chinese city and therefore full of unsightly pollution and skyscrapers. The Big Goose Pagoda is supposed to symbolize and encapsulate Xi'an, but perhaps it is because I am just bored of pagodas now that it didn't have such an astonishing effect on me?
To be honest, we were now fed up of Heidi and Lucy, who just didn't seem interested in anything. Now, we don't care if people aren't interested in the same things as us, but Liam and I operate a pretty tight schedule and like to see as much as we can, and frankly we were being slowed down. I wickedly devised the plan of leaving them (I think that actually this was the best idea for all concerned) and so we did. Upon leaving the grounds we felt liberated at last! Clearly Liam and I are not sociable travellers. But it being New Year's Day, we were still on a desperate search for lion dancers! We caught a busy bus to the south gate and just peered through the archway (going through costs money y'see). One look was enough for us to know it was deserted. We walked back to the hostel and then ran into the others, who didn't seem at all bothered that we'd left them. They had of course taxied it back to the hostel.
The rest of the day was spent as follows: we all sat around at a big table and ordered different dinners, got food envy and wished we'd ordered each other's dishes, considered it, and then finally restrained ourselves. Exhausted, I went upstairs and had yet another lovely hot shower then read in bed, finally falling to sleep stupidly early. I wasn't the only one! Practically everyone in the dorm crawled into bed in the next half hour! What a bust of a New Year! Apparently the Chinese do all just celebrate with their families, which made me think that Christmas is pretty similar - it must suck for an outside traveller who has nobody to celebrate it with. Give me Newcastle's Chinatown New Year any day! I'll go back next year I hope, and get the New Year that I didn't get over here.

Having my portrait done on the streets of Xi'an.

Just a bit of firecracker debris then?

Beixuanmen by day - as packed as the night time!

The fair at the Ci'en Temple.

Touching the wiseman's head - there was quite a crowd waiting for their turn!

Kites! The national holiday pasttime. This is just a small section of the sky which was busy with kites of all shapes and sizes.

Me with Xi'an's famous Big Goose Pagoda.

The view out to the north of Xi'an from the Big Goose Pagoda.

Spring Festival Travels 22 - Xi'an 2

2008-04-25T14:56:00.002+01:00

6th February 2008 // Day 23 // Xi'an (Shaanxi)

Liam managed to get up early and get breakfast but I yet again just couldn't wake up. Eventually Liam woke me up by shining a light in my eyes. Charming eh ; )
It was about 11. On the hostel's information we got a bus to the train station where bus number 309 left for the Terracotta Warriors. The Terracotta Warriors, also known as the Terracotta Army, are unique through the world. When the original Seven Wonders of the World were decided on, the Terracotta Warriors hadn't been found, but when they were discovered in the 1974 by a group of peasants digging a well, they were designated the Eighth Wonder of the World. All this time they were buried underground and peasant farmers used to bury their dead directly on top of them, without any idea of what they were digging above. The army was put there to guard the tomb of Qin Shihuang, the first emperor of the Qin Dynasty. Once they were finished and put in place to represent defence of the area, they were completely concealed. The warriors, over 2,200 years old, each stand 1.8 metres tall (taller than me) and each one has a different facial expression, hair and clothes. There are approximately 8000 warriors and horses (the horses have different facial expressions too!) They say there is a strong possibility that each one was made in the likeness of the sculptor or of real-life soldiers. The warriors were made of local clay and once they were fired, they were painted, though most of the colour has faded away now. The site boasts the earliest brick wall made in China, and the emergence of chrome-plating technology, which wasn't invented in the western world until 1937 by the Germans. And all this time the Chinese had already had the forgotten technological skill! And the reason it was forgotten? On the emperors orders, anyone who was involved in the construction and artisanry of the Warriors was buried alive in his tomb. Lovely. Archaeologists are still to this day uncovering more and more.
On the way to see the Terracotta Warriors we passed by an Egyptian Sphinx and pyramid, which were rather incongruous considering where we were. We think they were the Mausoleum of Qin Shihuang, which lies 1.5km away from the site of the Terracotta Warriors. We never had a chance to visit for ourselves though. At the Warriors museum we were hassled a few times by people wanting to be our tour guides and insisting that the size of the exhibits necessitated a guide. In retrospect I'd say they were wrong, as the signs were very straightforward and explanatory.
It was surreal to finally see the warriors, this Eighth Wonder of the World. They were certainly worth the wait. There's something astounding about looking down into a pit of a 2200 year old clay army. The work that must have gone into it! The respect for the emperor! I know that they have sent some of the warriors from the army over the world (I vaguely remember my mom saying she'd seen some in Malta or somewhere, and Catherine's mom has just seen some in London) but I can guarantee that you won't get that same breathtaking sensation that you feel when you see them in their rightful place, still steadfastly guarding their emperor. It was similar to the feeling I got when I caught my first sight of the Great Wall of China. You just can't beat seeing it in the flesh!
Pit 2 had been relocated to the exhibition hall as it was being excavated. We wanted souvenirs but the prices were phenomenal and we knew we could get the same things in town anyway, for much cheaper.
We returned on the bus and next got a bus to what we hoped would be near Xi'an's south gate. The old city wall at Xi'an has been preserved and is the most impressive one in China. Xi'an was the world's first city with 1 million inhabitants, and the wall is pretty huge as it had a big city to go round! As it happened, the bus did go near and we had to walk through an ancient cultural street to get to the gate. Most of it was closed, presumably because it was New Year's Eve. We climbed the south gate and looked around at the 'scenery' but it wasn't really up to much and so we got a bus back to the Bell Tower, which we wanted to climb, as well as the Drum Tower. However both had closed just minutes earlier, much earlier than the usual time because of Chinese New Year.
Defeated, we returned to the hostel. I ate a western meal of lasagne, hot chocolate and cheesecake, and then went to get showered. By the time we were back downstairs, the bar and common room had started filling up as evening approached. A Cantonese Dutch girl had moved into our dorm and we sat with her and sipped cocktails. She taught us new levels of haggling: The Colgate Smile, where you just smile and smile with as much teeth as possible, The Stubbornly Stupid Westerner, where you pretend like you can't understand the prices they are offering you and just repeat the price you want until you annoy them so much they give in, and The Hello Kitty, where you play as cutesy as possible and hope that they just can't get over the cute foreigner. It has a 90% success rate. Eric had in fact said that one of his haggling techniques was to say "but look how cute I am" either in Chinese or Uyghur and pull a puppy dog face. He also claims excellent success rates.
The hostel was very sociable and reminded me of fubar as well, as all the younger expats in the Xi'an community came in too, just for the craic. A few hours later we were talking and playing games with a large group of about 20 of us, including some real characters! We moved onto Salsa, a local club recommended by some of the expats. As we walked there we could already see fireworks being set off and everyone we passed was in a jovial mood. Inside the club there was a very busy, festive atmosphere. I danced a lot with the Dutch girl, whose name may have been Marian (every time she told me I couldn't understand her accent. It started with M. This is all I know for sure.) At the turn of midnight there was a countdown just like normal New Year. The night was brilliant fun. We finished up by walking home. I was proud that I knew the way home (it was literally just a straight line) but Marian didn't - someone with a worse sense of direction than me! Not as bad as Heidi, who had to get a taxi home, but didn't know how to say Bell Tower (or anything, for that matter) in Chinese, so had to wait for a bar worker to help her. We stopped off for McDonalds, which was not nice at all and not anything like a British McDonalds either. But it still hit the spot at 3 in the morning.

Me in Pit One with an army behind my back!

Liam et moi et some Terracotta Warriors or summat...

Some of the them don't have their heads, sure, but they're still standing after all these years!

Really mindblowing to see. I recommend.

Xi'an's city wall was kitted out for New Year.

The South Gate. Look how tastefully it is decorated; so understated. It is the Chinese way.

These were the views of the city available from the South Gate of the wall (this is facing west). Note the river, still totally frozen through.

Spring Festival Travels 21 - Xi'an 1

2008-04-18T07:47:00.004+01:00

5th February 2008 // Day 22 // Xi'an (Shaanxi)

Most of this day was spent on the train. My sleep had been fitfully disturbed but by day I was suddenly imbued with the ability to sleep like a baby and did so until midday when I went to see Liam in carriage 12. We talked for a bit and then I went back to carriage 16 to read. Our destination, Xi'an, the capital of Shaanxi Province, is really important to Chinese history and was the capital of many dynasties. It used to be called Chang'an. Xi'an has a very central position in China and is one of China's hugest (domestic and international) tourist destinations. A lot of people come to China on a Beijing-Shanghai-Xi'an package. The main attraction here is the Terracotta Warriors. More on those later!
The train had been very delayed when we had got on it but had caught up to only 25 minutes late by our arrival into Xi'an. Several parts of the station were cordoned off and we accidentally joined the queue for entrance to the waiting room instead of the ticket office. We realised our mistake when we reached the head of the queue and the guard helpfully informed us: "this is the train station". Really? Dash it! I thought it was the local swimming pool!
We found the right queue and bought our tickets on a sleeper to Chengdu for the evening after New Year's Day - the 8th. Then we tried to get a taxi to our hostel but they appeared unflaggable for some reason so we found a bus to the Bell Tower. Our hostel, Bell Tower Youth Hostel, was just around the corner from the stop. The hostel was a busy one and we got beds in a 10-person dorm. 3 beds were already taken by two Australian girls called Lucy and Heidi who had been teaching in Shanghai and were now finishing up their time in China with a trip to Xi'an, and Zack from Guam who was travelling alone and had been doing so for several months. He had been right through Europe, and even though I have covered a lot of China now which is quite impressive to those who haven't travelled much, I still felt the twinge of jealousy at his travelling experience. Inter-railing here I come! The three of them went out and we were left to unpack the necessities (I HATE living out of a bag) and sort out some laundry. We took showers at last and slowly got ready to go out, and by the time we were acceptable to leave night had fallen and we were hungry. We walked to Beixuanmen Islamic Snack Street, which is right next to the Drum Tower (anyone with any knowledge of Chinese city layout will know that the Drum Tower is invariably just down the road from the Bell Tower). The street is packed with Hui people. The Hui are of the same ethnic group as the Han but are Moslem. Their main region is of course Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, but as Shaanxi borders Ningxia, the capital Xi'an is also awash with Hui people. The street we were walking on is basically on the surface just a tourist trap, but if you turn off onto some of the smaller streets then it is obvious that people make their lives here. It is very close to the Great Mosque which is the centre of life for the Hui minority. The traders here were selling all manner of food items and souvenirs, and the street was packed with food stalls, local people, and a muddle of tourists. We tried the local speciality, yangrou paomo, which is soup with mutton and bits of bready pancake soaked in it. Quite nice to begin with but they gave us chopsticks to eat it with, which was slow going scooping out the mutton and pancake, and the pancake began to disintegrate into flour, rather ruining the soup. We were full up anyway, it is a very hearty dish! I bought some dragon's beard (candy made out of flour) from a sweet stall, but to be honest it was vile. That was all we had the time and energy for, and so we returned to the hostel.

The Bell Tower lit-up at night.

Beixuanmen Islamic Snack Street, absolutely chockablock with people.

Some of the stalls with a huge variety of snacks and meals for sale.

The Drum Tower near the Islamic Snack Street.

Yangrou paomo, mmm.

Xi'an is famed throughout China for its snacks. This is one of the sweet stalls with loads and loads of mysterious goodies on offer.

Spring Festival Travels 20 - Wuhan

2008-04-18T07:34:00.002+01:00

4th February 2008 // Day 21 // Wuhan (Hubei) --> Xi'an (Shaanxi)

I could barely awaken myself on this day; I think the travelling and constant province hopping was catching up with me. When I eventually got up, we took our bags to Hankou station to leave them while we were being tourists. Liam vaguely remembered thinking that the sites we wanted were in Hankou as well, but I didn't think that was the case and it turned out not to be so. We definitely liked Wuhan but one of the tedious things about it being three cities were the bridges being the only connection between them. To control the situation, the municipal government have put into place a strict traffic system concerning the bridges. On alternating days, only cars with odd numbered final digits on their number plates could legally cross the bridge, and vice versa. We got to Hankou from Wuchang with no trouble. If the tourist sites had been in Hankou, then no problem. But they were in Wuchang (Wuchang, by the way, is the site of the Wuchang Uprising, where Sun Yatsen kick-started the revolution that created the Republic of China. Just so's you know.) and today was an even numbered day. Naturally, then, every single even-numbered taxi was either already in Wuchang or flagged by someone else wanting to get there. A driver at the train station had offered 90 kuai to get to the Yellow Crane Tower, but we turned him down. When we FINALLY got a taxi, it was only 25, but my, did it take ages to find one!
We felt that for once we could relax on our speed tourism because we had loads of time, so we determined to look around Snake Hill Park, where the Yellow Crane Tower is situated, as thoroughly as possible. The Yellow Crane Tower is a famous landmark in China, though it has actually changed pretty drastically through the dynasties. On entering the park we witnessed a bit of a fight; the people behind us had tried to get in on student tickets but didn't have the student documents, and the guard was having none of it. Cue high-pitched Chinese-style screaming match for an inordinate amount of time.
We indeed did look around thoroughly, until we realised it was nearing 5pm and therefore closing time. We wanted a picture made out of our names, as on entering the park we'd seen a stall that offered this (in the ancient street in the park's complex), but by the time we left the stall had packed up and gone. We were disappointed but figured we'd find something like it elsewhere. Being bad tourists and having spotted a Starbucks in Hankou we decided to take a break there. There are very few tourist sites in Wuhan; one is the Yellow Crane Tower, and two others are streets that 'come alive' at night, so we still had time to kill until nightfall. To avoid the taxi dilemma we caught a bus that went over the bridge, and hunted out the Starbucks. To our dismay, it was a new store. The opening day? Tomorrow. Gutted.
Starbucks was in quite a westernized complex and next to it we found an import store, not unlike the one in Youhao Supermarket, but far superior. It even had Kellogg's cereal! I restrained myself to Lindt Lindor chocolate and Walker's shortbread fingers and triangles. I struggled past the imported toiletries (how I miss them). In the cafe there, I had a pizza-like pastry and a raspberry danish, neither of which were fantabulous but closer to the real thing that some items I've had the displeasure of tasting in China. My stomach started to kick up a fuss at this point but in true masochistic style, when we left the store and passed a Pizza Hut, we couldn't resist going in. We had to wait to be seated, Pizza Hut in China being what it is, but when we got in and ordered our usual Hawaiian they brought over pineapple and pepperoni instead, yuck. I ate about two slices before my stomach gave up and I had to run to the toilet and vomit copiously. AGAIN. For god's sake.
Neither of us were then in the mood to go hunting for these streets, which could have been in Hankou or Wuchang (though not Hanyang, that is the industrial section of town) so we retired to the train station. At the station, a family started talking to us (mostly the three men, plus the older drunken man). They asked us one of our stranger questions yet: "do you know where you are now?" Erm... in China? In Wuhan? In Hankou? In a train station? In a waiting room? Sitting on a chair? We had no idea what answer they were expecting so we answered both Wuhan and Hankou Train Station. They seemed pretty delighted with the answer so I suppose we guessed correctly.
Our train was due at 10.12pm but it was really delayed. I guess we were much closer to the scenes of destruction by the winter snow seeing as we were pretty far south compared to our other destinations, and so the trains were messed up. We got on just after midnight. For the first time, Liam and I were split into different sleeper carriages. A young man had been laughing with us at our frustration at the train's delay and I placed a bet that he'd be next to Liam. I don't know where I get my psychic ability from... but it's sometimes startlingly accurate. He was in the next bed along, albeit split by a thin compartment wall. The people in my compartment (each compartment is split into 6 beds) seemed alright but stayed up for ages talking. I have got much better at sleeping with noise and light and it didn't really bother me that much. I got to sleep sometime on the way to one o'clock in the morning.

A sample of Mao's calligraphy in the Inscription Pavilion in Snake Hill Park. Now is it just me, or does that look like scrawl?

View of the Yellow Crane Tower amongst the trees.

In the background is the Yellow Crane Tower, and in the foreground is the two ton original bronze top of the tower (it burnt down in 1884 and this was all that survived).

The view from the top of the Yellow Crane Tower in Wuchang over the bridge into Hankou. Note the mighty Yellow River as well.

Spring Festival Travels 19 - Luoyang 2

2008-04-18T07:21:00.002+01:00

3rd February 2008 // Day 20 // Luoyang (Henan) --> Wuhan (Hubei)

We managed to drag ourselves out of bed and out for 9. We'd wanted to leave earlier than that but had both had such a terrible night's sleep that it just wasn't going to happen! Some ghoul in the pipes had been clanging all goddamn night long. We got out and didn't get to say goodbye to our roommate, who we'd barely spoken to, because he was gone. We never did find out what nationality he was - it kills me! Possibly Spanish.
We put our bulky bags into left luggage and got a taxi to the Longmen Caves on the outskirts of town. The taxi was overpriced but as we were both knackered with a pounding headache we just didn't care! The caves numbered into the thousands, but in terms of area they don't actually cover that much, and so owing to our speed tourism and extra power-walking because we were worried about missing our train, thinking thousands of caves would take hours, we actually finished really early. The caves are worth seeing; if you have a choice between the Longmen Caves and the Yunggang Grottoes, pick the Longmen Caves. The people that did the Yunggang Grottoes moved down to Longmen when their capital changed, and carried on with their cave-carving project. By the time they'd got to Longmen, their technique was much more refined and that is obvious. Incidentally, the reason it is called Longmen (Dragon Gate) is because there is a river overshadowed by mountains on either side (into which they carved the Buddhas). An emperor with a rather over-active imagination once said that the mountains looked like a formidable entryway, the sort of which a dragon would come bursting through.
As we had finished so early, we had time to get into another over-priced taxi and go to see the White Horse Temple, which is not actually in Luoyang, but in White Horse Temple Town (original name, that). The temple is the oldest temple in all of China but to our chagrin it had been destroyed and rebuilt completely in the Tang Dynasty. Still old, then, but not that old! It is still honoured as the earliest temple in China so I am glad I had the chance to see it. Having said that, it was difficult to feel any enthusiasm for it as we were so exhausted and had seen so many flippin temples! The same could be said for caves actually.
After the temple we scurried back to our taxi. The driver had agreed to wait for us for not much more money and we knew no other way to ensure that we'd get back in time for our train. We did of course make it. We had no seats but on the train one of the compartment doors opened in such a way as to create a little den that Liam and I appropriated for the entire journey. I wrote my diary whilst perched on my bag, and then ate instant noodles for dinner. Instant noodles and train travel go hand in hand in China. The noodles I ate were actually ones I'd bought in Shenyang in Liaoning Province, so they came a fair way!
Wuhan City is unusual in that it is made up of three cities: Wuchang, Hankou, and Hanyang, which are split up by rivers and connected by bridges. Our train pulled in at Hankou. We instantly bought night train tickets to Xi'an for the next day and then got a taxi to our planned YHI hostel in Wuchang. We had to cross the Yangtze to get there and the city seemed to have a really nice atmosphere.
The hostel's receptionists were a European girl who seemed Polish or Czech, and a British guy. It was strange after so much Chineseness! I think the idea was to have a really friendly hostel and they chatted with us a bit but for some reason it had a very awkward atmosphere. Too forced, perhaps. We got a dorm room but there was nobody else there. Because of the vicious and unexpected winter, the water pipes were completely frozen through, so we couldn't shower and used bottled water to clean our teeth. So to bed.

The river and cliffs that give Longmen its name.

The main attraction at the Longmen Caves, Fengxiansi. Plus me.

Little grottoes all over the cliff-face. Formerly they all had Buddhas carved into them, but now a lot have been destroyed or taken.

A really rather scary-looking horse at the White Horse Temple.

The White Horse Temple grounds (it seemingly split into two parts: the temple itself, and then through a separate gateway you get to this bit.) One of the prettiest temples yet.

Spring Festival Travels 18 - Shaolin Temple

2008-04-18T07:09:00.002+01:00

2nd February 2008 // Day 19 // Luoyang (Henan)

The above itinerary says Luoyang, but actually we spent nearly the entire day at, or travelling to and from, the Shaolin Temple. Our trusty guidebook informed us that buses to the Shaolin Temple left regularly from the long-distance bus station, so we walked down the road to get a taxi there. The driver very honestly informed us that the long-distance bus station was right next to the train station, which we knew was just down the road, so we thanked her (like all the taxi drivers in Luoyang seem to be, she was female) and walked there instead. At the station we were instantly approached by people saying "Shaolin? Shaolin?" like a broken record. We ignored them and instead went directly to the ticket office. The very helpful (ie. sullen and bored) attendant merely gestured into the distance and said "you get them over there." At which point the 'Shaolin?' people showed us their coach, which, surprise surprise, was in the exact direction the attendant had gestured. Thinking we had no choice, we got on their minibus. A man came up and said in English that it was 100 kuai each to go to the temple and back. Obviously we weren't impressed at the inflated price and let him know so in Chinese. Immediately on hearing us speak Chinese he explained, now using Chinese, that because it was off-peak season, he had no choice but to charge that price, but with the same breath halved the price to 50 each. We decided 25 each way was not such a bad deal, and we still thought we had no choice, so we grudgingly handed over our not-so-hard-earned cash. But then he took us off the bus and walked us up the road to a different bus station, installed us on a public bus and told us that there was a return bus at 4, a kung fu exhibition at 2 and that if we wanted, we could come back tomorrow instead. We naively assumed that as we'd paid 25 each way we'd have a pre-arranged return, or that our receipt would cover any return transport. Fools. I did actually begin to wonder at this point how we'd get back, but I thought I'd just go with the flow (I hate that phrase, grr).
The journey to the temple was not long, but started with a bit through some country fields which only had mud tracks to go along. This would be fair enough (I'm not a road snob haha - you can't be really in China) as the bus was the exact size to fit along the track, but there were two obvious problems. The first was that some of the tracks were raised pretty high. I looked out the window and occasionally there was a good 3-4 metre drop directly to my right. The second was that if something came the other way, we were up the proverbial without a paddle. And things came the other way fairly regularly. Cue frantic reversing, manoeuvering etc etc. I thought we were going to fall down the cliff face several times. All in all highly amusing, in a sort of hysterical 'we-might-actually-meet-our-end-on-this-death-trap-of-a-bus' way. We also passed through several more of the bustling rural villages we were getting so accustomed to seeing. The places were probably a lot nicer-looking and less dismal than normal as they were all decked out in red for New Year, and all the stalls were full of door-hangings and firecrackers for the run-up to the day. As per usual, people were getting on and off the buses where they liked, so it was clearly a public bus that we were on as opposed to a ferry bus to the Shaolin Temple. Just to temper my enjoyment at quite a pleasant journey, the woman in front of me spent the entire bus ride vomiting out the window at regular intervals, so that the wind splashed it all back onto my (very firmly closed) window. I was waiting on tenterhooks for it to splash back through her open window into my face throughout the ride.
I know I've explained the attraction of the Shaolin Temple before but allow me to refresh your memory. We had seen the stage show of the story of kung fu in Beijing back in August, and later discussed the Shaolin Temple in class. Since then, we had made it our pretty firm plan to get to Shaolin Temple if nowhere else in China! The monks are incredible, I have never seen people do such gobsmacking things with just their bodies before, and the weapon use is spectacular. Jackie Chan trained at the Shaolin Temple when he was younger, for a short while. It is well-known that he does his own stunts, so picture Jackie Chan in the middle of some cheesy but amusing slapstick martial arts film for a moment. Now consider that he only trained there for a while, and these monks have been there their entire lives. What they can do make Jackie Chan look like a stumbling unco-ordinated toddler. Incidentally, just in case any of you care, Jackie Chan, who is everywhere on advertising in China, is half Mongolian. Or perhaps a quarter. I always forget. Every time me and my Mongolian mates see him advertising, I am proudly informed of this fact. The Mongolians are very proud people when it comes to honouring their own people. : ) You should see how they revere Genghis Khan. Oh and wolves. They are really into their wolves.
Anyway I hugely digress. So we were very excited to see the place. The monks channel their extreme devout Buddhism into martial arts, most specifically wushu, a refined type of kung fu. Wushu started as a series of stretching exercises to help the monks after they had been in the same position meditating fr hours on end. It soon grew into a defensive practice. They also practise the art of qigong, which is controlled breathing to channel the spirit.
The Shaolin Temple itself is a typical Buddhist Temple in most respects, with a few differences. Firstly the path up to the temple was lined with little green boards staked into the ground with sweet messages like "green, source of the life" and so on. Quaint. Also there were allusions to kung fu everywhere, as one might expect from the place which is the origin of kung fu! There were statues and wall murals and so on of men in various kung fu stances and fighting poses. The temple seemed to have more monks wondering around than the average temple, and they all seemed a lot younger and a bit more in touch with the world as we know it. They probably see a lot more tourists than some of the other places - the Shaolin Temple is a major Chinese tourist destination because of the prevelance of kung fu. We saw the temple and then noticed a little side door which we are glad we went through as it went into a little courtyard, around the entire edge of which were statues of monks in a variety of fighting positions. It was here that a little old man started talking to me. He asked me what country I was from and seemed absolutely bowled over with joy when I said England. He proceeded to tell me for the next few minutes how wonderful England was (I can live with that) though he'd never been there. Then he insisted on having his photograph taken with me and Liam. I think we made his day. No, his week.
After that we went to the Forest of Pagodas. This too was a bit different from the norm. It's basically a big park with hundreds of pagodas in it. All monks of note had a pagoda built in their honour when they died, and monks for generations after have paid their respects to them at the respective pagodas. There is also the common pagoda, to honour every monk that has ever passed through Shaolin. We saw this pagoda, plus the very first one ever made, and a few others of note as well, but we had nowhere near enough time to look at them all.
We wanted to see the performance which we'd been told was at 2pm but was in fact at 2.30, and walked up towards the performance hall. We stopped on the way to get a poem made out of our name (narcissists, the pair of us. You should see the amount of utter rubbish we've acquired because we can put our name on it). It's in traditional characters though, so we can't read it. We'll get Zona (Liam's Taiwanese (therefore uses traditional characters rather than the mainland standard of simplified) tandem partner) on the job : ) I really liked the man's pen, I think if I had a pen like that my characters might look a little fancier! I asked him where he got it, thinking it might be special, and he said "a shop in Luoyang" so I'm guessing it's not that special after all. I'll be on the look-out. I was amused that at this stall, they began as per usual by asking where we were from and then had a conversation amongst themselves about how they didn't know where the UK is. Bless 'em. We told them it was in Europe but this didn't seem to clear the matter up as far as they were concerned; they wanted distances and flight times as well.
It was still a bit early for the performance and we hadn't yet eaten, so we went up to the main entrance section where we'd seen a dining hall. This dining hall, we were sure, was the one where everything was vegetarian and you were served by monks, but we weren't allowed to pass back through the entrance/exit until we wanted to completely leave the temple; to get back for the performance we'd have to buy a new ticket! The guard told us there was a place to eat next to the performance hall. Back we went. We were still half an hour early but we didn't think this would be enough time to eat, so instead we wasted some time buying more tack (T-shirts, postcards and scented prayer beads. Yes, I know I'm likely to never use prayer beads, but you don't know. I may have a spiritual epiphany. And when that time comes, I will be glad my beads are scented.).
I also really needed batteries for my digital camera, which eats power like Pacman. Further down the path, they'd quoted me 40 kuai for 4 batteries, which quite frankly is a shocking rip-off. I am fed up of being over-charged because I'm a white foreigner. Idiots. Don't they know that if they ask for prices like that, they're not going to make ANY money off of me? I laughed in their face at that and walked off. They were calling lower prices out at me and finally dropped to 20, but I was not going to be making any purchases of people that were that dishonest. I bought some off the lady in the T-shirt/prayer bead/postcard shop for 20. The normal price is 8, but I was getting desperate! I'd already asked around all the shops by the performance hall and nobody even had any!
The centre is a wushu training school next to the performance hall. We could see little boys practising their wushu there, which was pretty impressive. These were just day students though, not the real deal. We went into the hall to see one of the shows, which were on almost every hour, not just around 2 as the bus man had led us to believe. The show involved demonstrations of the various weapons used by Shaolin monks, including whips, sticks, daggers, swords, and numchaks. There were also even more spectacular things: the breaking of iron bars with the forehead, and the breaking of wooden spears using the throat alone to push on the sharp spear tips until the pressure snaps them, for example. Also a younger monk contorted himself into the weirdest positions - since watching the DVD I bought, I have learnt that this is called kid's kung fu. I'm not sure why, because it is done by the adults and kids alike. The most incredible was the monk who, using qigong meditation, chanelled his power into his arm. Meanwhile a different monk carried around a plate of glass and tapped it in front of us so we knew it was real. I thought at first he was just going to put his fist through the glass, which I thought was not a good idea even for a monk because they'd be blood, but then they gave him a needle. An ordinary sewing needle. They held a balloon behind the glass. I got the point. Just as I was leaning over to say to Liam "erm... they are aware that this is physically impossible, aren't they?" while fortunately still, captivated by the show, keeping my eye on the proceedings, when the monk threw the needle. It pierced the glass and popped the balloon. Now I know that I find it hard enough to pop a balloon with just a needle by itself, so I laugh to think how pitiful my attempt at the same thing would be. If you throw a needle at a balloon it just glances off, unless it is thrown with huge strength, accuracy and technique. But he threw it through GLASS. They brought the glass back round again to show us the hole which was really small; he hadn't splintered the glass but had just gone right through it with deadly accuracy. Absolutely astounding. I have DVDs if anyone at home fancies borrowing. Okay, I tell a lie, I have a VCD. They are much more popular over here than DVDs... but it should work in your DVD player.
After the performance we left the hall walked around the centre to the exit when I happened to glance back into the hall and saw that there was a gaggle of women excitedly posing with the monks. So we went in to have one taken as well. My camera was on the wrong setting (I curse myself for this) so the picture is quite bad, but Liam's was good. Liam's, though, disappeared when his camera was stolen. We weren't sure how best to approach the monks to ask for a photo as they were still on stage thrashing around with weapons. I heard a woman next to me say that she found on of the monks really attractive (bear in mind that he was about 17 and she was approaching her mid-thirties) but she marched right up to him and gave him her namecard. The Chinese are really big on namecards. What a monk is going to do with her namecard I don't know, but whatever. She got her photo. So I followed suit. Feeling delighted after having got a photo, we went off to get food.
The restaurant didn't seem open but when we asked them they said they were so we ordered shredded potato (nummy) and something called one heart facing Buddha which turned out to be a ring of tofu strips surrounding broccoli (not half as nummy). After eating we knew it was time to get back as apparently our return bus was at 4. First we popped to the toilet. To get the toilet door to shut, I had just that morning slightly had to lift it so it didn't catch on the floor. No problem. This time round I went in the same cubicle and had to do the same thing. But this time when I opened it, it fell right off its hinges and smashed onto the ground with a resounding crash. Oh dear. There was nobody around and I didn't know what to do, so I just scarpered. So if you are the toilet attendant from the Shaolin Temple, I am truly sorry; it was me that left a door lying on your freshly mopped floor. : (
We'd kind of gathered by this point that there was no specific return bus, so when we reached the road, after avoiding a child beggar (child beggars tug my heartstrings, but I have a policy of not giving money to beggars unless I'm in a particularly generous mood, because I never know how honest they are, and I also feel that once I start, I'll never stop! I can't help every beggar in China! Plus the child's mother was hanging around and I hate that; they use the cuteness and pitifulness of the child to get more money for themselves) we followed the example of a group of people who we overheard saying they were going to Luoyang and hailed any minibus that drove past. The first one, though it said it was going to Luoyang, was not actually going that far. But the second one was, so soon we were back in Luoyang. We had to pay 15 to get back as well.
After putting our souvernirs on our beds in the hostel we went out to find a much-needed wang ba (internet cafe). We found one just next to Carrefour. After a while on the computers catching up with the rest of the world, we left and stopped off in Carrefour to buy snacks for the next day's journey to Wuhan. Liam was hungry but I was not especially so he decided he'd eat instant noodles for his dinner. This was until we found French bread baguettes. Which tasted like the real thing. Well, like Tesco's version of the real thing. That became my dinner and then my breakfast too. We were both exhausted so after nibbling on our baguettes for a while, we went to bed. Early again. Partaay animals.

One of the little green signposts: "The flowers is loveable,asks you not to injury" I wish the Chinese would work out that they need gaps after commas!

The gorgeous settings of the Shaolin Temple Scenic Area.

Me at the entrance to the temple. The characters on the gate read, right to left: shao lin si (si is temple).

The temple.

Kung fu poses.

Just a few of the hundreds of pagodas in the Forest of Pagodas.

Us with a young Shaolin Monk.

The sun beginning to set over the mountains in the Shaolin Temple Scenic Area.

Spring Festival Travels 17 - Luoyang 1

2008-04-18T07:04:00.002+01:00

1st February 2008 // Day 18 // Zhengzhou (Henan) --> Luoyang (Henan)

The original plan for the day was as follows: get up early and get a bus to the Shaolin Temple, see it and either get a bus to Luoyang or get a bus back to Zhengzhou and then a train to Luoyang. I had cramp in the morning though and spent far too much time curled up in pain. By the time we were checked out it was pretty clear the original plan was not going to happen. It was far too late! We made our way to the train station to get our tickets for Luoyang and I proposed a new plan. We could go to Luoyang right now, see the Longmen Caves that afternoon, and then go to the Shaolin Temple tomorrow. The plan seemed to make perfect logical sense so off we went to get the tickets. Sadly, the first train to Luoyang was at 1.40, and the arrival at Luoyang would be 3.40 so we wouldn't be able to do the caves that day either. So we decided we'd get to Luoyang today, see the Shaolin Temple tomorrow, and do the caves the morning after. We wasted time in KFC (particularly in the women's toilets, where the were only two cubicles and one woman managed to hold up one of them for at least 20 solid minutes - I got in the giant queue and by the time I'd got there and done she was still in there!). My cramp was pretty bad so we went on a quest to find a pharmacy for painkillers, which was fortunately a very quick mission. Back in the train station, I began writing my diary when I noticed a huge queue building up around us. It wasn't for our train, but when I stood up to check our train's departue gate I saw that our train's queue was also already snaking round the room even though it wasn't due to leave for an hour. We ignored it for a while, but then we got a bit antsy and decided it was wise to just go join the queue. Fighting through the crowd around us was no mean feat. Liam and I chose different routes and neither were especially effective. People here just aren't willing to co-operate! They go on about Confucius and Confucian values but they don't follow his teachings! He set up an experiment whereby three balls on strings hang in a well, and three people have to simultaneously pull them up. The first to get their ball out is the winner. Confucius found that those who were considerate to the two other competitors invariably got their balls out faster than those who were only out for themselves. Therefore, being helpful to others helps you. An American psychologist repeated the experiment and found out that it was completely true. So they're obsessed with his legend but do they follow advice like this? Of course not! If they had shuffled a bit, I wouldn't have had to violently force my bag and myself past them. I tried really hard but I was forcibly pushed into a little toddler and hit her head. I of course apologised profusely to her parents, but naturally no apology was forthcoming from the man who had pushed me into the kid using his refined method of grabbing onto my rucksack and shoving me with all his might. I would've slapped him but I had fallen out of reach!
After struggling our way through that crowd, the next task was getting through the ticket barrier (always a challenge) but this was surprisingly easy at they'd long ago started letting people through. And then onto the train itself, which was an entirely different kettle of fish. I have never seen anything so ridiculous in my life. Recall if you will the last most crowded train I had been on - the one where they hit people with sticks to get them on. Now let me tell you that said train was spacious and airy in comparison to this monstrosity. Getting on was hilarious enough - we were being pushed, pulled and shoved from all angles. I took my bag off my shoulders to make a little more room. The guard kept telling us to walk on but there was simply nowhere to go. In the whole journey I managed to move 3 metres from the door that we got on at. I ended up wedged next to a man who had to wrap his arms around me to haul me up from time to time so people could clamber past me. I had to stand on this thin metal ledge thing. When I say thin, I do mean like 5mm wide (it was a small divider thing to stop water from running all over the carriage) and I was not able to balance very easily so he had to hold me up. Liam was pushed against a girl who often screamed out in pain. People were LITERALLY using other people's bodies to climb; people regularly used my knees as a step and one guy actually used my shoulders. They seemed to take particular pleasure in stamping on my feet and ankles. Three men got on and demanded their way through as they had seats, which made everyone laugh because they simply were not going to get through. They actually did though; kudos to them for however it is they managed it. Oh yes, wait, I know how. They stamped on me.
Obviously the peculiarly Chinese stench of body odour, morning breath and stale baijiu was overwhelming. Poor Liam was stuck right next to a guy who was evidently off his face on baijiu and kept sinking to the floor despite the fact that in doing so, there was no option other than his being trampled on by all and sundry. Fortunately the person closest to my nose smelt like (slightly burnt (?!)) shampoo. To get out at one small station, people further back the train realised they weren't getting out the conventional way and one man got the ball rolling by climbing out the window, and his example was soon followed. At one point a guard decided to herd a crowd of people from carriage to carriage and cause unnecessary agony to everyone. He was shouting "walk forward" but they couldn't move because the person in front of them and in turn the one in front of them and the one in front of them and so on couldn't/wouldn't move either. Eventually he lost his rag and started shoving people and generally going a bit mental. Eventually he rammed the guy in front of him until the people toppled like dominoes - you could hear screams reverberating down the length of the train. I can't possibly explain just how crowded this train was; you'd have to see it to believe it. It puts all other Chinese transport to shame for its crowdedness. You have to laugh at situations like this and so I was, until a couple of smelly uneducated migrants were struggling past us and said "oh it's because of the laowai that none of the rest of us can walk forward." Erm.... WHAT??? It takes a few hundred more people than just two foreigners to fill up a train carriage! Plus we could not possibly have taken up less room given the volume of our bodies, which are not large! We were doing our best to always be polite and trying not to stamp on anyone or shove our elbows into their solar plexuses etc etc, and then someone comes along and makes an entire pointless offensive comment which really put my back up. I was suddenly no longer caring who I injured, if they were all going to laugh along with this idiot migrant then they deserve to not be able to have children in future if you get my gist... : )
Loads of people got off at Luoyang and we were two of them. Thank God. There were people on that train whose tickets I saw that were going to Xi'an. Which is not a short journey. It was nice to finally be off the packed train but we were instantly off the train to buy our tickets to Wuhan, as is our usual routine. We managed to get tickets for 1.38 for the day after tomorrow. We then got a taxi for the YHI hostel Liam knew of and it turned out it was literally round the corner. The prices of the rooms were really expensive as it was actually a hotel instead of a real YHI, with the exception of the dorm which was only 35 a night and we got a 6 bed dorm, hoping anti-socially that there'd be nobody else there. The room was in fact split into two separated by an open-plan doorway and as there was a rucksack in one room, we took the other. We tried to work out what nationality the other person was from their rucksack but it was a Chinese bag so it could be anybody.
We spent some time re-planning our route. We decided to switch the order of Chengdu and Chongqing; we'd originally planned to do Chongqing first, but now we decided to go to Chengdu first and also add a place called Leshan, near Chengdu, to the itinerary. This way we could see all the interesting stuff without time constraints and be in Chengdu for Liam's birthday on the 12th. We managed to waste a lot of time planning, messing about, and eating Oreos (our new obsession), and by then it had got dark so we decided to go out for dinner. First, though, I hand-washed my socks, underwear and tops as they'd have plenty of time to dry before we were next on a train and they'd have to be packed up in my bag. I didn't want another situation like Qufu where I'd had to desperately attempt to dry my clothes with my hairdryer before giving up and putting some of them into the bag damp.
Going out into Luoyang it was practically impossible to find a restaurant. The first one we went into was hotpot; incidentally we'd just been discussing how much Liam disliked hotpot (he never feels full after eating it) and how it wasn't worth it if it wasn't a lot of people sharing). After realising our mistake, we walked straight back out again. Eventually we found a place that wasn't hotpot (which was all that the restaurants were serving!) and it wasn't too bad. The waitresses seemed completely overcome that we were foreigners, and didn't know what to do about us until I got frustrated and spoke to one in Chinese. Suddenly, relieved that they could communicate with us, they directed us upstairs where we ordered a mystery dish and a vegetable one. They told us they didn't have the baicai so we got some tofu with chillies instead. The mystery dish turned out to be braised lamb with garlic. Neither of us are the biggest tofu fans, but it wasn't too bad. The beef was great! Shame about the slightly dodgy service.
After eating we walked back to the hostel looking out for an internet cafe should there be one, which there wasn't. At reception they told us where there would be one but we couldn't be bothered to go and look.
The owner of the rucksack had come in when we'd been eating our cookies and had said hello in Chinese but nothing else, then had gone to bed with the TV on, which was where he was, asleep, when we came in, so we didn't chat to him at all. Even though it was only 9pm, we followed his example (after I turned the damn TV off, how can people sleep with noise AND light?!).

No interesting photos for this day, just this: our marinated beef and garlic dish.

Spring Festival Travels 16 - Zhengzhou

2008-04-18T06:52:00.003+01:00

31st January 2008 // Day 17 // Qufu (Shandong) --> Yanzhou (Shandong) --> Qufu (Shandong) --> Jining (Shandong) --> Zhengzhou (Henan)

You will see from the above description of the days travels that we spent practically the whole day on the road. We basically just wanted to get to Zhengzhou, but it was damn hard! I should tell you that by Qufu we had changed our travel plans. I'm not sure when we realised it, but we were checking our dates and decided we wanted to get to Xi'an for 6th January (the day before Chinese New Year... Chinese New Year's Eve, if you will) and by the time we were done with Qufu, it was still only 31st January. The remaining stops before Xi'an were Zhengzhou and Luoyang which we knew we wouldn't need an entire week for, so I suggested we go south to Wuhan, the capital of Hubei Province. Liam thought it seemed like a good idea and so we decided to go to Zhengzhou, then Luoyang, then Wuhan, and finally to Xi'an. Plus we realised that after Xi'an, our planned stops were just Lanzhou, then Xining, and finally back home to Urumqi. Our teachers had originally told us that we had until Monday 3rd March, then just before we had gone had changed this date to Monday 25th February. We had been really worried that we might not fit everything in. (As it happened, we got back in time for the 25th, only to be told it had changed back to the 3rd March. Typical. Grrr.) If we were in Xi'an for 7th February and stayed even an entire week then we'd still have loads of time spare. And we weren't planning on staying a week. So we decided to add Chengdu and Chongqing in as well as Wuhan, which meant that our original travel plans had had some alterations. Even with adding Chengdu and Chongqing, if all went to plan we would still have around a week left to relax after travelling before getting back to the grindstone. So this was the state of play when we wanted to leave Qufu. But getting away was harder than we thought. The day went as follows:
When I finally dragged myself out of bed I couldn't feel my feet and according to the thermometer for the heater it was 5 degrees. Warm for outside in the winter (being used to minus 25 n all that) but not acceptable inside. I had wanted to have a shower but apparently the shower had also been making weird noises last night and Liam had switched it off without telling me. I plugged it back in, but had to wait 45 minutes for it to be ready with hot water. I spent the time trying to dry my clothes with my hairdryer and warming my feet too so I could feel my toes. What a ridiculous situation! I had two pairs of socks on that night as well. Liam got dressed under the covers because it was so damn cold. We had no residual warmth all day long!
First we went to Yanzhou by bus where there was a train station, so we could go by train to Zhengzhou, the capital of Henan and our very next stop. However, on arrival we were informed that there were no trains left to Zhengzhou. We thought we could try a bus, so we went to the long-distance bus station in Yanzhou as well. Long-distance buses from that area to Zhengzhou apparently only go from Qufu. So back we went. We got to Qufu and asked a woman at the ticket office, and without looking at her screen said that there weren't any. We frustratedly left the bus station. As we'd decided to add Wuhan to our list and it was geographically almost as logical to do Wuhan-->Zhengzhou-->Luoyang-->Xi'an as our intended plan of Zhengzhou-->Luoyang-->Wuhan-->Xi'an, we thought we should ask for tickets to Wuhan. Just then we noticed a ticket office which sold tickets for trains going from the station in Yanzhou, and thought we might as well try it. After a fashion the gormless girl there told us there were none to Zhengzhou (which we already knew, but it's always worth checking two, three, four times in China because of the lack of organisation), or Wuhan, which we hadn't thought to check when we were actually in Yanzhou. So we thought we could try the long-distance bus station once more, this time for tickets to Wuhan. We went to a different window this time and re-tried Zhengzhou first. The woman in this one actually bothered to check her screen and said that there were indeed tickets to Zhengzhou. What?! Ah well, we'd take what we could get! Our bus was due to leave in ten minutes, so we tried to get through the gate, but the two women there said we should sit down inside the station and wait for those ten minutes. We went out the front for some air, but when we tried to get back in a guard stopped us and asked to see our tickets. He told us that they were not 'suitable', which really could mean anything in this country, and then took us back to the ticket window. We were finally let in to the great secret - buses to Zhengzhou were all cancelled because of the weather. We expect the first woman had known this so hadn't had to check her screen, but she could have told us why! The second woman must have not known, and as for the two girls checking the tickets, well I'm pretty sure they knew but couldn't even be bothered to try to make themselves understood as happens all the time in China. They had no tickets to Wuhan either but they said we could go to Jining. Jining is in the south-west of the province therefore closer to Zhengzhou than Qufu. Even if we had to city-hop, which is actually quite fun in its own right, we'd make it to Zhengzhou by nightfall if it killed us! The bus to Jining got there without issue and then we had to buy tickets to Zhengzhou. We went to the ticket booth and were told that there were none. Fortunately for us, two women sitting at the back of the booth shouted out to their colleague reminding her of something. She turned back to us and said "oh yes, there is in fact a bus that leaves in 20 minutes if that's okay?" Erm... okay? That was ideal! We got our tickets and in no time we were on the coach, which was practically empty. Aside from the two of us, there were only 3 other passengers, then one got off before we even left the station! Clearly the bus was so empty because they kept telling everyone there weren't any! So the four of us set of in our full-sized coach to Zhengzhou. Somewhere along we picked up a family of six, who must all have been inbred, cloned, or otherwise closely related because I have never seen 6 people who look so alike. As we'd been on a little rickety minibus that day where people had been standing up between Qufu and Yanzhou (ah, that pointless excursion) because they kept cramming them on, it was strange to have so much space to ourselves. I feel I've said this fifty times before, but what I didn't understand is how people know how to get on these buses. There seemed to be designated places but they seemed to be like '3rd tree from the pigsty' or something because in the rural villages there's no other signs, and we used to always get them in the big city stops. I have learnt now that you really can just flag them where you want.
It was a surprisingly pleasant journey through the countryside of first Shandong and then into that of Henan. It was our first bus that crossed province lines, other than the one that took us to Tangkou (the place of which we do not speak) and that had been a minibus anyway. Any time we try a new type of Chinese transport we get inordinately excited. We got to see some interesting bustling little towns that Catherine would have loved to immerse herself in, and some rundown old hamlets too. I was looking out the window at the people and I thought that their lives were so different to mine. I pointed out to Liam that I found the 'fu' character that they'd pasted on their doors for New Year particularly poignant; fu is hung up so that the new year will bring in prosperity and good luck. But I thought that what these people would be hoping for in the new year would be so very different to what a rich businessman might desire - he'd want another million RMB, they would want enough food to feed their families. It is when travelling through parts of China like this that the rich-poor divide becomes so startlingly obvious. Having said that, we were seeing little villages which were still in themselves a world away from the conditions in country hamlets. It was a nice contrast to watch the sunset over the trees and farming fields in Shandong Province. The sights out the window made the journey far less tedious than it threatened to be.
We arrived in Zhengzhou that evening and I got a little pitta pocket from a street vendor filled with spicy chilli and crispy vegetable. We walked for ages to find a hotel Liam had noted down but clearly went the wrong way. It should have been close to the bus station. We re-traced our steps but eventually got too bored and bothered by the weight of our bags on our backs and flagged down a taxi. In the end the hotel was just around the corner from where we'd hailed!
It was quite expensive by the standards we'd been paying during our travels, but was a really nice chain called the Home Inn. All the staff had clean fitting uniforms (!) and the room was not falling to pieces (!!!). The entire bathroom was canary yellow which was a bit of an eyesore, but what a way to wake yourself up in the morning.
We couldn't be bothered to go far so decided to have dinner in the in-hotel restaurant. We ordered a speciality: duck cubes in bread style ('pancake' they called it) pockets which were printed with the impression of the double happiness character (denotes marriage and eternal happiness etc); nice touch. You fill the pocket with scrummy duck and scoff away. We also had some fried baicai. While travelling I tried to take a photo of every single dinner we ate (as far as I remember I got them all as well) and as I took a photo of this one the waitress had a bit of a tizz. Maybe she thought I was trying to steal their signature dish?
After dinner there was nothing for it but to go to bed and sleep sleep sleep. And in such a comfortable bed, too. Shame about the bathroom.

Yanzhou: typical small-town China.

The hubbub in the streets in a village somewhere in Shandong Province.

A different yet highly similar village. This is the true face of China, behind the towering skyscrapers and Forbidden Cities that the tourists all see.

Sunset in the countryside of Henan Province

Dinner! Duck cubes in pancakes.

The tasteful bathroom.

Spring Festival Travels 15 - Jinan and Qufu

2008-04-18T06:42:00.003+01:00

30th January 2008 // Day 16 // Jinan (Shandong) --> Qufu (Shandong)

We got to Jinan at 6.13am. I was woken up about a half hour before by the conductor shining her mobile phone light into my face, so she could trade the tickets. To be fair, I hadn't been in the deepest sleep of my life, but that is not the nicest way to be woken up. I've seen worse: on our flight from Yinchuan to Nanjing at Christmas, the guy next to Liam had fallen asleep on his tray table and as we were going in for final descent the air hostess yelled at him and then just yanked his head up. Charming woman.
I fair fell out of the bunk; there was no way I'd be getting back up there. Through teamwork we got all our stuff down without any casualties. We got off and got a taxi to the bus station (the only way in and out of Qufu is by bus). Jinan seemed like quite the dump. Fortunately we weren't staying too long. We bought a flexible time ticket to Qufu and checked with information, to find that a bus left at 7am, so not long to go. I went off to get the KFC hot chocolate that I was newly addicted to and then we were on a bus to Qufu. The journey was quite dull but not uncomfortable (makes a change) as it wasn't too long (also makes a change). We got to Qufu at about 9 and got a taxi to our hostel. The woman driver let us out and pointed down a road because she just couldn't be bothered to take us the whole way once we'd let her know we didn't want her to take us round all the attractions (which are in easy walking distance of each other anyway). We went down a side street where it appeared she'd pointed, but it clearly wasn't there. I was desperate for the toilet so I found one; the worst public toilet I had ever been in (up to that point anyway).
We found the hostel down the street the taxi had stopped on, and after checking in and doing some much-needed laundry without hot water or washing powder (clothes-washing soap and Mattel washing-machine it was), we went out to see Qufu. We had a lot to see that day! Qufu is the birthplace of China's most famous sage, Confucius. Apparently he was born in a cave near the town, but later moved into the actual town. Then when he was done with travelling through the fiefdoms of China, after being disgraced by his original employer, in search of someone who wanted his service, he settled in Qufu. His descendants have lived there ever since.
First we walked down the street to the Confucius Temple. The street was full of souvenirs and tack, and I couldn't help but buy two fans, which I was actually undercharged for, according to the price I was quoted. Perhaps the seller forgot I was a rich laowai for a second of pure insanity and sold them to me for the actual price value. The temple was different to the many we'd seen and still had left to see because it was dedicated to Confucius instead of being Buddhist. Fairly interesting but nothing to write home about. We stopped in a little hut where the 75th generation descendant of Confucius, Kong Fang, was doing calligraphy. I couldn't resist a giant painting of red flowers, which no doubt I'll be Chinafying my university room with. Liam got a giant 'fu' (like the most important calligraphic character in China, you see it everywhere!) plus a free picture as they couldn't be bothered to give him his change. The stuff was slightly overpriced but seeing as we were at a tourist site and he was a Confucian descendant and apparently also very renouned in his own right I let it slide, though I managed to haggle quite a discount too. They kept trying to sell us more stuff so we made our getaway.
Throughout all the Confucian sites, and in fact throughout all of Qufu people were constantly hawking their wares and it got very tiresome. You couldn't walk 10 metres without hearing a 'hello' followed quickly by a sales pitch. It was especially annoying in the temple where virtually every room had been commandeered by rip-off merchants - as Liam said, "is nothing sacred?!"
We saw the intricate columns which I'd wanted to see - apparently when the emperors came to visit, they covered them up with red cloth because they are so magnificent that it was said the emperor might be jealous or offended that even his Imperial Palace columns could not match them for beauty. We also saw the Apricot Altar where Confucius gave his speeches. It is one of the most important sites in China for the Chinese people... we actually managed to pass it by the first time because we didn't know what it was. When we went specifically in search of it, we found it surrounded by Chinese tourists having their photographs taken. We also saw the carved Confucian family tree - his descendancy is very important!
After the temple we needed food so we walked quite a bit looking for a good restaurant - any restaurant! We ordered sweet and sour pork with pineapple (I couldn't resist such a familiar dish) and Confucian Family style chicken, which turned out to be a whole roasted chicken (head, innards, feet included) in gravy. Absolutely delicious. We ripped it down to its skeleton like the vicious carnivores we are. Confucius himself was a very fussy eater, in that he wanted certain healthy foods and wanted them made a certain way. His family and servants adopted the same diet and got used to making food in those ways, and it spread to Qufu. We thought we should try out some Confucian foods if we could because you're unlikely to find them elsewhere, or if you do, they won't be as well-made or as scrupulously correct by Confucius' traditional methods.
After eating we walked to the Confucian Mansion. On the way we tried to get into what we thought was the Confucius Museum, which we'd inadvertently bought tickets to. There was no clear way in and it didn't look like a museum - eventually we were turned back. So we left it and went to the mansions. The Confucian Mansion is split into an administrative section and a residential section. We don't know if people still lived there as it was of course filled with hawkers and naturally loads of tourists. However it would have been an amazing place to live in its time - intricate buildings and beautiful grounds, and like a maze with so many alleyways snaking through the grounds.
We were done in the mansion pretty quickly and walked under the Queli Arch, which was where visiting emperors used to take their after dinner strolls. We hopped into our first ever rickshaw to get to the Confucian Cemetery. The rickshaw was freezing because of the wind and as the streets were so bumpy I kept knocking my ribs into a steel bar. Not my favourite mode of transport, but a nice way to slowly see the scenery, the historic buildings, and the tree-lined streets of Qufu.
The Confucius Cemetery is actually known as the Confucian Forest in Chinese. It is both in reality. Apparently during a certain time period in Confucius' life, every single one of his disciples planted a tree from their home province/region, and it is also a cemetery for those same disciples. There are loads of tomb mounds dotted through the trees. We only really cared to see the tomb of Confucius himself, which was a bigger mound with prayer cushions in front of it. Also next to it was his son's tomb (his son was quite influential too if I remember rightly) and his grandson.
Done with all the sights we realised we had to do something with our paintings as there wasn't a chance they'd survive the Chinese trains, so we went to the post office and sent them by surface mail to Britain. As Liam's was so long they made up their own packaging out of two smaller boxes - very resourceful and much better than the idiots at the Urumqi post office! Finished there we went on the internet back at the hostel and then went out to look for postcards and notebooks. We found notebooks (about time, too! I'd been looking for some since, like, Harbin), but it seems that strangely Qufu hasn't got any postcards. We gave up the search and went for dinner. We ordered two dishes recommended by the guidebook at a 'Confucius Style' restaurant (practically every restaurant in Qufu claims to be so) - Yangguan Shandie and Shili Yinxin. We didn't know what either of them were, but soon found out that the former is a folded omelette wrap with some kind of brown paste in it, and the latter is bright yellow gingko baloba beans in a sweet goo. The omelette was nice for a few mouthfuls but I found the paste is a small quantities kind of food. The beans themselves were vile, and some of them tasted like aniseed. However I really liked the goo so I ate it with a spoon while Liam finished the wraps off.
Back at the hostel our room was quite snuggly and warm until the heater started making weird noises and switched itself off. We had left it on for ages to dry our clothes for the next morning as we'd have to pack up again, so maybe it overheated. Anyway the room lost heat really quickly and we spent the night freezing and curled up into the foetal position for warmth.

The leafy streets of Qufu

Me at the Apricot Altar where Confucius used to give speeches.

Dacheng Palace and the ornate pillars at the Confucius Temple.

Confucian Family style chicken - nummy nummy nummy!

Kui Tower in the Confucius Mansion - where the family could go if ever in danger.

Queli Arch - it doesn't look like much, but it was surreal to walk along it knowing that past emperors of China had also done so.

Views out onto the streets from the rickshaw.

Confucius' tomb.

Spring Festival Travels 14 - Yantai

2008-04-18T06:33:00.002+01:00

29th January 2008 // Day 15 // Yantai (Shandong) --> Jinan (Shandong)

First thing we went by taxi to the train station and got night train tickets to Jinan, leaving our rucksacks in left luggage and then went off to see Yantai. According to Tobin and Tracey, who used to live here, and virtually every China guide I've read, Korean food in China is at its best here due to the large Korean population, so we went to find lunch! The night before I had seen a lot of Korean shop signs and stuff, but now we couldn't find a single Korean restaurant. After wandering around for quite a while, hunger got the better of us and we found a Chinese restaurant instead. We each ordered a set of food which came with rice, watery vegetable and egg soup, kale in sauce, cold crispy spring green vegetables and a bizarre savoury blancmange-type contraption, plus a cold tea drink which tasted of honey and was absolutely vile, and our choice of main. Liam chose chicken and I had beef steak with potatoes. The whole meal was very nice; I ate all of the blancmange which got more watery and oily as I ate and had ham and crabsticks in it. Strange but equally edible. Still don't know what it was though. We also got some Oolong tea which was really not very nice at all. So we were very full when we left! We didn't have a clue what to do in Yantai apart from tourist bus number 17, and we didn't know where that ran from so we went to an internet cafe to find out. When we went on t'internet we found we had a message from Tracey recommending things to do, see and eat in Yantai, which was really nice of her. We decided to try out her suggestions though we didn't have very much time left before our train was due to leave (10.40pm) as it was now around 5pm. When we stepped outside the sun had set and the night market was set up and trading. I stopped to get a fried pancake wrap with meat and herbs; nummy but didn't sate my hunger! I stopped to buy some socks but when the stallholder said 5 kuai for some reason I baulked and walked on. Further down I realised that 5 kuai was a pretty damn good price and that I really wanted the socks, so we turned back. After that we walked to the train station, where we'd bought tickets that morning, where Tracey said the 17 and other buses went from, but when we got there the 17 wasn't listed. In fact other buses were listed as stopping at the train station three stops on, as well as the station we were at which had a different name. Totally confused, we jumped on the bus that was listed to go to the university as Tracey had recommended going that way to see the best things. But we arrived at the university and it clearly wasn't the one Tracey had meant, which is on the coast. So we got on a bus to return which said it was going to the train station, and when we got to the stop called 'train station' we realised what had happened. The station was under construction, and a temporary one had been put in place, a bit further down the line, like a big aircraft hangar, where we'd been that morning to buy our tickets. The 17 was also listed as a temporary service so instead we just got in a taxi and asked for the uni. The 17 apparently takes the scenic route to the uni, along the beautiful coastline and that's exactly where our driver went, so no harm done in missing out on the bus! We got to see the coast which was indeed very pretty. I love the sea; beaches and coasts always prick me up. Which is weird seeing as I live in the most inland city in the WORLD.
At the uni we quickly found the blue and white fronted Korean restaurant Tracey recommended. We ordered the spring onion pancake, a favourite of Tobin's, and also got pork and onions, deep fried sweet potato, which was a little bland but very hearty and moreish. We also braved sea slug (sea cucumber) which was in fact not sluglike or bad at all! Not tasty enough for us to finish the dish by any means though - kind of crunchy and stringy and nothing like I expected. The name sea cucumber makes a little more sense now I've eaten it.
Thinking by this point we'd better get a move on we stopped at a delightful public bathroom and then caught a bus back to the temporary train station. We still had a bit of time so we went looking for snacks and a notebook for me (the latter to no avail, there is a dearth of notebooks in east-coast China) and then bought some tacky shell things for Catherine to go with the three shell turtles I'd bought earlier, that had mulicoloured straw hats. Their tackiness pleased me immensely. They sell these shell things all over Yantai; it would be wrong to pass them up! That's my defence anyway.
We got on the train after a wait in the aircraft bunker, and discovered the sleeper bunks were practically impossible to get into, compared to the ones we'd had to Taiyuan anyway, and particularly bad for one with legs as short as mine. There was no ladder or ladder-like footholds but instead fold-down footholds - one above each bed. That meant that for the first step I had to get above an entire bed. I accidentally touched the first bed and the woman there had a nervy b because my foot went near her pillow. Desperate times, love, desperate times. There were no overhead luggage racks to put bags along the length of train like there normally is. However when we finally climbed up we found we had a huge ledge where we could store our bags, thank God. I didn't fancy sharing a bed with my rucksack. Settled into sleep I had a short moment of claustrophobia which is weird because I've never once felt it before, not even on a crowded bus or subway, where I actually enjoy the squishedness! I think it was because I needed the toilet and realised I couldn't go because I couldn't get down or back up. I felt a bit trapped by the shortness of my legs/lack of gymnastic ability of my entire body. They turned the lights of (without warning, of course) at 11pm, so off to bed it was.

The mystery blancmange.

The market, bustling with activity.

Korean dinner! Spring onion omelette and pork and onions at the front and deep-fried sweet potato slices and sea cucumber at the back.

The little Korean restaurant near Yantai University.

Liam looking astonishingly happy to be in his train bunk.

Spring Festival Travels 13 - Dalian

2008-04-18T06:27:00.003+01:00

28th January 2008 // Day 14 // Dalian (Liaoning) --> Yantai (Shandong)

Today was another day in which we just travelled. We slept for quite a long time then left the hotel and flagged a taxi. We didn't really care to stay in Dalian as the only things there were seafronts and squares, so we were off to get a ferry to Yantai. Our taxi was absolutely lovely and chatted with us, but he was very judgmental about us not having seen anything at all in Dalian! According to the China guide, people in Dalian are very friendly and proud of their city, and you can tell someone from Dalian no matter where they are in the world. I thought it was legend but the taxi driver certainly seemed to fit the description. It was the first time I'd felt guilty about zipping around so quickly. Mostly though, despite our speed, we've managed to see anything worth seeing everywhere we've been.
We got our ferry tickets and just had time to get lunch. Liam had beef noodles and I had a lovely steaming bowl of fresh prawns, cooked cucumber strips and rice noodles in broth at a restaurant in the harbour. We tried out some wind flavoured (translation: local) cuisine, pretty much all seafood, which Liam doesn't eat. He tried a prawn though and didn't vomit, such progress.
We got on a coach which took us to our boat and struggled up the gangplank. We apparently had seats but when we got to the right room on the ferry the seats weren't labelled. It was a free-for-all. We were at one point being stared at by everyone in the room which was a little disconcerting, so we set up camp outside the room in the corridor and read our books, practically for the entire journey, and ate Oreos. I was looking through my photos on my camera and a lovely little toddler girl came up and made friends with me so she could see the pictures too. She wouldn't accept an Oreo though even though she clearly wanted one. Liam can't stand boats and open water but I can't think why - I went up on the deck and the sight of the sun setting over the rippling water was enchanting. The fresh air out on the sea was great too. Too cold to stay outside though! I think in summer it'd be really lovely out on deck if there weren't too many people, which being China, is not a possibility. Liam coped fine the whole way though and soon we'd anchored at Yantai. We were speaking absolute and quite offensive rubbish while waiting impatiently to disembark and suddenly realised the woman next to us understood every word.
By the time we reached Yantai it was nightfall and we caught a coach at the harbour to the train station. We chose to get off at the train station because it tends to be a central point. At 10 past 10 we got a taxi to a Hostelling International hostel. Ordinarily we both magically know whose bed is whose without even thinking (makes it very easy not having to argue over who's sleeping where) but here we had three beds in the room which totally threw us! We ended up sleeping at opposite sides of the room. Makes a change from sleeping in the same bed as him I guess! We knew we'd be on a night train the next day if all went to plan so God only knows how much sleep we'd get! With that in mind we went straight to sleep.

Residential part of Dalian.

Sample of my dinner - nyam!

Dalian Harbour.

The open water on the way to Yantai.

The sun beginning to set over the water.

Spring Festival Travels 12 - Changchun and Shenyang

2008-04-18T06:23:00.001+01:00

27th January 2008 // Day 13 // Harbin/Ha'erbin (Heilongjiang) --> Changchun (Jilin) --> Shenyang (Liaoning) --> Dalian (Liaoning)

Our train to Changchun left at 8.40. We ready to leave a little later than was comfortable but made it in plenty of time to the station. A taxi with two Russian girls in it was driving next to us practically the whole way; we were all doing the thing when white people see each other in China and aren't quite sure what to make of it or do - we especially don't know where to look!
The journey to Changchun was uneventful. At Changchun we bought tickets on to Shenyang that would be going in a hour and a half's time. Originally we had wanted to see Jilin City in Jilin (not the capital though, that's Changchun) for these forest things. But we quickly realised we were running out of time to make it to Xi'an for New Year so, remembering that they had some forest things in Xinjiang too that we could see, we decided to skip them and go straight on to the capital of Liaoning Province, Shenyang. We ate lunch at a Chinese style fastfood restaurant called Favourite Land, then we boarded our train. Our seats weren't directly next to each other so we leaned over the aisle to take a photo of ourselves in Jilin Province, which confused everyone around us. It barely took any time to get to Shenyang, which was another of those places we'd just come to to break up the long travel and to see the capital, so after a while we went on to Dalian where we wanted to spend the night. Originally we had planned to go over to Xingcheng, a preserved Ming village in Liaoning, but because we were going to Xi'an and had seen Pingyao already, we thought going that far out of our way (way out!) was hardly worth it, so we cut it from our plans. The seats to Dalian were a bit more pricey as they were soft seater and so it was fairly comfortable. In Shenyang Station I bought instant noodles for my dinner and had to scoff them like a Chinese person because our train was due, with the entertainment of watching a grandmother help her granddaughter pee all over the floor (gotta love China), but despite my death-defying speed (if you're Chinese, read: normal, possibly slightly sluggish speed) I didn't have time to finish. So no real dinner. Despite the day being pure travelling, we did hit 3 provinces in 1 day, which is pretty damn impressive if you ask me. We wouldn't have been able to do it if he hadn't cut out Jilin City. We arrived at Dalian quite late and went straight to bed.

On the train in Changchun, Jilin Province

Shenyang City, in Liaoning Province

Spring Festival Travels 11 - Harbin

2008-04-18T05:47:00.008+01:00

26th January 2008 // Day 12 // Tianjin (Tianjin Municipality) --> Harbin/Ha'erbin (Heilongjiang)

It had been remarkably light in our hotel room, to the extent that Liam could actually read! However I still fell to sleep pretty quickly so when the alarm went off at 4am I was fine to get up and get dressed. We checked out and managed to get a taxi straight away. We arrived at the airport (we'd bought tickets in Beijing with the help of Bobby from the Templeside) and soon we were on our flight with OK Air! airlines. I must say the name, in particular the exclamation mark, didn't inspire much confidence in the reliability of the company, but as if by a miracle, we got off the ground. The meal on the plane was breakfast so it was pickled radish, cold baozi stuffed with beancurd, and a weirdy doughy tube thing. We didn't eat much.
When we arrived in Harbin it was still only 9am-ish. We got a shuttle bus to the train station as it seemed like a pretty central place to go from, and then got a taxi to our hotel. We were naturally pestered by all the taxi drivers, but in Russian this time, which was different. But equally annoying. Once we'd checked in to our huge, high-ceilinged room, we saw it was only 9.45am and started our day in Harbin!
First stop was the train station again, to buy tickets for the next leg. We had wanted to dump our bags and get sorted before having to tackle a Chinese public transport ticket hall. We caught a bus directly to the station, where we bought tickets to Changchun for the following morning. Next we wanted to go to Central Street (Zhongyang Dajie) to see the Russian architecture and start our Harbin tourism. At the first bus stop we tried, a woman directed us to the stop across the road. Getting across the road was harder than expected; we ended up back at the train station before figuring it out! At this next bus stop, we were approached again and finally a girl told us she'd take us to Central Street as she was heading that way and we got on the bus with her. I had my suspicions as to what she was doing, thinking she'd be wanting some money out of us, but she did seem to just be going that way so we allowed it. Soon we were off the bus and at Central Street. The girl said something to which I nodded and said okay, more on reflex than anything else. She either said "I'm going to go now, is that okay?" or "Let's go round together, is that okay?" Big difference, really. Either way she set off up the road, albeit slowly, and we awkwardly went in the same direction. We actually had our own plan, firstly to eat Russian food. We got the guidebook out to check the address of the restaurant we wanted, thinking we'd shaken the girl off, but on glancing back and seeing us stop and get out the book, she came right back and took us right to the door of the restaurant. We'd already found it ourselves, but we thought maybe she was just being nice. In the restaurant the waitress asked how many people and the girl said three! But they seated us as two anyway. The girl watched over us as we looked through the menu and pointed at chips - perhaps on the stereotypical and common assumption that that is all Westerners eat, or perhaps asking us to order some for her! Dunno. She wasn't the most communicative of girls and had said practically nothing to us since we got on the bus, so we weren't too overjoyed to have her as an uninvited dinner partner. So imagine our annoyance when we realised she was waiting throughout our entire meal, standing over us like an unwelcome shadow. We didn't really know what the craic was with her so we just left her to it, but then started to wonder how the hell we'd get rid of her without breaking down our British inbuilt politeness. However, as we hung about at the end of the meal, she either got tired of waiting or got the point that we weren't actually trying to make, and left. Thank the Lord.
The meal was great. I adore Russian food. We know a good Russian restaurant here in Urumqi and it's one of my favourite places to eat, though it's a bit pricey. We had chicken salad, meat fillet, roasted potatoes in cream and bread, jam and butter. We also ordered tea but apparently they had no hot water (?!) so I got come kvas (honey beer). Anyway the reason we were hanging about at the end was because we thought the meat fillet was the chicken to go in the salad! As it turned out, it was just a not very good chicken salad, and the meat fillet was in fact chicken fillet. No harm done because we ate the chicken and salad together and it was wonderful, though nothing compared to the heaven of the potatoes, especially with the crusty farm bread. At the end of the meal we were still waiting on our fillet, so the girl left.
We realised, paid, and left, keeping a close eye-out for the girl, but we never saw her again. We strolled up and down the street, which was dotted with ice sculptures, taking in all the architecture and the Russian vibe. Harbin is noted throughout China for being especially Russian; the city was revived by Russian trade in the first place and as it's so close to the border remains a very non-Chinese place. There were a lot of white people everywhere - there had been a few in Tianjin, and at Tianjin airport two rather obese British girls got on our flight (what a way to remind us of the state of British people these days) - and a lot of them, but not all, were Russian. We knew that the city was better after nightfall, for the ice sculptures and the Church of St Sophia to look truly beautiful all lit up. However we knew that the snow sculptures were fine by daylight so we started to make our way up to top of Central Street, where we could cross the river to get to Sun Island Park, where all the snow sculptures are. We didn't get as far as Sun Island Park (yet!) because when we reached the Songhua River, which was completely frozen through, we spotted the world of fun which we just had to experience first!
The Songhua River had been turned into what looked like a winter amusement park. First we paid 10 kuai to go down an ice slide on a metal sled. I got The Fear (tm) a bit before we went down as from the top it suddenly looked a lot steeper and I had never done this before, but had no time to deal with that before I was kicked down at top speed. I got hardcore panic halfway down at a million miles per hour when I realised I didn't know how to stop the damn thing, and I was going to crash and die. I was getting quite the adrenaline rush but the moment the surface changed to snow instead of smooth ice the sled stopped by itself. I turned round to see Liam hurtling towards me all excited looking just like Noddy : )
After the slide, which made us so so happy, we decided to try out these little things which are like seats on sleds with poles which you use to push yourself around on. We paid 50 yuan each as deposit and then went on them for like 10 minutes. It would have been good fun but I just couldn't feel my fingers for the cold and it was starting to get seriously painful. We took the sleds back to the stall, to get there climbing what at first looked like a tiny bump but may as well have been Everest considering the effort it took to get up it on those sled seats. I actually slid right back down and crashed into some angry woman's glove stall, much to her chagrin and Liam's amusement. I finally made it over the bump to the stall and asked for our deposit back. He wouldn't give us any money! We explained we'd each given 50 kuai deposit. To pay the deposit we'd come up to the stall and asked a man how much. He may as well have been the village idiot for all the sensible response we got out of him. We turned to the next man (the man we went back to to get our deposits back) and asked how much, and finally got the answer of 50 kuai. We were a bit annoyed by this and said "if it's 50 yuan deposit why don't you just say 50 yuan??? Can't you speak Chinese?!" etc. Ordinarily we just put up them going seemingly mute around us as it often happens, probably assuming that we can't speak Chinese and thus trying to communicate via telepathy, which everyone knows is an easier method. Anyway they laughed in what seemed like good humour and took our deposit money. But now they were refusing to hand back the damn deposit. He just shrugged. Then someone came up and said how much? He said 20 yuan. We said, why is his 20 and our's 50 huh? We convinced him to give us 10 back. To share between us. We needed 30 each! I held my hand out for more. He gave me another 10. So it was down to 40 each that we'd paid now. I said give us our money, you still owe us 40 kuai. Liam said, that guy was told it's 20, what is it like 20 for Chinese, 40 for foreigners? Unfortunately the maddening man liked this phrase and started to proclaim it to everyone around us like it was a selling technique! And several people laughed. That's when I lost it. I am so fed up of being ripped off because I've got white skin. I'm not flipping made of money because I have less melanin, for God's sake! Don't people here realise that if they treat us all like this then China will get a bad rap, less people will want to come and spend their money, and finally it'll be bad for business? Being fair means being prosperous. Plus with the Beijing Olympics coming up, the Chinese authorities really need to tell their citizens how to deal with us, because when we're here en masse it'll be make or break for them.
Anyway. I shouted. He still refused. I asked Liam what he thought we should do; he seemed pissed off but resigned. I almost left but another wave of rage hit me and I stayed to fight on. He gave me another two tens. I told him he still owed us money and I got so annoyed I tried to take it off the table, but he hit my hand away. I haven't been that angry in a long time. I was making quite the scene. Eventually I took the money again and this time when he tried to stop me it was me that batted his hand away. He looked seriously affronted but then shrugged and said fine, and off I stalked, victorious.
I rather ruined the effect mere seconds later, when everyone was still watching the angry laowai intently, by falling smack onto my arse on the ice. So elegant. I could hear everyone laughing at me but fortunately I too thought it was absolute hilarious, in particular the godawful timing, and also because I was completely unable to get myself back up due the slippiness of the ice. Laughing hysterically, I had to call Liam over to help me up! Still, it broke the tension a bit and I was ready to have more fun! Though the spectactors must have thought I was an absolute lunatic, swinging wildly from extreme anger to maniacal laughter.
I stopped and bought some huge ski gloves from a much nicer gentleman, to help with the pain in my fingers. Next we came across the most AMAZING slide. 30 kuai for 30 minutes, rubber tyre dinghies on an ice slide with bumps carved into it for maximum bounce. You go down and when you come over the bumps you fly right into the air. Then at the end you run back up snow-covered ice steps and off you go again for half an hour. Pure unadulterated fun. We named our dinghies Ermengarde and Bjorn for no especial reason other than because we could. At the top of one part of the slide men were kicking people down so they'd be even speedier, and generally to keep the cycle moving round because there were a lot of ditherers. The first time I went down and they kicked me unexpectedly I couldn't help but scream! Most unlike me; in theme parks I go pretty mute! We tried right across the breadth of the ice slide, which was split into two halves. Though there were no differences in the actual slidey bit, the men on the left-hand side were pretty half-hearted with the kicking, so we stuck to the right side, where we found the Balaclava Man. He was a vicious thug who clearly enjoyed the violent, kicking part of his job just that bit too much, but other than that he was absolutely lovely and we made instant friends! He was so very generous with his kicks, and so we hurtled down the slides at unheard-of speeds! Liam overheard a woman comment to him that it wasn't very safe, and he replied "well, if it's safe, then it's not fun, is it?" or words to that effect. My sentiment exactly. When he realised he was my favourite kicker he became even more generous and then spun me round as well. I have never screamed so hard! When I got back up the steps a few of the kickers laughed with me about my girly screaming, then asked if I liked being spun... stupid question, boys! So from then on, I got spun. And kept squealing, because I knew that they'd keep trying to out-do themselves. On what should've been our last go before time was up another man asked if he could try spinning me. But he spinned my body, not my dinghy, so it was a bit poo and I forgot to scream. So we had to have a final go with the Balaclava Man, before having my photo taken with him. Lovely chap.
Next we got a cable car to Sun Island Park, where the snow sculptures were. The cable car gave us great views over Harbin and the river, where we could see cars rallying on the frozen surface. You have to be really confident of the thickness of the ice to race cars on it! We bought our expensive tickets into the park and looked around at all the sculptures, as the sun began to set, which made it so beautiful. Some of them very huge and they were all magnificentally carved. I don't know how one gets into that kind of artisanry, but boy do they know what they're doing! They even had a cafe (Moulin Rouge haha) and a hotel made completely out of snow. It was damn freezing so we dashed about. On our way out we came across a couple of people advertising a free bus to the Ice World, which was a bit of luck, because they sold us our tickets into the world on the bus, and then when we got there we skipped the long long queue to get in straight away. Good stuff. The queues were so long that we thought it'd be hardly worth it to wait in them that long, but once we got inside we realised that it was totally worth it, because the ice sculptures were incredible, even more breathtaking than the snow, and much better in real life than any photo could do justice. They were lit up right inside the ice by multicoloured lights and were absolutely huge. They had representations of the Great Wall, Westminter Abbey, and The Acropolis which afforded excellent views over the whole park, because you could walk up the steps like the real thing. Once we were done with the ice the next stop was St Sophia's, an old Russian church. We started walking to it, as it was said to be just down the road. We crossed a bridge over the river and nearly froze to death. No flagging taxis on the bridge, so once we were halfway over, we had to keep going! One thing I should say about Harbin is about the weather there. It is the coldest city in China. They have recorded temperatures there of nearly minus 50, which was exceptional, but it regularly reaches minus 30. The actual temperature in Urumqi is not much different, but it is a 'still' kind of cold, whereas in Harbin the wind picks up and suddenly it feels much colder. Every time you tell a Chinese person you're going to Harbin they look at you like you're mad and ask you why. But Harbin's real attraction is winter - this is when the sculptors come out, when everything gets spectacularly beautiful, and is really the only time of year to visit Harbin. We were quite scared of the cold actually but I wasn't that impressed by it until the sun set and the wind kicked in. When walking on the bridge, exposed to the elements, my scarf froze. Now living in China in the winter, you get pretty used to your scarf freezing, and your hair freezing a little from time to time too, if you're ever stupid enough to let it get wet and then go outside. But on that bridge, our scarves were like concrete, you could actually crack them. Crazy.
Anyway it turned out St Sophia's is down the road from an entire different, much less spectacular ice sculpture park. The church was very ornate and pretty and I was annoyed that my camera ran out of batteries so we went to find some. Eventually I got some in a very seedy pharmacy, and then took some snaps, though the light quality was very poor. Frozen through and fed up of the tourism lark, we went to KFC. I went to the bathroom here and looked in the mirror and it was here that I realised the vicious wind and arctic cold had actually burnt my skin to the colour of a ripe tomato. Sore.
We got a taxi back to the hostel but he dropped us off at the wrong place so we had to trek back through the cold. Made it alive though! Having seen and done all we had come for, we thawed off by going straight to bed as soon as we could!

Rather a lot of photos now (Harbin is quite the photogenic city!):

East meets West(ish): Chinese lanterns (the quantity apparently denotes how good a restaurant is) on Russian architecture.

Could be Moscow! The buildings down the street are all Russian in style, and there's ice sculptures dotted along the path.

The land of ice and fun on thr Songhua River.

My first ice slide. With sleds poised and ready to go.

I am not sure if this is an expression of pure joy or pure agony. You decide.

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! The dinghy slide. I love that I managed to capture someone going over the bump up in the air! So much fun, I recommend this to anyone that gets the chance!

I <3 The Balaclava Man

The view of car rallying on the Songhua River, taken from the cable car.

The view of Sun Island Park from the cable car - you can see the sheer size of the snow sculptures in this picture.

Tiananmen Square, made entirely of snow!

Napoleon! Look at the skill it must have taken to make that!

I think this was supposed to be Greek or Roman or something, but it just reminded me of back home in Xinjiang! Grapes-amundo!

The biggest ice sculpture in the place - I couldn't fit it all into one photo. To get a good idea of the size, in the photo on the left, towards the right there is a person standing quite near to the sculpture. But he was not standing that close, so in perspective he looks rather large. This sculpture was breath-takingly huge.

The beautiful bridge over the Songhua River from Sun Island Park.

Westminster Abbey as you've never seen it before.

The Acropolis.

Harbin Ice World, as viewed from the top of the steps of The Acropolis

View of the entire Ice World from the Songhua River. I don't know why but I really like this photo!

Et finalement, the Church of St. Sophia.

Spring Festival Travels 10 - Tianjin

2008-04-18T05:34:00.003+01:00

25th January 2008 // Day 11 // Beijing (Beijing Municipality) --> Tianjin (Tianjin Municipality)

We woke up and checked out fairly early, said goodbye to the Australians and Julia and then subwayed it to the train station. We hadn't pre-bought our tickets and walking into the ticket office it looked like it would be absolute hell to get them, as you'd have to go to the correct ticket booth for the train you wanted. We didn't know which we wanted so we just went up to a booth thinking, if nothing else, they can direct us where to go. In fact we were quickly sold a ticket and about half an hour later, we were on an aerotrain to Tianjin. This train is just like an aeroplane in the interior, but it's a train. We coined the term ourselves, before y'all check Wikipedia : )
A couple of hours later we arrived in Tianjin, which to be honest looked like any other Chinese city mid-gentrification. We got a cab to our hostel. Outside the train we were hassled by drivers trying to get us into our taxis and so walked along until we came across the first driver that didn't shout, and took his taxi. I had heard that Tianjin is famed for having China's chattiest people, and hearing the driver I wouldn't be at all surprised if this was actually factually true. He was utterly incomprehensible though, because of his crazily strong retroflex (a weird north-eastern Chinese sound where they put an 'er' on the end of like every syllable, which to be frank makes them sound like barking seals.).
The hostel room was very clean and sparse, but we didn't stick around. Instead, we were straight out to see some Tianjin. Our first stop was the Old Cultural Street. This street was manufactured specifically to preserve Tianjin's cultural heritage amidst all the contemporary development, and is absolutely brilliant for souvenir shoppng. At Master Zhang's, I bought four niren - these are heavy clay figurines that Master Zhang's family have been famous for over several generations. We found a stall selling candy floss so I got a pink ghost called Cecil and Liam also decided to try candy floss again after having been sworn off it for several years. He of course liked it, for who could not like candy floss?!
We wandered in and out of the shops and Liam bought the jade rabbit on red string that he's been after. When we reached the end of the street it was quite strange to look in on direction and see a lively, beautifully decorated and preserved stereotypically Chinese street decked out for the Chinese New Year, and turn 180 degrees and see murky grey streets and construction sights of dusty concrete. We went back up the street munching our candy floss (can candy floss be munched?) and stopped by a temple on the street. A guard came over to us and started talking with us in Chinese which created a bit of an audience. He said he thought we were American and a little old lady said, no of course we're not, we clearly look European; she would guess British or French. Which made a nice change. "Look how white our skin is!" she said, clearly meaning: they have to be British, they've obviously never seen a day of sun." He asked what city I was from but of course didn't know the place. He then asked what football team (as foreign men are wont to do) and he didn't know them either. He was clearly expecting me to say London and then Manchester United, because all foreign people think all British people are from London and support United. Not that I make generalizations or anything...
Next we went on to find the famed Tianjin food street. Liam had decided where he thought it was and I had no time to orient myself before he'd already started heading the wrong way. We hailed a taxi to right ourselves and soon we were there. It was actually more like an indoor mall than a street. I was feeling pretty fatigued and so we plumped for the first restaurant we saw. We ate baicai and goubuli dumplings, which were nice with vinegar but not that spectacular really. We saw tea soup and Tianjin twisty things but neither looked in the slightest appealing so we left it. We wanted to find the famed doughnut covered with pancake contraption but couldn't see it anywhere. Sounds like a heart attack in a mouthful anyway.
I was absolutely knackered. The morning had been pleasant; we'd strolled down the Old Cultural Street from our hostel, passed by the river, and seen lots of street food and stalls. (I bought some of the squidgy throw things that splat on flat surfaces.) And that had been our entire day, yet I could barely stand from the tiredness. Fortunately it transpired that Liam felt the same, so a cab ride later we were standing back outside the Old Cultural Street, where it was barely a stone's throw to Starbucks. I had hot milk and cheesecake and then feeling greedy had a chocolate volcano cake. The said they'd heat it up but they gave it back stone cold. I don't normally return food but I wanted it gooey, and sure enough the next time they gave it back it was like a volcano of hot gooey chocolate ooze. Because of buying the promotion cake, I got to enter a competition. I had to pick a cake's name. To this date, I'm not sure if I was supposed to pick a name of a cake that I'd like the sound of, and then they'd interpret and make it, or if I had to name my cake. And I don't have a clue what I'd win. I entered anyway with the name Dark Mistress (don't ask, I don't know why) but I don't think I've won somehow...
After this we went straight back to the hostel and were in bed for 8pm. Walking to the communal bathroom in our pyjamas at that hour brought some funny looks from the American couple in the common room, but no matter. We'd be getting up EARLY the next day. Alarms set for 4am and all that.

View down the Cultural Street.

Wheel round 180 degrees and this is what you see! Not so traditional.

My Niren! Tacky but oh so kyoot.

Me on the Food Street, which as you can see is most definitely not a street but a mall.

Big monument to Tianjin's famous dough twists.

Tea soup! All the ingredients in the plastic boxes in front of the woman are put into a bowl and then hot water is poured in from the giant teapot contraption. I was disappointed to see that McDonalds was granted a place in the traditional food street mall.

My reason for existence. Starbucks! Sell these in Britain, please!!!

Spring Festival Travels 9 - Beijing 2

2008-04-18T05:22:00.002+01:00

24th January 2008 // Day 10 // Beijing (Beijing Municipality)

I could barely wake myself the next day, even though I could hear Liam out and about and I knew we had a busy day ahead of us. We'd had a new arrival in the night in the form of Julia from Sweden, who had been travelling for a month and had just come to Beijing from Samya, Hainan (China's southern most point aside from tiny islands), and was flying home to Sweden in a few days' time. Simon had been studying in Shanghai and was now on his way home to Canada; he had left at 7am in the morning. It was quite nice to think that we'd be returning to Urumqi instead of home. Julia told Liam that she wanted to study fashion in China. In Chinese? No, it's taught in English. We think she'd truly be one of a kind: a Swedish girl studying fashion in English in China!
We had breakfast with an Australian couple who were teaching in Sichuan province and were travelling for Spring Festival. They couldn't yet speak any Chinese but they were really nice. The woman was called Amy but we never did find out the man's name! I chose the meat option and surprised myself by liking the bacon. Probably because it blatantly wasn't bacon. Also fried egg, toast and cheese and toast and jam, some apple, mini oranges and a tomato (which I obviously was not putting anywhere near my mouth), ketchup, orange juice and green tea made for a really good breakfast.
We subwayed to Tian'anmen but yet again were too late for seeing the Mausoleum before 12. We actually got there at 11.50, but we were on the wrong side. We got round to the entrance at 12, just before it closed. Something to do in summer then! We then went directly to the Lama Temple by subway, and looked around with Westerners all around us! Fairly interesting place, but my interest in temples wanes by the day over here. The most impressing thing was the world-record breaking Buddha, carved out of one single piece of sandalwood at 26m. That would have been a damn big tree.
Our next stop was the Confucian Temple. More interesting than the Lama Temple, actually, probably because it was dedicated to Confucius and logical principles, instead of Buddhism/Taoism and religious leanings. It was just a totally different perspective. Next to it was the Imperial College which was used in Confucian times by Confucius himself, and then afterwards for teaching his analects to candidates for the Imperial examinations to become cadres. The exhibits were very interesting indeed, and I learnt a lot about Confucius - my knowledge of whom, I realise, was painfully lacking. I hoped there'd still be something left to interest me in his birthplace at Qufu!
Next we set off for the Drum Tower. It was practically impossible to find, but when we did it was 5.05pm. The tower shuts at 5. Something else for the summer then! We flagged a taxi, with a driver who looked remarkably like Buddha. He took us to the good ol' French patisserie - after a fashion waiting in traffic! We had chocolate croissants and I had an amazing hot chocolate. The Italian man asked me whether I'd preferred the thicker or thinner chocolate, the white or milk, the sugar content... everything, then said he'd remember so he could make me the perfect personalised cup for the next time I came. I felt like Tentalus - I had almost reached the ideal Holy Grail of hot chocolate, and it was being taken away by my going to Tianjin the next morning. I could've cried. But consoled myself with a freshly baked French baguette to take away. Wheat intolerance, shwheat intolerance. We went on to Quanjude, a Beijing Roast Duck restaurant.
We chose to go to Hepingmen, where there is a giant Quanjude. We didn't have to queue this time and the room where we ended up was not as nice. Also the duck was a little disappointing; perhaps we'd built it up too much or perhaps we were already sated with Western baked goodness. Either way I finished my half and drank the duck soup, which I'd first tried at Urumqi and not liked (it tasted like toilets smell), but liked here in Beijing. Sadly there was no garlic to make the perfect pancake.
We left exhausted and full, to the point where we could barely walk. We went straight back to the hostel by subway, having become rather dab hands at this by now. After reading in bed and relaxing a bit, Liam and I both decided to get an early night, but Julia was still making a lot of noise and light and we ended up in bed by 11.30pm. I woke up in the night feeling really nauseous but decided to ignore it. I then woke up again not much later retching in my mouth and had to run to the toilets to throw up copious amounts. There's a strong possibility I just overate, but I actually think that the duck doesn't agree with me, because every time I eat it I get some kind of reflex digestive problems. I'm sure y'all wanted to know that. I was half asleep anyway, so just went straight back to bed when I'd cleaned up. I'm getting a bit fed up of constantly throwing up in China but at least after this time I felt no other ill effects, so it probably wasn't food poisoning, and therefore didn't ruin any travel plans!

The distinctive rooftops of Beijing's Lama Temple.

This may come as a bit of a shock to my close friends and family, but I have been keeping a secret from you all. Phew. Here goes... I am actually Confucius.

Biyong Hall (where the emperor gave lectures), in the Confucian Imperial College.

The interior of the Biyong Hall. This was the chair the emperor actually sat in.

The only glazed memorial arch in China that is dedicated to education: it was built to honour the Imperial examination candidates.

All of Confucius' Analects, carved onto stone. It takes an aircraft hangar to house them all.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is how hot chocolate should be done.

Pure and utter heaven. Outside the French Patisserie sniffing freshly baked real bread.

Spring Festival Travels 8 - Beijing 1

2008-04-18T05:14:00.002+01:00

23rd January 2008 // Day 9 // Shijiazhuang (Hebei) --> Beijing (Beijing Municipality)

We got up at stupid o'clock and got ready in the pitch black darkness. We were at the station in good time and soon onto the train where thankfully we had seats. The train took a couple of hours and was a very good quality train, with upstairs and downstairs, and people selling us stuff. Whenever we get a T (tebie kuai, or very rapid) category train we get total tack sold to us. But *slaps wrist* we couldn't resist buying these magic, gravity-defying spinning top things.
Arriving at Beijing was like a homecoming! We both love that city so much! However our taxi to Templeside Hostel Shop Number 1 (there's two), where we stayed in summer, from the underground taxi rank cost a mint! At Shop Number 1 I saw the kittens who had now grown up a fair bit. They took us to Shop Number 2, as it was off-peak season and so they only kept Shop 2 running then. It was very nostalgic walking through the same old hutongs with our bags on their cart, just like when we'd had to switch hostels with our suitcase in August. At the hostel we opted to stay in dorms as it was much cheaper at 60 kuai for off-season. We were told two people should be turning up later. After dumping our bags in the dorm room (6 bunk beds) and choosing our beds (2 of the lower bunks) we went on the internet to find the address of a nearby Subway. The 'restaurant' (I use the term loosely) that is, not the mode of transport. We weren't sure of the best address so we asked Bobby (who runs the hostels) and he told us one was near a subway line if we got off at Yananli. Stupidly we did not think to ask him where we should get on, so we spent ages walking until we gave up and got a taxi to Yananli which, we discovered, is where Beijing's famous Friendship Store is. The Friendship Store was part of the opening of China to foreigners program and is still the focal point of Western souvenir shopping. Around the area, on the Old Silk Market Street, there are also loads of other western stores and restaurants. Subway was completely empty when we first got there and we got our yummy subs. The only customers the store got were foreigners! From my seat by the window, I was perfectly positioned to look out onto the pavement and see that virtually everyone that walked past was a laowai. We foreigners who live here have a weird superiority thing; we think we're better than just tourists. I was disheartened to see Beijing being taken over by idiot tourists who were only sticking to the western bits! Now Liam and I were a different kettle of fish, because we don't get any of this western stuff over here so we take our chance while we can. But these people come over to China for like two weeks and still insist on eating western food. Idiots.

I am so judgmental.

After our subs it seemed sensible to go into the Friendship Store round the corner and look for books. I could've easily spent a bomb in the department store, but after the book bit I restrained myself and decided not to even look around, thus cleverly resisting temptation. Next we went over to Baskin Robbins next door and had delicious sundaes. The ice cream shop shares its space with a French patisserie, actually owned and run by an Italian, who made me the most amazing hot chocolate - it was like white chocolate syrup. Wow.
Feeling decidedly full and awful tourists, we went off to see some of the bits of Beijing we missed in summer. We climbed Qianmen, the only remaining Ming Dynasty gate in Beijing, and looked around the museum there. We took the obligatory Tian'anmen Square photos (this time without scaffolding!) and climbed the Gate of Heavenly Peace and looked around. We had to check our bags in to go into the gate, but weren't allowed to leave valuables, which was stupid as Liam's only contained an empty bottle of water and some tissue once he'd taken his camera and phone and wallet out. Pointlessness, pointlessness! As well as the gate itself, we had wanted to see the Museum of the Revolution and the Hall of the People, the two long buildings on the east and west sides of the square, and Mao's Mausoleum, at the bottom end. The buildings were closed until 2008 (seeing as it WAS 2008, I presume by this they basically mean, if you want to see any of our sights, you have to come to the Olympics, so there.) Mao's Mausoleum was open but only until 12pm, and it was well into the afternoon by now, so we decided to come back the following morning.
Next we walked down to Wangfujing - Beijing's modern shopping street and also famous for its food markets and night market. We didn't see any sign of these, but according to Tobin, the market is really well hidden in a side street. He only told us this once we'd come back home, so at the time we were a bit unimpressed. The Foreign Languages Bookstore is on Wangfujing Street; Liam and I both had to seriously restrain ourselves. I ended up buying three more fiction books to add to the two non-fiction I'd bought at the Friendship Store. Trust me, it could've been more. But I remembered I'd be the one that's have to carry them round the country for weeks on end!
After this, though it wasn't late, we were pretty tired and returned to the hostel. We took the subway but got off somewhere in the Financial District by accident. We walked back for about an hour and got to see some of the biggest, flashiest buildings in Beijing. Not as flashy as a photo Paul showed me of a pavement somewhere in the same district with a covered ceiling, the ceiling entirely consisting of a GIANT HD Digital LCD screen. Trying to be the next Dubai, eh.
In the hostel, a guy called Simon from Canada had showed up. We ordered dinner (sweet and sour chicken, chaokao rou (which they interestingly call 'Special Flavour Meat') 2 rice and 2 drinks) and then sat down to watch the film Swordfish with Simon. It was the only film of acceptable quality/language we could find, fairly good but a little confusing especially as I could barely hear it over the cackling of the Chinese contingent. I know it's their home though, not just a hostel, so I can't really complain. I went back to the dorm and chatted with Simon a bit, who then fell asleep in the weirdest position: he just said, I'm going to sleep now, and lay poker straight on his back, then just fell asleep. Like, within 30 seconds. Added to that, he didn't change his position once in the night, and in the morning just got straight up like a robot. Weird sleeping style, but nice guy.

Qianmen.

Me with the memorial to the laboriousness of the Communist people outside Mao's Mausoleum in Tian'anmen Square.

Me and Tian'anmen (Heavenly Gate).

Wangfujing Street... i can has food markit peez?

Spring Festival Travels 7 - Pingyao and Shijiazhuang

2008-04-18T04:57:00.003+01:00

22nd January 2008 // Day 8 // Pingyao (Shanxi) --> Shijiazhuang (Hebei)

My charger of course fell out of the wall in the night, so my phone died and that meant no wake-up alarm. Fortunately I woke up naturally at 7.57, so we managed to get ourselves out for around half eight or thereabouts. We climbed the Town Tower for 5 kuai and though the views were good we expected even better ones from the city wall, so it was rather disappointing. The stairs were a bit treacherous as well! After the tower, we made our way to the south gate so we could climb the wall. There was an entry but we had no tickets, and they didn't sell tickets there! We asked where they sold them and they pointed out roughly where to go. It was still not immediately obvious, but I spotted a city map on a signboard and we found out that there was a ticket office nearer the north gate. We bought our tickets there that apparently let us in to any number of mystery attractions, including the wall. We got to the wall at the north gate at 9.30am. The guidebook said to walk the circumference takes 2 hours. It took us one hour and 50 minutes, so not far off, and during that time we narcissistically wrote our names in the snow, made snow angels (Liam's first ever!) and imprinted our perfect footprints into the snow, all the while posing for photographs. The making of the snow angels seemed like a good idea but it was rather foolish as it was so stupidly cold. The snow went inside my layers to my skin on my lower back and my bare hands and head and I thought I was going to go into shock or get hypothermia or something! Along the wall we also talked about Liam taking French next year and me choosing to not take a second year out any more, and from that converstaion it looks like I'm not taking another year out after all but going straight back into study at Newcastle, as is the normal sequence. If I need to take time out to practise my languages, I can do that after I graduate I suppose, finances permitting. The views from the wall were not that great - the Town Tower had been better, so I was glad we'd climbed it despite our inital disappointment. The wall had one point of interest; Pingyao is nicknamed the Turtle City because it is said that the wall is shaped like a turtle. The north gate is the head, each side has two gates which are the four legs, the south gate is the head, and two pavilions in front of the south gate are the eyes. Nice idea, but I wouldn't in a million years have called the image of turtle to mind from the form of the walls.
After that, we came down to the old city to eat as we'd missed breakfast. We tried a couple of places, and as ever I have Nolan to thank for imbuing me with the ability to walk out of place that just aren't good enough. One place stank of varnish, to the extent that we could barely breathe, and another had a very uninspiring menu. We ended up giving up all our willpower and went back to our hostel for a fix of Western food. I had lasagne and green tea, and Liam had a Cajun chicken sub and black coffee (his nectar, lol). I was told my lasagne would take half an hour but said I'd wait anyway, and then saw a woman carrying a plate of toast past. There was nothing doing; we had to order ourselves some. And hot chocolate while I was at it. Then apple tart for dessert. A regular feast! You can't possibly understand how much we crave Western food from time to time. So when it's there, it's very hard to fight the urge to eat it, eat it all.
Very full, we made our way to Rishengchang - the first ever bank in China. It was interesting and the English captions were good so even better. The place had been preserved as much as possible so it was less like a museum with exhibits and more like a view of an old-style enterprise.We looked around fairly rapidly and the decided to have a wander in the old streets to see what souvenirs were on offer.
Apparently Pingyao is famous in China for its handmade cloth shoes, and so I found a little shop selling them and bought a pretty black and red pair for 60 kuai. I also could see the manufacture in process which was nice. Next we were wandering along and came across a place which advertised writing your name on a rice grain. Ordinarily Liam and I are both against such useless tat, but I suddenly decided I wanted one and we went in. The shopkeeper was the nicest woman! She sat us in front of the heat lamp to thaw, and showed us all the possible designs of container for the rice grain. I picked a glass turtle with a red flower inside. She wrote my name on one side and Pingyao 2008 on the other, at my request, with a pen! Very skilful indeed.
Once the rice was done we went to the hostel where we'd left our bags for safekeeping, then walked out of the city walls to the new city where we could get a taxi. We hailed one instantly and got to Pingyao train station. It was small and consisted of a single room and toilets. We had time so we went out to find snacks for the journey. I was unsuccessful in finding anything I found edible. It was upon climbing an small icy slope into a supermarket that I had my first fall - I slipped and fell right onto my hands and knees. Tres embarrassing, but no harm done. I could've gone up the steps as well... Still, not as spectacular as Liam's fall in Hohhot. One minutes he was walking along talking to me, and then suddenly he was horizontal on the ground. I will to this day not know how I kept a straight face for so long.
We gave up on finding me a snack and returned to the station. Soon we were on a train to Hebei, and its capital Shijiazhuang. The train was not as bad as the train to Pingyao in terms of crowdedness, at first. We sat on our bags in the hallway but the guard kept moving us on because we were right by the entrance doors of the carriage. Just around the corner we found another spot which seemed like a bit of good luck until everyone around us started smoking. It smelt disgusting of course, as cigarettes and their smokers are wont to do. My eyes and windpipe instantly started to hurt and I got pretty annoyed. Liam pointed out that we were in the smoking bit of the carriage, which was true, but having said that, there wasn't really anywhere else to go and so the smokers could perhaps be a little more respectful in not blowing smoke directly into my eyes. I just couldn't stand it any more, and so I removed myself from the inconsiderate fug and forced my way through into the compartment. After standing a while with my huge rucksack clearly in everyone's way, I noticed that the seat behind me was a three person seat and only two people were on it. I asked to sit down and the man said that the standing man next to me was the true owner of the seat, but that kind man told me to sit, and helped me slot my bag under the seat. This is when Liam came through. He was forced to stand and a bit later so was I when the owner of the seat wanted his place back. Suddenly the man behind me invited me to sit, and so I gratefully once again sank into a seat. I have to say one thing for the Chinese; they are much more generous than the British. You wouldn't catch an Englishman giving up his precious seat to a tourist!
I had been paranoid about my rice grain breaking at the start of the journey and because earlier I'd been sitting atop my bag, I moved the grain to the side pocket. When my bag was under the seat the box must have fallen out because when I checked the pocket the grain was gone. I found the lid of the box, all forlorn and alone on the mucky floor, but nothing else. The other passengers nicely helped me look for it, but it was gone. I was a bit upset at so quickly losing such a unique souvenir, but nothing I could do. I was from then on on the lookout for a new rice grain!

The quaint traditional-style rooftops of Old Pingyao.

The old wall of Pingyao and the moat, stretching off into the distance.

SNOW ANGEL!!!

The West Counter room and models at the Rishengchang Draft Bank

Shoeses in Pingyao.

More was to come. We reached Hebei at night and briefly queued for our tickets until realising we were at the wrong station for tickets to Beijing. We got a taxi and got 7am tickets to the country's capital. It was already late and we were heading for no more than a few hours' sleep at this rate so we went to the U Hotel right across from the station. The woman behind the desk was not exactly the epitome of efficacious and it took a fair while to get to our room. When we did we found that there were no lights except in the bathroom! We wasted precious sleeping time considering whether to switch rooms or not, looking for a staff member on the 10th floor, and trying to get any of the many lights to work, but finally we just decided to lump it. We unpacked our necessities in the bathroom and changed there too, set our alarms for stupid o'clock and went to bed. My alarm informed me I had 5 hours 33 minutes to sleep.
Shijiazhuang and Taiyuan were our first two destinations where we did no sightseeing or any kind of discovery at all. Before you judge us, remember that our aim was to visit every province and every capital thereof. Some province capitals are pure dumps. Shijiazhuang is one of them. But we're both too obsessive to miss anywhere out!

What our hotel room apparently looked like [with flash].

...and what we could actually see.

Spring Festival Travels 6 - Taiyuan

2008-04-18T04:42:00.004+01:00

21st January 2008 // Day 7 // Taiyuan (Shanxi) --> Pingyao (Shanxi)

We slept the innocent sleep of those who don't know what they're letting themselves in for. I woke up at some point, I believe 3am, to go to the bathroom (this is what happens if you chug water all day to help flush food poisoning toxins out of the system!) and then was woken up at 6.20am by the ticket woman. If you get a sleeper train, when you first get on you have to hand over your ticket, and they give you a card, sometimes plastic, sometimes metal, which corresponds to your bunk. Then when you're due to get off, they come back and switch the tickets back. This way they can check the right people are in the right bunks, and if you're are travelling through the night, you won't miss your stop because they'll wake you up. For once, something in China makes logical sense! After sleepily getting my ticket back I went to wash and clean my teeth. Every time I am on a sleeper train and go to clean my teeth I get astonished looks from the Chinese because I clean them for so long and so thoroughly. Then you spot the blackened stumps that they call teeth and understand their surprise. I changed out of my pyjamas back into day clothes under the duvet like I had the night before, and very elegantly too!
Taiyuan is the provincial capital of Shanxi. Taiyuan Station was pure and utter chaos. I refuse to accept that that was the normal condition of the station; something must have happened. I later found out that it was related to the disruptive snowstorms that were sweeping the south of the country - the after-effects were felt in every province, because it was approaching Spring Festival, which is the traditional time of year that everyone is displaced around the country visiting relatives. There were hundreds, possibly thousands (literally) of people outside the station, some queuing to get in, some just hanging around, and a massive queue was snaking across the courtyard. It was 7am and last night's snow hadn't all been cleared. Street-sweepers were on the job, but we wished they weren't immediately upon stepping onto the swept flagstones of the courtyard and realising that the snow-covered parts of ground were INFINITELY safer. People were slipping and sliding everywhere, and the pair of us both regularly nearly fell. By a few hours' time, the remaining snow had taken on that singularly Chinese consistency of sand. In Urumqi the precipitation is so oily with pollution that when it falls and people walk on it, it so closely ressembles that stage of baking when you rub butter into flour with your fingertips that it is quite shocking.
Police and railway staff and even military with guns were stationed to guide, control and keep the masses from rioting. Naturally the long, snaking queue I mentioned was the queue for the ticket hall. We joined it and got annoyed at being discussed as per usual, hearing "waiguoren" (foreigner) around us. At least waiguoren is better than laowai... waiguoren just calls a spade a spade: waiguo = foreign, ren = person/people; but laowai is kind of offensive. It literally means 'old foreign', but sometimes has a bit of a mocking tone about it. My personal favourite is waiguo pengyou = foreign friend. That makes me warm inside, especially when polite parents say to their kids, "oh let our foreign friend through, don't push". Rare, but on occasion does happen. Floors me every time.
The queue was moving at a glacial pace, and it occurred to me that if the trains were like this then maybe it would be better to get a long-distance bus. I wasn't aware of the problems with the snow at the time or I would never have suggested it. Liam refused to make a decision so it was left to me, and I made the stupid decision to leave the queue for the bus station. As we neared the bus station our taxi driver spoke to a man who said that the expressways were closed due to the weather conditions, which would only have added to the problems at the train station, and so no buses could run. We got out of the taxi anyway, and it felt like Baotou Take Two as people immediately flocked around us laowai like vultures round a kill. It was true that there were just simply no buses. We tried one taxi driver out for size and he quoted us 600kuai, which was such a shocking rip-off that we were speechless. Back to the station we decided to go. Easy in theory, but no free taxis heading our way or anywhere in the vicinity it seemed. After waiting a ridiculous amount of time at a crossroads we walked down to the bus stop nearby and got a bus to the station instead. The queue had literally doubled in length and no doubt if we'd stayed in it we'd've bought tickets by this point, but what was done was done. The queue was double thick so Liam joined one side and I joined the other. We soon (I mean like years later) realised our queue was in fact just the queue to join another queue, which you waited in just so you could join the queue inside the ticket office. The human body is not designed to cope with standing statically in that kind of temperature and environment, and mine had started to violently protest by the time we reached the head of queue 1. Then upon joining queue 2, something miraculous happened. Because we had originally been in two queues, but queue 2 was merged into just one, Liam and I were split up, so I asked a guard if I could go stand by Liam a bit further up. He said okay but then another guard pulled me out of the queue. For one worrying moment I thought I was being sent to the back for pushing in, but in fact the military must have just taken pity on us because they moved us past the whole line straight into the station for no apparent reason whatsoever. In retrospect, I imagine they may have been recommended to treat foreigners like this during the snow crisis so that they said good things about the Chinese handling of the situation and made them look good. But then again, maybe they were just nice people : ) The people in the queue were all smiling at us too; I'd have been fuming if I'd been waiting for hours and then some idiot laowai were let ahead of me just because they were white... We guiltily joined two separate queues again and I looked at the big digital board of trains available. A daunting number had crosses next to them, denoting no tickets remaining, but when we got to the front we effortlessly bought two tickets (to Pingyao) for later that day.
To waste time before our 16.10 train (after arriving at 7am we finally walked away with tickets at 10.30, and that was after having been ushered past the queue) we went to a very nearby wang bar (internet cafe) and wasted a few hours, then went to a restaurant to eat. The food was not particularly good and I couldn't really stomach it so I ate surprisingly little for me! I had finished my Oreos in the queue and I had had a hot roasted sweet potato (heaven heaven heaven) so I was probably already full. It was still far too early but we went to the station anyway, queued thankfully very briefly to get in, and eventually found seats in the station. We both read for the remaining hours and then boarded the train for Pingyao, a smaller place preserved in the traditional Ming and Qing Dynasty styles.
Wow, the word queue has completely lost all meaning I've typed it so many times.
Needless to say it was packed. At one point, to get more people on the train, the guard started hitting them with a stick, like cattle. Cue screaming, some crying, and general panic. Monstrous. And not the worst train we've ever got, either. We were standing in the doorway, along with tens of other people. Plus the attendant kept moving me away from the door so he could stoke the fire. Yep, the fire. They still use coal fires to heat the train and water for the passengers. Fortunately it was only two hours to Pingyao and we were thankfully not vomited on by a girl standing next to us, who looked so sickly we thought she was gonna blow.
Getting off at mini little Pingyao was a welcome relief, but it was shortlived. We were instantly surrounded on all sides by taxi drivers, but we fought our way through to the ticket office and got our tickets to Shijiazhuang for the following evening. Then we went to get a taxi but were followed up the road by a tenacious rickshaw driver who would just not leave us alone. The taxi driver we finally hailed said he couldn't take us to the address we wanted because he wasn't allowed inside the walls of the old city, and rickshaw man came and stuck his head in the taxi and actually took Liam's notebook right out of his hands. I thought Liam was going to rip his head off. Fortunately a private car pulled up and we got in with him. He drove us though the new city, which is damn ugly, up to the pedestrian- and bike-only bit where our International Youth Hostel was. He even walked us to the door.
The hostel was beautiful, set around an old courtyard. The name was Yamen Hostel. Yamen is the word for a governing office in feudal China, and the hostel got its name from the nearby old governor's house.
Our room was huge but nothing compared to the size of the bed! It was a kang, an old brick bed traditionally heated underneath. I have read about such beds and wondered how on earth they could be comfortable, but I had one of the best night's sleep ever on it. First though, we went out to get food. The streets were so quaint with little fairy lights strung up on all the traditional eaves and it was peaceful, though chilly, to walk through the streets until we found a promising restaurant. We decided on Pingyao Beef, which is famed throughout the country. It is cured and marinated until it is tender. It was indeed tender and served cold. Rather reminiscent of ham, but good all the same. We also had traditional Pingyao cold round flat noodles, which ware served with a heated spicy tomato and chilli sauce, and a pork dish. We had some extremely strange items for pudding too: dumplings with peanut sauce inside an orangey citrus 'condensed milk' (so they say) sauce, and some very plain and not very sweet bread-like things. They tasted a lot like, as Liam pointed out, Tesco quick-bake bread, but sweetened and somehow Chinese.
We were full and sleepy and so off to the kang. I showered and by the time I got to bed Liam was practically asleep. I ended the day by setting my phone alarm for 7am so we could fill our day with the sights of Pingyao and get breakfast, but realising it had virtually no charge, I plugged it into the wall overnight. And so ended our first day in Pingyao.

Liam does not have very much room. : (

Welcome to icky, grotty Taiyuan.

All the Xs just fill my heart with joy.

I pale into comparison next to the size of the giant bed. If I do say so myself. Which I do.

The pretty traditional courtyard of the Yamen Hostel.

And one of the streets, albeit blurry. Every street is pedestrianised (though some carts and private cars can go down them) and at night they're all lit up and tranquil.

Our exceedingly bizarre dessert. Sweet bread style thingies on the left, and the peanut sauce dumplings in 'condensed milk' on the right. Oh and behind them you can see the flat noodles that we didn't finish (they come rolled up) and the tomato sauce in the bowl.

Spring Festival Travels 5 - Datong

2008-04-15T14:47:00.003+01:00

19th January 2008 // Day 5 // Hohhot (Inner Mongolia) --> Datong (Shanxi)

This day pretty much sucked all round. We got up, me at 6.05am and Liam a little later. I had showered the night before so I just had to get up, wash and get packed up and then we were off to the train station, truly knackered. The train was uncomfortable and until after the first stop Liam and I were split up by our seat numbers. At least we had seats though, I guess. Nobody paid much attention to us thank god. I wrote some more endless diary and dozed a bit. Liam came to sit next to me, as did Chatty McChatterson as I named him, who was seated opposite me and kept trying to make conversation in pidgin English. Fortunately I still managed to snooze but woke up feeling seriously nauseous. I threw up in the charming train toilets about half an hour before we arrived at Datong. Just before, Liam and I had been co-erced into posing with each other for a photo for Mr McChatterson, and then after I was sick I came back and, despite looking sickly, was forced to pose individually for one with Chatty. I noticed he had taken photos of pratically every possible view out of the train window as we went along, and then I saw that he was zooming his lens in on a little girl, which I thought was pretty weird. Then he actually went over and told the girl's dad that he wanted to take photos of her, and the dad was like "yeah, sure, go ahead, why not take pictures of my young 7 year old daughter?" People here are clearly less suspicious and cynical than I am! Strange man, that Chatty McChatterson. He also told Liam in his rather broken English that we were "welcome to go to his home town, it's just a million kilometres north of Beijing." Liam struggled to keep a straight face. Our theory is that if you go north from Beijing and circle the earth for a million kilometres, you may well end up at his home town. That said, you're more likely to end up somewhere smack bang in the middle of the Indian Ocean.
At Datong we bought tickets for 81 yuan to Taiyuan for 11.30pm the next day, and then immediately found a hotel which was okay standard. I threw up on entering the bathroom and then lay down and fell asleep; I woke up now and then to vomit and then went back to sleep almost instantly. The next thing I really knew it was half eight and we'd missed a whole halfday's worth of tourism. I felt rather guilty for Liam's sake because he couldn't do anything with me like this, but I was so completely out of it! Liam and I officially went to bed at 9.40pm as we were both still so exhausted. During the night I didn't throw up at all which was a relief. Fin.

20th January 2008 // Day 6 // Datong (Shanxi) --> Taiyuan (Shanxi)

Today had to be comparatively better than the day before, regardless of what happened! It was a good day in its own right in the end anyway. We began the day at the healthy time of 9am and went out to find some caves. The reason we'd come to Datong was to see the famous Yunggang Grottoes. We also wanted to see the Hanging Temple but it turned out it was actually quite far from Datong (69km) and was not accessible right now because of the snow, so we had to give it a miss. We noticed a brown tourism sign pointing the way to the caves. We looked at a bus timetable but of course we didn't know what stop we were looking for so it was futile. As per usual, we jumped in a cab and asked the driver to take us to the bus stop for the caves. He of course offered to take us himself but we preferred the cheaper option and jumped on a number 3 at the recommended stop. Seconds later, three Americans also got on - our first white people on the whole trip! They said hi and were friendly but it feels somehow strange to be around white English speakers who understood our every word. We'd been hoping to not really run into any other foreign travellers until Beijing at the earliest.
The caves were reached through a long road basically in the middle of the nowhere but surrounded by the noted Datong coalmines. We got off, got 30 yuan student tickets and began touring the caves. The sculpting was magnificent, really mind-blowing, especially considering that it was so old and had stood the test of time. It was not only the technique but the pure spiritual devotion which most astounded me. I took photos which was apparently banned but I saw plenty of others doing it, so I kept my flash off and took the majority from outside the caves with the zoom on. We saw the caves very quickly and could surprisingly spot some of the stylistic changes through the ages (those caves took a long time to craft!) with the different influences on Chinese Buddhism, and while I don't doubt that it was only the glaringly obvious differences that we spotted, I think these days we are becoming quite the experts in sinicized Buddhism, considering the fact that before coming here I had never entered a Buddhist temple. I find it hard to believe that that was the case because I am now sick to the back teeth of them! But it's true.
Some of the statues were still in astoundingly good condition with the original paint still on. Others had discoloured, some had chips or cracks or slight erosion damage. The very worst weathered ones were barely recognizable, and some had been stolen. The biggest problem, though, was the soot damage; because the main thoroughfare for coal transportation had run close to the caves, the exposed parts of all the carvings were coated in a filthy layer of ebrasive soot, which presumably could not be safely/easily removed. The stark contrast between the non-polluted undersides showed us how the statues had looked in all their glory. A small museum showed us the measures that had been taken to prevent more damage - the main coal-ferrying road had been basically lifted up and moved much further away.
We caught a bus back to Datong and saw that we had plenty of time for more temples (at this point we still weren't too sick of them!) We didn't stop for any lunch because I wasn't eating and neither was Liam, so it seemed. Our first stop was Huayan Temple. We got a taxi - it was freezing! The driver informed us that there was in fact an upper and a lower temple. We started with the upper, which was 20 kuai entry and was an absolute rip-off. There was nothing of any interest to see, and no particularly spectacular scenery, views or architecture. After a mere 15 minutes or so, we meandered our way down to Huayan Lower Temple. This one was only 10 in, and was considerably better, including five museums about various seemingly unrelated artefacts and historic periods; interesting nevertheless. We left the temple and next found our own way (thanks to Liam's rather astounding navigational skills) to the Nine Dragon Screen. Thes were built for auspiciousness and this was the largest one in all of China. It was a huge greenish-black ornate wall carved with nine writhing dragons. 5 kuai to see and I think that's worth it, though my fingers nearly fell off from the cold changing my camera batteries. All for one final photo as well.
We had one final stop which was the Drum Tower. Not knowing what to expect, Liam and I got there and we found a tower on a large traffic island which was fairly pretty, though nothing special, and couldn't be entered, let alone climbed, to our disappointment.
Jumped in a cab and came back to the train station. Our train left for Taiyuan, at 11.30pm, and it was still only very early at 4.30pm. We found an internet cafe but it was full so we crossed the street to another (they really are everywhere here in China) where we whiled away four hours. Next we crossed back over the street and we went to Mr Lee's American Noodle chain, where Liam had a bowl of California beef noodles and my mouth watered in envy. At last we reclaimed our bags from the bag deposit and went to wait it out in the station. I labelled all my photos and then thought it was 15 minutes to the train's departure. I was wondering why there was no mad queuing and rush yet. At "11.20" with only 10 minutes to go I was about to say "what the hell is going on?" When I realised it was actually only 10.20. I slumped in frustration at having a whole nother hour to wait but Liam lent me his book Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (brilliant book, read it! And while you're at it, read his Nobel Prize-winning One Hundred Years of Solitude. Mind-blowingly good.). I was quite getting into it and was a bit annoyed when the train turned up!
The train journey was our second night train (the first being the horrific Baotou one), through the night from 11.30pm till 7am the next day, so I was glad we were fortuitous enough to get a sleeper. The sleeper was a hard one which means six metal bunks to a section, in two sets of three. Plus no compartment doors. Soft sleeper is four bunks to a section, compartment doors, slightly thicker I want to say mattress but I mean padded-with-straw sheet, with a lot more room and privacy. But a hard sleeper is more than acceptable; I mean yeah we only had like 2 inches of space, but we were perfectly comfortable! We were in adjoining top bunks (top bunks are cheaper!), which were nigh on impossible to get into for someone with such short legs as me - I know the Chinese in general have similar legs, but then most of them were trained from birth to be Olympic gymnasts, or so it seems - and it was most amusing to us to get up there and attempt to get settled in for the night without room to properly sit up. But once we were ready, it was quite cosy! But I had to be careful not to lift my head up too enthusiastically because I would bash it on the ceiling.
I had finally permitted myself food for the day, thinking the vomiting was finally done. In the station I had two dry 'French bread' (weird sweet sponge things, not French in any way and most certainly not bread), half an hour apart, because I thought I might faint! Really I should've waited to the next morning to be on the safe side and fulfill 48 hours but I had no ill effects and then the willpower caved in. On the train I was curled up snacking on Oreos and reading my book when the lights went out all of a sudden at midnight. Hugging my phone so I would definitely hear my 6.40am alarm, I settled down, and soon, surprisingly enough considering my environment and the amount of sleep I'd had already recently, I fell straight to sleep.

The absolutely stunning carved ceiling of just one of the caves.

The huge Buddha of cave 25 (the cave walls have since collapsed but the colossal carving is still there).

The Nine Dragon Screen in all its glory.

A close-up of dragon number 3, so you can see how intricate the glazed carving is.

Spring Festival Travels 4 - Hohhot

2008-04-15T14:09:00.003+01:00

18th January // Day 4 // Hohhot/Huhehaote (Inner Mongolia)

Sadly 7am seemed too early to drag ourselves out of bed and we finally managed to get up for half ten. I'd planned to wash a few items of clothes and have a shower but there was no hot water, though there had been the night before, so getting out of the room didn't take long at all. We decided to go to the tomb of Wang Zhaojun, and then find some traditional food. We went to the tomb by taxi, which cost us 60 yuan as we had to pay for the taxi to pass the tolls and then return. Still an unfair price, but we had already lost our willpower to argue with the flippin rip-off merchants.
Wang Zhaojun was a candidate Imperial Concubine, meaning she lived in the harem but was never picked out by the emperor. The reason that she never was picked out despite her stunning beauty was because she was too upstanding and proud to pay off the court painter to paint her well, as was the traditional way. The emperor needed a concubine to offer the khan (king) of the Huns, Khukhenye, to unite the kingdoms in peace after years and years of unrest, and he offered Wang Zhaojun. At the wedding, he finally came to see how beautiful she was, but it was too late and she was married to the khan. The emperor took his anger out on the painter by having him executed for his corruption. Wang Zhaojun very quickly adapted to life with the Hun people in Mongolia and ever since has been honoured and remembered by both the Mongolians and the Chinese as an excellent peacekeeper and general all-round Good Woman. The tomb was set on a hill which is often called the Green Tomb because it is said that even when the rest of the land has become sparse through the barren winter, vegetation continues to grow on the hillside. It's true that it did have plants on it, but nothing spectacular really. After exploring the grounds for a while, and avoiding being attacked by a rather large goose which was viciously protecting its trophy bin, we thought it best to go back as we weren't sure how much time we'd need for the rest of the day's tourism. There was a bus back apparently but we weren't sure where, so we ended up in a private hire taxi (illegal, illegal!) A mini-bus had turned up, but according to the driver was waiting for a group of tourists to finish up and we just couldn't be wasting time. The car cost 50 kuai and took us straight to the door of our requested restaurant, which also happened to be conveniently near the three temples we wanted to see. At the restaurant we had some delicious shaomai dumplings, a Mongolian speciality of very juicy lamb filling with paper thin dumpling skin. Because the skin was so thin they kept exploding in our chopsticks which was embarrassing seeing as, as per usual, we were being closely inspected by the waitresses to see if we knew how to use chopsticks. We ate them dipped in vinegar spiced with chilli, and also had some naibaicai (like cabbage but much yummier).
After finishing 24 dumplings between us we staggered with full stomachs down the road to the Xilitu Temple and looked around. It was a pretty Buddhist temple with obvious classic Tibetan influence. Before seeing the temple I wondered how I would possibly notice Tibetan influence, not being an expert or anything... but actually it's really obvious. I have been to so many Buddhist temples now that I am starting to be able to spot Thai, Tibetan, Indian etc influences and so on, particularly in their statues of the Buddha, and the absence or existence of Tibetan style prayer flags and stupas, as well as hada (Mongolian and Tibetan sacred scarves. I have been made an honorary Mongolian by the blessing with a hada around my neck! The Mongolian hada come in two colours, white or blue. White represents peace and prosperity, and blue is representative of the freedom of the endless blue Mongolian sky. So they tell me...) The next temple was the Dazhao Temple. The guidebook claimed that the Xilitu was the largest and prettiest, but the Dazhao was clearly much bigger, and is apparently even more noteworthy for its mix of Han and Tibetan architecture, though in terms of architecture I am unable to tell where the influencing factors come from. In the Dazhao Temple we saw their famous 2.5m high silver Buddha which was blessed by the 3rd Dalai Lama in the 16th century. This was also the most busy temple of the day, with lots of monks wandering around and other worshippers praying and burning incense. This was also the temple where I spotted a monk texting on his mobile, which I pointed out to Liam as being a bit incongruous somehow!
Next stop was the Five Pagoda Temple. The temple originally had 5 pagodas, each with five pagodas on them in turn, but now only one was surviving. This temple was supposed to be near the others but was not immediately visible, so we walked in the direction it should be in. The buildings we were walking past were really pretty; even just for grocers and corner shops the architects and builders had put a lot of effort into maintaining an ethnic Mongolian appearance for the city. I was also pleased to see so much Mongolian script on practically every building. I love any sign of the multi-culturalness of Chinese society being proudly displayed instead of ashamedly hushed up. We finally reached Five Pagoda Temple Street, which sounded like a good place to look! At the end of the road we found the entrance to the temple but it was padlocked and the ticket office closed. We were very disappointed but walked along the walls to take a photo of the one remaining pagoda. Liam was all for going home in disappointment but for some reason I felt that it was somehow necessary to continue walking around the walls, thinking perhaps we'd get a better view of the pagoda from the north wall. And good job I did, because we suddenly found ourselves next to a ticket office with people in! It was pretty clear we were too late for normal visiting hours but they let us in anyway. Every single building but one was padlocked up but I peeked through the gaps to catch teasing glimpses of gold Buddhas and offerings. We saw the famous pagoda up close at last and also the Mongolian astrological chart, the only one of its kind in the world, which is what Liam and I had respectively specifically come to see.
We got a taxi back to the hotel, and just in time too because there was a fairly good chance my fingers would have dropped off from frostbite had I stayed outside any longer. We lay down a bit so I could write some diary and so Liam could warm his feet up - they'd gone completely numb with cold as our fingers and toes are wont to do in the freezing northern winter. At half eight we left the room once again in search of a recommended restaurant in the guidebook that was on the road perpendicular to our hotel's road. However the road, Hulan Beier proved to be frickin looooong. We randomly chose a direction and began to walk. We looked at the timetable for a bus stop, but the timetable aggravatingly didn't say where on the route we were. Suddenly Liam was like "found it!" and marched off up the road. He seemed so assured that I didn't bother to hang around and look for myself but after a while it became very apparent that we'd gone the wrong way. We got in a taxi instead and went 1.4km in the opposite direction and found ourselves the most intriguing restaurant ever. Each table of customers had their own private Mongolian yurt. The restaurant was at a horse-racing track (being Mongolian n all) but we didn't see the track because it was so dark. The menu had photos of celebrations on horseback as well. We ordered milk tea, milk cakes, and roasted sheep ribs, all of which are Mongolian specialities, and then some baicai. The milk tea was vile and tasted like salted butter. Neither of us could stomach it. The milk cakes were equally bizarre though a bit more edible. They had a texture similar to those big flumpy banana sweets, but far chewier, and tasted like non-sweet Golden Monkey milk chews, with a very sour yoghurt aftertaste. The ribs and the baicai were incredible though. So delicious! We finished everything! Finally we went back home, where we were delighted to find we had hot water once more. I had a lovely shower at long last, during which Liam recieved a phone call from a very husky-voiced prostitute offering a 'massage' (in China they ring round the hotels for clients) which he politely declined! I then set my alarm for 5.55am and got into bed around ten past eleven to sleep.

Lots of photos (back when I was still interested in temples. I thought I'd post up a lot of photos of the beautiful Buddhist temples so you can see what the best ones look like. After a while I stopped taking photos of them, because I'd seen so many!)

Wang Zhaojun's Green Tomb, plus the tomb grounds. The statue through the archway is Wang Zhaojun and her husband Khukhenye on horseback.

Dharmapalas (wrathful guardians) in the Xilitu Temple.

Tibetan Buddhist stupa in the Xilitu Temple - note the Tiebtan multi-coloured prayer flags.

This Buddha carving has 10,000 eyes and 10,000 hands (the eyes are on the hands). Amazing. Having said that, it may have been just 1000. Can't find out anywhere : (

This is just a simple prayer hall, but look how effortlessly beautiful and colourful it is!

The noteworthy 2.5m high Silver Buddha, blessed by the 3rd Dalai Lama. As this statue is the most important part of the temple, the temple itself is often called Yinfo Si (Silver Buddha Temple) by locals.

How Mongolian! A horse statue in a temple, seeing as they revere their horses, all draped in Tibetan prayer flags.

The sole remaining Five Pagoda Pagoda.

The entire surface of the pagoda was carved like this. The script running horizontal is Tibetan, and the downwards script is Mongolian.

Our restaurant yurts - I recommend this place if ever you get a chance to go!

Spring Festival Travels 3 - Baotou

2008-04-15T14:00:00.003+01:00

17th January 2008 // Day 3 // Yinchuan (Ningxia Hui) --> Baotou (Inner Mongolia) --> Hohhot/Huhehaote (Inner Mongolia)

So there we were in the slightly warmer waiting room. I went to the bathroom and when I returned, even though it was half an hour till our train was due to go, everyone had been let out onto the platform and the only people left were Liam and two ticket attendants. I got my stuff and they stamped our tickets and then out we were, standing in the freeze waiting for our train to turn up! It was only the dozen or so people from the small waiting room but when the train arrived and we tried to get on they directed us to a carriage further down. By the time we got there they'd let everybody else out and so the queue for our carriage was massive. We went along to the next one down, where the woman looked at our tickets, then dubiously back at us, and finally allowed us on, though she directed us back down the train. I think we were in the wrong place but she didn't want to go through the hassle of explaining this to two foreigners. Sometimes I do love to play the stupid Westerner card.
The train was packed full but we found a little alcove by one of the compartment doors, where we could wait until everyone had settled and then see what the craic was. We had a no-seat ticket. But the train was already on its way and loads of people were still standing so we guessed that it was like all Chinese trains - completely overcrowded. I left Liam with the bags and scouted out the next compartment, but it was all the same. Also there were no places for us to set up camp. The trains we'd taken in Xinjiang at least had had bits by the stairs to house those without seats, but this train did not. We settled down on top of our bags and exhaustedly tried to sleep. It was all in vain though as the train was stupidly cold, and every time someone opened the door to the compartment I started to shiver uncontrollably. We had a lovely passenger in a red coat who was standing next to the door and closing it every time someone came through and rudely and inconsiderately left it swinging open, but he found himself a seat and so every time it was left open I had to get up to close it. No chance of settling down there! I gave up and woke myself up. A group of migrant workers got on, and at first they really annoyed me. At one point about seven of them were just standing above us and looking down at us like animals in a zoo. However when I was picking at a hangnail one offered me his nail clippers. I was exhausted and so forgot to open them before I tried to use them; they all laughed at me but it was good-natured. Then they let me file and clean my nails but didn't talk to me even when I thanked them in Chinese. Next I got out my book and started to write my diary and they started to discuss between themselves whether it was Russian or not, at which point I interrupted and told them it was in fact English. They looked at me in total amazement and then chatted with me for a bit. One guy was utterly convinced I was Russian and I could do nothing to convince him otherwise. They got me to read out a passage from their newspaper and they seemed impressed so it was all good. Then a kid came over and told them that they shouldn't stare and talk to Westerners because we don't like it. True, this is sometimes the case, but actually I think when Chinese people talk to us it is excellent free practice and I was really quite enjoying myself! The men didn't speak to me after that, just stared in a bizarrely paternal way. I saw a seat next to a woman in a white coat who had been giving me evils for ages; she liked me even less when I asked if someone was sitting there and she had to say no. I tried to wake Liam up but he was refusing to open his eyes so I went and took the seat. Then nobody was in the seat opposite for ages so I got Liam and we both had seats! A man came over not long after Liam had sat down and kicked Liam out of his seat, but his alcove place had already been usurped by the migrant workers, so he stood next to me. The man behind him took pity and kindly gave him his seat, so we spent the next three hours snoozing and occasionally dozing off.
We reached Baotou at 7am. Just before, they had opened all the curtains and we found out why it was so cold - the windows were laced with snow and frost, and outside the compartment in the smoking bit the windows had a covering of a sheet of ice - on the INSIDE! This shoked us at the time but after weeks of Northern Chinese train travel we soon got pretty used to it - it's a fairly standard situation. A girl who I will call Sophie came and spoke to me in pretty good English and was weirdly enough studying at Xinjiang Agriculture University (pretty near our uni in Urumqi). She was really nice actually, and I may contact her now I'm back in Urumqi. She gave me the best present ever: a flask full of hot water to warm my hands! No offence to all of you that have bought me diamond rings and fancy electronic devices and so on... but right then I would have sold my kidney for an ounce of warmth! Heaven. She let me keep it as well!
Baotou was equally cold. We were delighted to be in a brand new province though (an autonomous region actually)! Immediately on arrival, we went straight to the ticket office to get tickets on to the capital of Inner Mongolia, Hohhot (Huhehaote). For no certain reason, a staff member asked where we were going while we were in the middle of a queue, and when we told her Hohhot, she directed us straight to the front of the queue, where we bought hard seats to Hohhot for just 23 kuai. Next we got in a taxi and asked for the bus station. "Which one?" asks the driver. Whichever one can get us to Genghis Khan's Mausoleum - the reason we were in Baotou! "Oh, you can't get a bus today," he says. "None of them are running on the expressway because the weather is so bad." He took us to the station anyway, where we were immediately met with a desperate mob of taxi drivers. We wanted to go to the mausoleum; me especially badly, given my new-found obsession with anything Mongolian, but the prices we were being offered to get us there were extortionate. We had some choices: go to a nearby town and try to get a bus from there, though they also would probably not be running; get a taxi to the mausoleum but be left there to find our own way back (the least logical idea ever - the mausoleum is in the middle of the grasslands, ie. nowhere, and we wouldn't be able to get back for love nor money!); or get a taxi there and back for 1000 kuai. We eventually got a man down to 800, and another girl came in the taxi. It was ridiculous. We'd already missed Yan'an and we needed more success than this! So off we went. It was quarter to nine and we had tickets to Hohhot for that afternoon, so time was of the essence. By the time we left, the weather had worked itself up into a proper snowstorm. I had never seen snow like it. The driver asked if we had ever seen this much snow before, and before we could answer the girl rudely said "they don't understand." Charming individual.
On the way I fell asleep, and woke up when we were stopped by the police. They had a chat with us about the usual: what country we're from, studying, travelling, etc; played with our passports a bit and then let us on our way. It seemed utterly pointless. I fell back asleep and this time when I woke up the girl was gone and we could see the buildings of the mausoleum on the horizon. We got out and the driver told us we had to be really quick so he could get us back in time for our train. So speed tourism it was.
The mausoleum turned out to be a museum built in the shape of the Mongolian script of the word Emperor (hehan) dedicated to Genghis Khan and the Yuan Dynasty of China, established by Genghis Khan's nephew Kublai Khan, and a grassland with huge larger-than-life models of the Genghis Khan war machine. There was a huge relief map on the floor depicting the Mongol Empire but as it had snowed we couldn't see anything. By now the snow had stopped and the sky was the clearest blue. We reached the end gate and there seemed to be more buildings down a looooong driveway. There was a guard standing at the gate who said that these buildings were new-ish and and were built on the site of the original mausoleum, and that we'd have to walk all the way down and pay more. We were worried about time and decided not to, though I wish desperately that we had now, as it turned out we had plenty of time. But often mausoleums are pretty empty and it is the actual building that is important, and that we saw. In fact the exact site of Genghis Khan's burial ground is unknown: he was buried by his attendants, who were then all killed by soldiers to prevent the sacred secret from coming out, and in turn those soldiers were assassinated. So nobody knows where he is buried.
We hurried back and soon we were speeding back to Baotou, along highways that were very definitely open and not covered in any snow at all! The driver took us to the station for our 19.55 train, but it was only half four so we went somewhere to eat. We came across a little restaurant and had the most foul kungpao chicken and pass over the oil meat I've ever put in my mouth. The meat was pork where I'm used to eating beef (eating in Xinjiang, a Moslem region, pork is fairly rare) and the chicken was pale and chewy and had no spice! The flavours were weird and it made me a bit nauseous. We went over to a supermarket which is now officially my favourite Chinese supermarket of all time. A random old female shop assistant came over, patted me on the shoulder and very kindly said "waiguoren" (foreigner). Normally I get a bit annoyed at being thus labelled all the time, but her maternal tone of voice really flummoxed me! I didn't know how to respond, so I just smiled and walked on a bit. Then I heard her and a girl customer in the shop discussing how pretty I was! Next, I found tubes of what appeared to be Cadbury's chocolate eclairs. I guessed they'd be fake seeing as you can't get Cadbury's over here, but bought some to try and they taste authentic and were cheap too! Finally at the till, a guy asked if we spoke Chinese and we replied yes, to which our cashier in all seriousness said "Of course they do, they're Chinese experts, aren't you." Then I think he undercharged us. (I only realised this later or I would have given them their money, seeing as they were so nice to me!) Lovely shop : )
Baotou train station was far more comfortable than Yinchuan's, and we waited out the few hours easily. There was a really cute little toddler with a topknot who we wanted to babynap. She was running around having fun with her big sister but she kept not being able to locate her mother. At one point she ran up to us calling me 'mom' until she noticed that we were not, in fact, her mother but two white laowai. She stopped in total astonishment, then ran away.
We boarded our train and got to our seats quickly. In our group of six seats, were two migrant workers and a little toddler girl and her mother, and a man that Liam quickly claimed as his future husband. The girl was adorable and so clearly meant to be my daughter. First she ate 3 mini oranges, then two chicken feet (oh yum) and then started on this huge bready thing. She was really chatty and precociously intelligent and asked the group at large whose food was whose on the table. A man gave her another bread style thing and so she happily had two on the go at once. She discussed our foreignness with her mom and was truly delighted when Liam and I stuck our tongues out at each other. I read the China guidebook and she said that when she was a big girl she was going to read big books like me too. We decided she was really clever. When Liam was messing around pulling faces nobody noticed. Then I said, I bet the girl does, because she knows... well, she just KNOWS. Liam repeated, yeah, she KNOWS. and then the little girl repeated she KNOWS in a really cute voice. Creepily accurate impression for one so young. When Liam went off to smoke she jumped up and came up to me and asked me something, which I didn't understand. Everybody around me laughed and waited for my reaction. I said sorry, I don't understand, and she seemed perfectly delighted with that. Then she asked the migrant man opposite me whether she could get past. He caught her up and asked her what's her name in standard Chinese ("ni jiao shenme mingzi?") but with a fairly strong accent. She told him she couldn't understand his Chinese! (fair play to her really). Her mom had to translate. She told him Bai Mengxia but in turn he couldn't understand her. I liked to see this lack of understanding played out in front of me, though I found it a little strange because I, a foreigner, could understand them both. Then she kept asking him his name in the northern Chinese way "ni jiao sha ya?" over and over again, but he pretended not to understand. She found a little friend and they played a walking up and down the carriage game. That was our entertainment for the trip. So cute! You can tell I wanted to keep this girl!
We arrived at Hohhot and as at Baotou instantly bought our tickets to the next destination, Datong. We offered our student cards for a discount and had to wait ages before we were told we couldn't use them. Tickets 33 kuai each to Datong. It was snowing in Hohhot but we didn't have good directions to a guesthouse Liam had found on the internet so we asked a taxi driver. He was really unhelpful but we eventually found out from him where the road we wanted was. We walked along and found the place the guesthouse, number 78, was supposed to be, between 76 and 80. It clearly exists only in a parallel universe, because it just wasn't there. We walked back to a bingguan (hotel) we'd seen and got a standard room with double bed for two nights, and almost immediately (quarter to twelve) set our alarms for 7am and turned in. Liam and I have become quite adept at sharing a bed now which is useful because it means we can get any pretty much any accommodation.

A Mongolian army horseman... scary stuff.

Hehan (Khan/Emperor). Kudos to the architects for making a museum in this shape!

The Mongolians luuurrve Genghis Khan! This is the memorial shrine to him at the mausoleum, complete with hada and monetary offerings.

The mausoleum building.

Oh wow. BLUEBLUESKY. This is the official noun for such an amazing expanse of blue. Living in Urumqi in winter, with the extreme levels of pollution, seeing this sky was just plain breathtaking.

Spring Festival Travels 2 - Yinchuan 2

2008-04-15T13:49:00.003+01:00

16th January 2008 // Day 2 // Yinchuan (Ningxia Hui)

Dragged myself awake and out of bed by half nine after a rather pleasant hot shower. I'd been travelling for a single day and I already appreciated the joy of a shower! We jumped in a taxi and asked for the bus station, which turned out to be literally just down the road. At the bus station we bought 119 kuai tickets to Yan'an, on a sleeper bus, and then asked if there was a bus to Xixia Wangling (Western Xia Dynasty Tombs). The tombs are Yinchuan's main attraction, but lie far out from the city. Obviously at a long distance bus station they wouldn't have buses to the tombs, but we thought it was worth a try. No luck. We asked at information if we could leave our bags, and to our surprise, there was indeed a cavernous left luggage room. We now know that they have these at every bus and train station in China, but at the time, and being used to typical Chinese lack of organisation, we didn't know. We left our bags and walked out into the main square of Yinchuan, which is like a diddy Tiananmen, to look for a bus. We saw the 31 which went to Xixia Park but we thought that was just a park and not the actual tombs. There was nobody to ask either. We did a full lap of the square and found a man fixing a bus and asked him. He told us the name of a different square and then pointed back in the general direction of the long-distance bus station we had just come from. We decided instead of searching forever we'd just ask a taxi driver for the square, but the first one we asked said it didn't exist! So we mustered our courage with some street food (horrible baked things, it turned out, ick) and tried another taxi. This taxi driver, a woman, seemed friendly and I asked if she could just take us to the bus stop for the tombs. She said okay so I got in the front. Then she unsurprisingly asked why we didn't get a taxi all the way to the tombs. We said it was too far, and therefore too expensive. She said she'd take us there, wait, and then return us to Yinchuan bus station for 100 yuan. We worked it out and actually it wasn't much more than we would have paid doing it all by bus so we accepted, though even at that point we suspected she'd find a way to squeeze more money out of us. 100 seemed far too reasonable to me so I worked out roughly how much money she'd make by staying in the city for an equal length of time and it did seem like she'd still be making a killing in comparison at 100, so our suspicions lessened a little. So off we went. For the entire journey I was sitting in the front and not making conversation which was a bit awkward. I just can't seem to get over my shyness of talking to Chinese people! We got to the tombs and started to walk up a never-ending driveway to what we hoped were the tombs. Halfway there a little golf cart bus thing pulled up with loads of Chinese tourists on it, and we hopped on too. It was bone-chilling going up the path with the wind whipping past us, but we were already getting more resilient in terms of the cold. We were dropped off at a museum which was fairly interesting; a bit about the Western Xia period and lots of artefacts, including many of the originals of replicas we'd seen at the Ningxia Museum the day before. We left the museum and walked on for a bit on foot until we found another place to go into. In this building there were lots of waxwork models depicting the rise and very momentous fall of the Western Xia Kingdom - it was 'obliterated' by the Mongols on orders from Genghis Khan on his deathbed. Wondering where the actual tombs were, we climbed a little corner tower thing and spotted a giant tomb (therefore an emperor's tomb, not just a courtier's (who had mini tombs, dotted all over the place, which we'd already come across)). It was tomb number 3, Li Yuanhao's. We found a path towards it and took our photos before the population of China (read: tour group) could catch us up. The tombs look a lot like beehives or termite hills now, because they were destroyed by the Mongol army and grave robbers, but originally they were all constructed like pagodas, some with 5 floors and some with 7. After taking a photograph of ourselves with a Kalavinka (a Buddhist deity thing with wings), we got back in the taxi. We'd been a little worried that she'd have left us, as the tombs really were in the middle of nowhere. Ah but she was still there, waiting to take our money off us. Next the taxi lady asked us if we'd seen some city place, but we'd never even heard of it, so when she offered to take us and told us that it was a must-see, we agreed to go and have a look. We guessed she might add a price onto the 100 for this but we thought it couldn't be too excessive. When we got there we discovered it was a film set which had two replica "cities": one Qing Dynasty and one Ming Dynasty, and a courtyard dedicated to the Cultural Revolution. Basically producers used the cities as film sets for period dramas and films. It was surprisingly interesting, and apparently vital to the Chinese film industry - hundreds of films had been made there, though we hadn't seen any. It would have been more interesting if we had, I suppose. I had the fright of my life when a sheep baaed behind me - that was because I was already on edge from one of the film sets which was like caves full of skulls and spiderwebs. Then in one of the caves there was this giant 'spider' hanging from the roof with a woman's head and loads of breasts... creepy stuff. There were also lots of freakily realistic models of humans and animals, and even some real camels and horses. There were little houses we could go in which were built and furnished in either the Qing or Ming style, and a boring two storey museum dedicated solely to movie posters. We thought, naively, that it was just films that had been filmed in this set, but then we came across Harry Potter and some old British classics and realised it was, in fact, just a random selection of posters. Finally we visited the small Cultural Revolution courtyard. There were posters up like the old denouncing posters and then a room like a prison cell, with a model of a prisoner in it, as well as cuttings from old newspapers on the walls. There were also a lot of film stills about the Revolution and it looked really intimidating. Outside there was a platform with a desk on it, a microphone, and Mao's Little Red Book, clearly where announcements (and denouncements) would have been made. In front of it there was a model of a man on his knees in the intellectuals' dunce hat. What bothered me most was that the Chinese tourists there seemed really into it, and took photos of themselves beating the model, pointing guns at him and doing the Communist fist-clenched salute. I also held a gun, but as a Western Imperialist Running Dog I can safely say that it was ironic; I certainly didn't feel the sincere zeal for it that these people do!
We get back in the taxi and the woman suddenly announces that she's charging us an extra 100 for this detour. We didn't have much choice in the matter because we were still in the middle of nowhere, so we figured we'd argue with her about it when we got back to Yinchuan. When we got there though, she simply refused our bargaining and so we ended up giving her an extra 100 after all. She said it wasn't her car so she had to pay more, plus tolls plus the detour... though she said she understood we were students and didn't have much money, she claimed she too had no choice but to ask for more. Cheek.
It was freezing cold so we power-walked our way through the streets in search of a restaurant, and eventually found a little out-of-the-way place. The woman instantly said "oh they don't understand" and then when we said we did and conducted everything in Chinese she seemed to find it hilarious and kept turning round to the other staff and giggling. Ordinarily we would have walked out at such rudeness, but we just couldn't be bothered to find another place. We ordered fried aubergine and small fried lamb, both of which were really nice and very filling! The whole restaurant smelt of toilet, but the toilets themselves had their own particularly special smell. We left and went to the bus station to get on our bus to Yan'an. We waited about an hour and then went to the gate to board the bus. About 5 minutes before it was due, we were told that no bus would be running to Yan'an because of the really bad weather conditions, and that we could get a full refund on our tickets. We were at a bit of a loss as to what to do. A staff member took our tickets and returned with our refund, which was nice of her. We thought we'd try our luck at the train station. Liam had previously researched and found that to get to Yan'an by train you have to go through Xi'an! (Huge detour.) But off we went anyway.
When we got to the train station we thought it best to look at timetables before joining one of the three giant snaking queues. There didn't appear to be anything going to Yan'an so we decided we'd try for Baotou if there actually was no train to Yan'an. There was a train at 18.43 to Baotou and we joined the shortest queue at 6pm, thinking if the queue were efficient we'd make it. However we had the slowest of all the queues (sod's law) with a really inefficient clerk and loads of people pushing in. We got really annoyed, as you might, and started badmouthing everything at which point the man in front of us told Liam he understood what we were saying and agreed. That didn't stop him from letting someone in in front of him though, even knowing what a rush we were in. I was surprised that nobody tried to push in front of us - apparently the Chinese consider it an achievement to push in front of a white person (this has to do with the old inferiority complex thing they have with us Imperialist Powers, originating from the days of yore...). Several have tried to push in front of me during my time in China and realised I am not a weak option! I have no issue with physically pulling/pushing them out of my way if they try their luck. I also tell them to queue. This is often met with looks of complete bewilderment. 'Queuing? What is this queuing thing you talk of? We have certainly never come across such a thing in OUR country!' When we learnt the Chinese for 'to queue' we were really surprised that they actually had a word for it, seeing as they definitely don't understand the concept of the action.
I digress. We'd pretty much abandoned the idea of Yan'an by now and so when we finally got to the front we asked for tickets to Baotou instead. We'd missed the 18.43 ticket-selling cut-off point (depending on the station, this can be 20/15/10 minutes before the train is due to leave) and thought the next train was at 4am, fortunately (I like to look on the bright side) it was only at 00.40. We had little choice but to go and wait for the next 6 hours: it was very cold out and neither of us were hungry, and there was nowhere else to go! Our tickets were 67 yuan, for no seats. Comfy.
The waiting room was freezing and the toilets vile. I went off to walk simply because I couldn't feel my toes and I thought perhaps I could walk some sensation back into my feet. It didn't work, but I did come across a smaller waiting room with comfortable seats, a hot water machine, and a TV screen. I went right in and nobody stopped me, but it seemed like a first-class lounge or something and I expected to sit in it, we'd have to pay. I heard the woman at the desk outside the door saying it was 8 yuan to enter but that seemed too good to be true! What was the craic with this? Why was everyone sitting out in the freezing cold with plastic seats as hard as nails when for 8 kuai they could have comfort? Cheapskates! (This is when I notice my superior rich Westerner attitude creeping in...) Anyway I fetched Liam and it was in fact true that for 8 kuai we got entrance and a cup of hot tea that we could refill when we liked. Heaven! We played cards and ate some hongshao niurou fangbian mian (instant beef noodles) to warm us up. When they opened the doors to let people onto a train, it felt like they'd opened the door to the Arctic Tundra. We spent a lot of time practically hugging the bars covering the radiator; this was our survival method.
Suddenly at around half ten/11pm, they rather unceremoniously switched the lights off in the room and turfed us all out. However when we came out (last, as they hadn't bothered to tell us what was going on and we had our stuff to get together) they directed us into an even smaller, warmer room with a small group of people in it, to wait. Other people tried to come in, and the staff wouldn't let them even when they offered to pay. We seemed to have somehow stumbled onto a bit of luck at last, and this is where we were at the end of the day - passing the last few minutes until the train would arrive.

Tomb 3 and the impressive mountain scenery behind it.

Me in front of Tomb 3. If I hadn't known it was a tomb, I'd be looking around fearfully for some monster termites right about now...

I am a Kalavinka.

And Liam is a Ming Dynasty peasant.

And this is one scary-ass spiderwoman. The photo does not do justice to how much we were creeped out by this.

And now I am a Red Guard, about to do damage to the dirty dirty intellectual.

This is a view out of one of the buildings down onto the replica Qing Dynasty street.

Spring Festival Travels 1 - Yinchuan 1

2008-04-15T13:41:00.002+01:00

15th January 2008 // Day 1 // Yinchuan (Ningxia Hui)

So the first stop on our rather lengthy list of destinations was Yinchuan in Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. Avid readers of my blog (but I'll assume there are none of you out there) might remember that we had already stopped here at Christmas when our flight was delayed, but this would be our first time as tourists, and non food-poisoning-ridden at that.
I woke up after a terrible night's sleep. In our apartment we have an intercom which has an inbuilt alarm, and for some unknown reason it went off all night. I was so unimpressed. I went to bed at 2am as well and which meant I would have only had 4 hours 28 minutes' sleep IF the alarm had NOT gone off. So off I was on my travels with about three hours' sleep. Catherine was leaving for Hong Kong on the same day, but her flight was a little earlier so we said our goodbyes. We wouldn't be seeing her for a month and a half! :.(
We left the house at 8.30, got our flight at 9.55, and took off at 10.30. I was sitting next to an annoying man who of course didn't understand to turn his phone off when the cabin doors were shut, but otherwise not so bad. A really idiotic woman laughed and pointed at Liam which was so incredibly rude that it visibly annoyed both of us. She saw our reaction but spent the rest of the flight giggling, and poking the man in front of her in the back of the head, and dropping food down his collar. She knew him though. But what a mature lady!
Dinner on the flight was beef, rice and potatoes with a horribly dry bread-like thing, and a pear. We landed at 12.50 and discovered that the new multi-province SIM cards we'd bought so we could keep in touch with everyone throughout our travel time did not in fact work outside Xinjiang Autonomous Region. We got a 15 kuai shuttle bus into town, which reminded me of the trip we'd taken at Christmas. We got off the bus at what looked like a fairly central place, and started walking around looking for a reasonably-priced hotel. We spotted a very well-hidden little hostel, and booked a room for 64 kuai. It wasn't bad though we later found cockroaches. Cockroaches now really don't especially bother me. Especially Chinese cockroaches, which Catherine (who is pertrified of them) actually described the other day as 'almost quite cute really'. We went back out again almost straight away and got a five kuai taxi to Chongtian Temple. Getting a 5 kuai taxi really excited us seeing as the flag-fall in Urumqi is 6. Simple minds...
In the grounds of the Chongtian Temple is the Ningxia Hui Museum. We paid 12 kuai each on student tickets to get in. The entire place was deserted. We went to one exhibition hall about the Western Xia Dynasty (which was the only country/region/people/kingdom etc to fend off Genghis Khan, and which eventually brought about difficulties for the Mongolian Empire. The huge Mongolian Empire shrank in size after their war with the Western Xia Kingdom weakened them, though it still ran China under the Yuan Dynasty for ages. Genghis Khan, however, ordered the decimation of the Western Xia Kingdom from his deathbed, and, well, that was the end of them.) We were next directed: "over there, red house" by the woman in the exhibition. We went over to the only red building we could see but it was locked, and it transpired that all the other buildings were also padlocked up, including the tall pagoda, so we couldn't go up. It had no windows anyway. And that was that; rather a waste of our 12 kuai!
We next went to the Haibao Pagoda, 10 yuan to enter, and still a functioning Buddhist temple. We climbed the pagoda, which had no spiral stairs so I was fine with that! My hands were freezing to the point of pain but the stairs were treacherous (steep and made for size 2 feet) so I needed to use the icy cold handrail to steady myself! The Haibao Pagoda is kind of in the middle of nowhere - getting a taxi OUT to it is fairly easy, but getting one back is much harder. We walked back down a large but deserted road. We could see all around us and the scenery was cold and barren like a wasteland. There was snow everywhere but it was much cleaner than Urumqi's blackened stuff! The biggest difference we could see between Urumqi and Yinchuan was that Yinchuan has WATER! Everywhere! Lakes, ponds, and the mighty Yellow River (on the way from the airport we passed it and it was totally frozen through). All the water had turned to ice of course and people were skating on it and sliding around on little wooden blocks.
We finally got nearer to civilization and flagged down a taxi. He took us to our next destination, the Nanguan Mosque. It was surprisingly interesting. The mosque was built in 1987 and is now an integral feature of the city's skyline. Apparently the mosque is a point of interest because it is one of the few mosques in China which remains true to its origins and it not in any way Sinicised.
Next on the agenda was traditional food! We found a recommended restaurant in the China Guide which became our Bible for the trip (you will hear me mention it a lot!) and walked around trying to locate it. Eventually I went to ask a woman on the street who rudely completely ignored my existence. A friendly man saw this and voluntarily came over to help us. He discussed with us for a while and said maybe we should just ask a taxi driver, but then suddenly, as if a light had come on, said "walk with me". We trotted off after him, not saying a word which was a bit awkward. I became a little concerned about where he was taking us so I asked and just then he pointed and said "I found it for you!" And so he had! Lovely guy! He actually walked past the restaurant a little later when we were eating, perhaps to check we had actually gone there after all his trouble. We ordered shouzhua yangrou (hand-grab lamb, though we ate it with chopsticks) which is fatty boiled lamb which you dip into a tasty sauce; and jiucai chao xianggan (Chinese chives and fried tofu strips). Both were nummy. I also had some very strange tea: a bowl half-filled with sugar, tea leaves and dried fruit. It was INTENSELY sweet - I loved it! Well the first cup was delicious but the second cup had lost almost all its sweetness and so as it was just a tad sweet it didn't taste quite right. Liam and I swapped my second cup for his first because he couldn't tolerate the extreme sugar content. Also this restaurant was my first ever hollering of "fuwuyuan!!" (waiter/waitress!!) - in China, it is the done thing to just yell this across the restaurant, but being British I always feel it's somehow rude. Anyway I have from this day on got over this precaution. It's strangely liberating. I am most proud.
We planned to go out and half-heartedly explore the streets, but instead we got all enthusiastic about planning our trip's schedule. We had a basic outline in terms or where we were going, but had no time limit or real plan thereof. We had to pick where we wanted to be for Chinese New Year and settled on Xi'an. This meant we had to get all the way round to Xi'an by 7th February. We gave ourselves the target of Beijing by the 10th, Yantai by the 16th, Xi'an by 7th February and then realised we'd have time to add places to the route. So we added Chongqing and Chengdu, and hoped to get to Chengdu in time for 12th February, so that on that day, Liam's 21st birthday, we could hold baby pandas! REALLY REALLY excited! Yay!!!

The Chongtian Pagoda

The Haibao Pagoda seen behind the buildings of the temple.

The Nanguan Mosque, with minarets looming in at the sides of the photo.

The Nanguan Mosque again, slightly clearer so you can see how pretty it is, plus some bizarre instrument of torture in the foreground.

Tea sent from heaven.

Spring Festival Travel Plans

2008-04-15T13:38:00.002+01:00

Our planned route for Spring Festival was as follows (if you want to know where these provinces are, refer to the map I posted earlier):

Cities (provincial capitals in bold, reasons for going to non-provincial capital cities in brackets): Yinchuan --> Yan'an (city where Mao Zedong settled after the Long March and the centre of the Revolution) --> Baotou (Genghis Khan's Mausoleum) --> Hohhot --> Datong (Yungang Grottoes (cave carvings)) --> Taiyuan --> Pingyao (preserved Qing and Ming Dynasty city) --> Shijiazhuang --> Beijing --> Tianjin --> Harbin --> Changchun --> Jilin City (forest of petrified trees, a natural phenomenen) --> Shenyang --> Xingcheng (preserved Ming village) --> Dalian (rapidly developing coastal town, very famous in China for its laidback atmosphere) --> Yantai (another coastal town, with strong Korean influences, highly recommended by our friends) --> Jinan --> Qufu (birthplace of Confucius) --> Zhengzhou --> Luoyang (Longmen Cave Carvings) --> Xi'an --> Lanzhou --> Xining --> Urumqi (best city in the world, like.)

Provinces: Ningxia Hui --> Shaanxi --> Inner Mongolia --> Shanxi --> Hebei --> Beijing Municipality --> Tianjin Municipality --> Heilongjiang --> Jilin --> Liaoning --> Shandong --> Henan --> Shanxi again --> Gansu --> Qinghai --> URUMQI!

We didn't actually manage to stick to this plan. We were originally worried that we wouldn't have enough time to be back for when classes start, and figured we may have to skive the first week. Plus they told us that we'd be starting back late February now, not early March as they'd originally said. Anyway, the opposite happened! We thundered through the cities, and had to add more to the itinerary step-by-step as we went. I'll explain as I blog : )

Between travels I have to do something with my life!

2008-04-15T13:28:00.003+01:00

After New Year, we had roughly a fortnight until we were going to begin our monster trip across northern and central China. In this time we had quite a bit to do preparation-wise and Liam spent hours and hours looking for hostels, train times, and tourist sites. I feel rather guilty that I did very little in the way of helping, so many many fank yoos to Liam for not being lazy a la moi : )
Catherine was also jetting off to Hong Kong, Japan and South Korea, a trip she'd been looking forward to for months and had saved up for for ages, so all of us in the flat were getting very excited. We went out and bought some sturdyish backpacks. When I came to pack I was unimpressed that my side pocket zip broke on first contact. It was a sign that my bag was just not going to make it! It did though, as it happens, though it's worse for the wear and I will probably choose not to use it for my summer travels. I have another bag that I can use but is much smaller. But then in summer I won't have to pack so many thermals, so hopefully it'll do the trick.
Ah yes, thermals. After the relative warmth of the south (positive temperatures!) it was a bit of a shock to the system to come back to minus 24. With highs of minus 18. That is considerably colder than a freezer. Imagine living in a freezer. Now imagine COLDER than living in a freezer. Not hugely fun. But actually, not really that bad! I survived by wearing a layer of cotton trousers under jeans, and then a strappy top to function as a vest, a cotton top, a fleece, and a jacket. Two pairs of socks (one under the layer of cotton trousers, and the other over, to trap warm air. Gloves, scarf, hat. Shoes : ) The cold here is very dry and bone-chilling. You get so cold it doesn't really hurt. During Spring Festival, I went to several places that were officially warmer, but I felt much colder. Sometimes because of the wind, sometimes because the air was damper and that was much more uncomfortable. Urumqi winter is really easily copablewith. It's a word.
One nice aspect of the winter is the ice sculptures that pop up everywhere. Because they're quite simply not going to melt, they make them in the parks and in the streets. The themes tended to be: the Olympics, Uyghur culture (camels and dancing... I think possibly the Han carved the ice) or traditional Chinese (lions and dragons n stuff). Catherine and I had a bit of a stroke of them one day to see what they feel like, and it's weird because they don't feel like any ice I've ever touched! Incredibly smooth, and also it felt weirdly resilient. Like you could turn a blowtorch on it and it still wouldn't melt! It was still snowy as well, though the snow now was packed into sort of greying solid lumps. But when it snowed fresh, it covered all that and was pretty again.
On my return from Hangzhou (and the pub lulz) I had a lovely Christmas-New Year surprise waiting for me: presents from home and from my friends! : D It was really nice to get parcels so thank you everybody... I am of course not hinting for more haha! ; )
We did a few things of note in the fortnight: our friend Lili, from Kazakhstan, and one of the nicest people you could ever meet (see, I don't hate ALL Kazakhs!) wanted to watch Borat, as it is banned in Kazakhstan. So she and Galina the Russian in our class (her flatmate) came round to watch it with us, and we had a bit of an impromptu party that most certainly did not involve betting games, cheap vodka and friends vomiting in the stairwell. Lili was fortunately not too offended by the film, though we did have to stress several times that the main focus was really to insult America, not Kazakhstan. The language was also a bit of a difficulty, as it was in English with Chinese subtitles. Apparently the 'Kazakh' they speak in the film is not Kazakh but closer to Uzbek, so she couldn't get that either. We discovered afterwards that there were some pretty crucial parts that neither of them had understood. But no matter.
We also got a visit from friends of a friend: Catherine taught English in Hong Kong three years ago and one of her students, William, had come to visit her, with his Korean friend, at the same time that Frankie came over in September. William studied for a semester in Kazakhstan and the Korean girl, Minceon, was his classmate. She was travelling round China with another of their classmates, William's roommate Janis from Latvia. So we spent a day showing them around Urumqi and having Uyghur food with them. They recommended some places to go for my Spring Travels as well. And now if we ever want to visit Korea or Latvia (and I fully intend to go to every country in the world, so it's bound to happen...) we have some friends who can tell us where's best to go : )
Days before we went off on the ol' travels, we got a knock on our door and Eric came in with a brand spankin' new American called Greg, who is here to study Uyghur, from Indiana University, and also speaks Chinese. Eric and he didn't know each other before, but had grown up minutes' drive away from each other in Connecticut and had basically followed the exact same path in life, and now they're both students of Indiana studying Uyghur in the same university in Urumqi. Freakydeaky. Greg is here on a Fullwell Scholarship, which basically means he is very clever (like EVERYONE we meet here, they're all PhD students goddammit!) and so the US government give him funding to go out and research whatever he feels like wherever he feels like for as long as he feels like. He is researching Han Chinese who study Uyghur as a second language. There's not very many that do though!
Later that night, Greg introduced us to another American, Kevin, who is over here doing something or other, and Adam from Philadelphia who is another Fullwell scholar, studying a local folk instrument called the rawap. As one does. So our group of foreigners is expanding!
Liam and I realised that our return flight to the UK was impending and had to be changed. It took us a long time to decide on a date to go back, and we finally settled on September 12th or thereabouts. But when we spoke to the Emirates people, they told us that our ticket was only year-long flexible, so the latest we could leave would be 21st August. Hang up phone, rapid discussions about whether we'd be able to fit travel plans into the new time limit. Decide we can do it. Ring them back. Yup, August 21st please. "Oh sorry, the latest we have is August 14th." So August 14th we took. We played with the idea of flying from Hong Kong instead seeing as we'd been dahn sahf, but couldn't get tickets for that, so from Beijing it is, on August 14th. I'll be home August 15th : ) and also :..( One issue with the flight we have is that our visa is only valid to August 12th. Hmm. We can get up to a month long extension though. We have to pay for the privilege but we figured those extra two days might make all the difference to our travels and so we took them. Catherine is going back on the 12th though.
Oh! And I got my exam results. I can't actually remember what I got which is a shame, I think I got 93% for reading, 89/90 for comprehension (I may be wildly wrong, I just can't remember! Catherine picked them up for me so she has them written down somewhere I think) and like 80% for speaking and listening. This annoys me somewhat because I know I got 93 for speaking, so my listening must have been abysmal to drag it down that much! Before y'all ooh and aah over my results, bear in mind that after 'converting' them into English type marks, I didn't actually do that well, like 65 or 70%, and that the exams were a complete shambles that a monkey could have passed with flying colours. Apparently some of the Kazakhs didn't, though...
And that was the state of play before we left for our travels!

This is my winter attire. Stunning, I know.

What you can't see in the first picture is that this is my under-layer. Thermals all the way, people! I will bring the trend to Britain; this is my pledge. : )

About to eat Uyghur food (l-r) Janis, me, Minceon, and Liam.

My first ice sculpture pose! I was delighted as you can see... The ice sculpture was on the corner of my road. If you can't see clearly, it is the Olympic torch, and set into the wall are carvings of the 5 Olympic animal mascots.

And a night-timey lit-up ice sculpture! This one is in Erdaoqiao. Again, an Olympic themed sculpture, this one with happy singing and dancing ethnic minorities cut into it (more on the ethnic minority in China at a later date!)

Korban

2008-04-15T13:24:00.000+01:00

Being a bit cheeky here and blogging about someone else's experience, but I thought it was interesting, so y'all might too. While we were down in the south of China, Catherine was up here in the big freeze celebrating Korban. Korban is the Moslem Sheep-Killing Festival. It's basically what it says on the tin! Catherine heard that they kill the sheep because when people die, to get to Heaven they need to ride on a sheep, and so they need to make sure there's enough sheep for everyone. I have since heard a very different reason for the sacrifice but have completely forgotten what it is, so if anybody knows...? All the Uyghurs here stock up on sheep to kill. Just before I left on my travels I was walking down a back-street of Urumqi and I saw a sheep tied up waiting to be killed in a few days' time. I was just thinking how I felt a bit sorry for the sheep, having no idea of its fate, when I turned a corner and saw two giant rams charging towards me. One of them ran past but the other was still going in a very direct trajectory towards my internal organs with its horns lowered for maximum impact. I ducked out the way with nano-seconds to spare and it's a good thing I did (for me, haha!) because the sheep launched itself at the unsuspecting man right behind me and knocked him flat to the ground. There was then a rapid community effort to control the ram and several men managed to tie its legs up and cart it off. Scary stuff. That was my own personal experience of Korban, but Catherine got a lot closer! If you're squeamish or vegetarian, perhaps look away.
Caterina has a Uyghur friend called Zulayat who invited her to her home village near Turpan. So Catherine went to stay for the Sheep-Killing Festival for a few days. On the day, they blessed the sheep and then slit its neck and collected all the blood, because nothing must touch the ground. Then the imam who had blessed the sheep cut off one of the sheep's hooves and began blowing into the leg! His face was covered with the matted fur and blood, and Catherine had no idea why he would do that, until the sheep began to blow up like a balloon! Apparently if you blow into any part of any animal like that, it separates the flesh from the skin so it can be skinned more easily. After skinning the sheep they had to remove the internal organs. The most revolting was when they took out the intestines, and then smoothed them down so they could squeeze everything out of them. Catherine was rather shocked to see what came flying out of the end! Let's leave it to your imagination... She says they also had to empty the stomach, and she couldn't believe just how much came out of it! They cooked it all up, including the organs, and Catherine and everyone else tucked into a meal of delicious fresh mutton. The next few days of the festival are spent visiting family and friends and sharing the sheep's flesh. Unfortunately the mutton gets less and less fresh as time goes by, and Catherine says that by the end it was just sitting out on the side covered with dust and stuff, and then when it came to eating it it was chewy and old. But none can be left to waste! Everything must be used. They also use the sheep's wool and skin too, so they genuinely do put the entire sheep to use. So that, my friends, is Korban. Worlds away from The Bund in Shanghai eh?

Christmas Travels - The Round-Up

2008-04-15T13:21:00.001+01:00

We know that cities spring up for various reasons, and because of this variety, the cities themselves are all different. This is the rule of thumb for most places, right? But in China, the government, in typical conformist style, has recently been doing its utmost to eradicate all originality from its big cities by extreme urban planning. The result is that it can seem like a lot of the cities are basically carbon copies of each other and for that reason not worth bothering to explore. But, ever the optimist, I still firmly believe that each place somehow keeps its own character. Sometimes this is apparent in the people; sometimes in the architecture; sometimes in the surrounding natural landscape. For this reason, and because I intend to go everywhere I can in China (see last post), I am going to give a quick round-up or what I basically thought of every province (provinces in capitals) and major city destination so that if you ever choose to travel there, you basically know what you're getting. Remember these are just my personal opinions and of course everyone will like different things : )

Nanjing:
After Urumqi, Nanjing felt like a centre of pure capitalism. Naturally, in a few days we went on to Shanghai, where the Chinese taught me how capitalism is really done... but for the time being, landing in Nanjing was like landing in the west. Nanjing is known for being the city which best held out against the communist tide (it was the headquarters of the Kuomintang as they were pushed further south); they say that in some parts of the city, at times, you could barely tell that you were living in the throes of the Communist Revolution. I particularly enjoyed getting my western fixes, like Costa and Haagen Dazs (though I have later come to realise that most of the cities to the south and the east also offer the same!). I liked this aspect of the city to begin with, but soon became a bit irritated by the in-your-face characterless prosperity. The city itself would probably be a nice place for a westerner to live if they still wanted to keep some contact with what they are used to, but didn't want to be stuck in Shanghai or Beijing with all the other ex-pats. On the outskirts of the city you can find all the tourism sites, most of which are actually very important to Chinese history, and set in beautiful lush green surroundings. Plus the Nanjing Massacre Museum cannot be missed; this museum gives the best viewpoint of the tragic era of Chinese history that was the Japanese War of Aggression.

Suzhou:
Suzhou, more than anything, felt quaint. It was like a little old water-side town that, while slowly being developed, was still tenaciously clinging on to its roots. Once you're out of the pretty canal-side hutongs (where they navigate by lamppost number!) or the preserved main streets, the town can be a bit dull and atypical. Definitely worth relaxing in.

JIANGSU:
Jiangsu is a province I would definitely recommend, and I think both the capital Nanjing and the famous Suzhou are both worth seeing as well. A good start to the trip! But I have since found so many places in China that I prefer, as Jiangsu is like a watered-down Shanghai and therefore not exactly bursting with individuality like other places in China. If you're in the area, go see; if you have choices as to where to go, choose somewhere else.

SHANGHAI:
If you want to see prosperity, come to Shanghai. My friend told Liam off for acting so 'country' as he was gazing raptly at the towering buildings and bright flashing lights. In Shanghai, you can get everything you materially could want... I walked down one street with three Rolex watch shops. But who needs three Rolex shops? I was initially mesmerised by the pure decadence of Shanghai, but very very rapidly became quite disheartened as it seemed so superficial and meaningless. I accidentally came across a different part of town, where the local people were just going about their day, and suddenly it felt much more real and down-to-earth.

Tangkou:
If you can help it... don't go here. Tangkou is in Anhui Province, but seeing as this is all I've seen of Anhui, I don't think it's fair to judge just yet!

Hangzhou:
I loved this place. But only after I had been to the West Lake. I found that the city itself is a bit run-of-the-mill, but the lake area is stunning. I was lucky to be there on a National Holiday so the place was heaving with happy families and couples. I think that Hangzhou would be a really great place to go and just relax, especially by the waterside or on one of the pleasure boats.

ZHEJIANG:
Well, if the capital Hangzhou is anything to go by, this is a great place to go. It is situated on the east coast in the south of China and I think it would be best for relaxing, though not brilliant for tourism. And still very east-coasty; I have found that my preferred places in China tend to be further west and/or north. Having said that, to this date I still haven't been to the south and south-west so this could still change... I'll let you know when I go!

My Travel Plans for China

2008-04-15T13:03:00.003+01:00

I guess I should give you a round-up of what my travel plans are for China. At some point very early on into my time in China, the idea popped into my head that it would be seriously cool to go to every single Chinese province. I pushed the idea right back out though, because it seemed impossible. Then when I was in Kashgar all spaced out from the food poisoning, I mentioned my idea to Liam and he was VERY enthusiastic. So we had a bit of a discussion and discovered that it was in fact possible. Difficult, but possible. So that same day we got maps of China and began to plan. I wanted to not only visit every province, but every provincial capital city.
We decided we wanted a western-style hit for Christmas, and where better to get that than Shanghai? So with Shanghai as our starting point, we worked out how many provinces we could visit and that was how we constructed our Christmas trip: Nanjing and Suzhou in Jiangsu, Shanghai in Shanghai Municipality, Hangzhou in Zhejiang.
So that meant that by the end of Christmas we had been to Beijing, Xinjiang, Jiangsu, Shanghai, and Zhejiang. Five provinces! Not bad. Except for the fact that there's 34.
I'm going to bore you all to tears now by listing the provinces. And their capitals. Leave me alone! I like lists : )

Provinces:
Province Capital
Anhui = Hefei
Fujian = Fuzhou
Gansu = Lanzhou
Guangdong = Guangzhou
Guizhou = Guiyang
Hainan = Haikou
Hebei = Shijiazhuang
Heilongjiang = Ha'erbin (Harbin)
Henan = Zhengzhou
Hubei = Wuhan
Hunan = Changsha
Jiangsu = Nanjing
Jiangxi = Nanchang
Jilin = Changchun
Liaoning = Shenyang
Qinghai = Xining
Shaanxi = Xi'an
Shandong = Jinan
Shanxi = Taiyuan
Sichuan = Chengdu
Taiwan (contentious one, this) = Taibei
Yunnan = Kunming
Zhejiang = Hangzhou

Autonomous Regions
Region Capital
Guangxi Zhuang = Nanning
Nei Menggu (Inner Mongolia ) = Huhehaote (Hohhot)
Ningxia Hui = Yinchuan
Xizang (Tibet) = Lhasa
Xinjiang Uyghur = Wulumuqi (Urumqi)

Central Administrative Municipalities
Municipality Capital
Beijing Municipality = Beijing
Chongqing Municipality = Chongqing
Shanghai Municipality = Shanghai
Tianjin Municipality = Tianjin

Special Administrative Regions
Region Capital
Xianggang (Hong Kong) = Xianggang (Hong Kong)
Aomen (Macao) = Aomen (Macao)

Map. So you can see the geographical positions of the provinces.

So, now that I've thoroughly bored you, you know that my mission is to go to every single one of these places before the year is up. The basic plan is as follows:
Christmas = South-ish-East China (around Shanghai)
Spring Festival = all of North and Central China
May Golden Week = Tibet and Yunnan
Summer = the rest of mainland China (all in the south, mostly in the east), plus Hong Kong, Macao, and the island provinces of Hainan and Taiwan.

New Year!!!

2008-04-13T13:49:00.004+01:00

So did we make it? I'm sure this suspense that I have artfully built up is killing you all...
We landed at Urumqi Airport at 11pm, and finally got off the plane at 11.05. Then we had to get an airport shuttle bus thing to the terminal, which got us to the terminal for 11.10. We had been quite worried about how cold Urumqi was going to be by this point, seeing as we had gone south for winter, and sure enough, we could see snow and our breath all around us as we VERY impatiently waited for the bus to go. Now our phones were working again (they only work in the province in which they are bought) so we gave Catherine a ring and she and the gang were all in Fubar waiting for it to turn midnight, and wondering where the hell we were! At baggage claim, we successfully shoved everyone else out the way - nobody seemed even slightly fussed that it was New Year but for us it's a pretty big deal. Especially for Liam, him being a Scottish barbarian, as it was Hogmanay. If we missed it we were not going to be impressed. We got in a taxi and soon we were on our way. Everything seemed to be working against us, but at least we were nearly there. It had been me that had originally thought we were going to miss New Year but now I was fairly calm, but Liam was getting in a bit of a tizz thinking we'd not make it. But we did! At quarter to twelve we reached Fubar and went straight to the bar so we'd have a drink to see in the new year.
It was all very traditional with kisses on the cheek and Auld Lang Syne; it felt lovely and homely. Then we danced and danced! And as we live in an area with two time zones (Beijing Time and local, Xinjiang Time) we then celebrated Xinjiang New Year two hours later. I was still awake at 8am too and so I got to see in the British New Year before I turned in.

Photos (I swear none of us had consumed ANY alcohol in ANY of these photos):

Christmas Travels Numero Diez - Hangzhou --> Urumqi

2008-04-13T13:34:00.001+01:00

Our flight check-in was at 2pm so we had a while to waste in the morning. We suddenly realised we hadn't really seen the West Lake properly; we'd seen the fountains at night and walked past it a couple of times, but not really walked round it (well partway round, it's pretty big). The main attraction in Hangzhou is the West Lake and it appears on the back of the 1 kuai note. We didn't realise this until Christmas when I was talking to Perry at Francesca's apartment and told him where we going next, and he mentioned this... fun fact : )
So it seemed like really we should go see! It was actually quite fun, we walked partway round, and the whole lakeside was filled with tourists and people on their day off with their families. I had some candy floss and we took photos on a pagoda part way out into the water. Liam really really doesn't like open water and was not intending to come out onto the pagoda, but being a big brave boy he did! Then got off again sharpish! There were pleasure boats out on the water, but we didn't really have time for that and Liam only gets on boats when absolutely necessary. Mostly we spent our time walking a bit, and taking the opportunity to try out practically every Chinapose we could think of. After one last Starbucks, we thought it best to get a taxi as soon as we could, keeping in mind the difficulty in getting one the day before. We managed to get one almost straight away though. We asked to go to a certain location where we knew we could get a shuttle bus to the airport, but he said he'd take us straight to the airport for 100kuai. The taxi fare to the placey would only come to 10 and the shuttle bus was 15 so we turned down his offer and were soon on a shuttle bus to the airport.
We checked in so early that we had ages to spend, but there were no seats in the airport. While Liam went outside to puff on a cancer stick, I sat down in a very comfortable-looking chair. Immediately a woman came over and said it was a massage chair and asked for 5 kuai for 5 minutes. I couldn't be bothered to argue so I just gave her the money. The massage was actually so so so so good! If a little painful. Liam and I then proceeded to spend a lot of time and money on the chairs - I think we made the woman's day!
We were flying via Xi'an. I was quite calm about getting there for New Year now; I had had the initial worry when we'd bought the flights, but now thought that perhaps I WAS being a pessimist and that of course we'd make it for New Year. Our plane took about five million years to turn around and began to taxi. Then mysteriously stopped dead. They opened the cabin door and everybody without delay switched their phones on. It was actually quite amusing to see everyone desperately texting away and instantly making calls and so on! You think people in the west are dependent on their phones? You should see the Chinese! Added to that, whenever we are on a flight, you start to hear people turn their phones on when we're making our final descent. I'm waiting for the computer and navigation systems to go skewiff and us to all plummet to our deaths because someone just couldn't wait that last ten minutes for a text message.
We waited on the runway for about 20 minutes. I'm not entirely sure as to what happened, but at the end a little passenger man came to the front and publicly apologised to everyone and then bowed in respect, which was quite sweet. So it was now even closer to missing midnight celebrations! Onwards the flight went. We got to Xi'an and there were no delays there so we got our connection and flew homewards.

Me eating my ghost at the West Lake.

PROOF! Liam went near water. I am very proud : )

Relaxing in Hangzhou - one of the most peaceful cities in China

[Pose shamelessly stolen from Vanessa] Me on the street next to the West Lake, in front of the cityscape of Hangzhou.

The best reason to visit an airport: Liam relaxing in time for New Year.

Christmas Travels Numero Nueve - Hangzhou

2008-04-13T13:29:00.002+01:00

We wanted to spend the day seeing Hangzhou, but first we had business to attend to. It was December 30th. While I was still lazing about in bed, Liam went down to the hostel front desk and asked if they could help us book flights home. He came back and said there were two options: today, the 30th, which cost 2100 kuai, or the 31st, which cost only 1600. The 30th would have been ideal in terms of getting back in time for New Year's Eve celebrations, but didn't give us much time to see all that we wanted in Hangzhou. And at such a steep price! We settled on the tickets on the 31st, and asked them to book them for us. We had to go to a bank to get cash. The hostels book the flights for us and then go somewhere with our cash to pay for it later. Off we toddle to the cashpoint. The problem here was that Liam had lost his credit card, and his spare had very little money on it. So he borrowed the cash off me and we went back to pay. There was a queue at the front desk so we checked the arrival time on the internet, and it was 22.20. It was on discovering that that I freaked out a bit; bearing the delays in mind from our outbound journey, and being fairly used to the Chinese lack of organisation and punctuality, I thought it was far too risky to wait until the 31st. So we asked for the flights to be changed to the day earlier, but the airline apparently wouldn't allow for this. So it had to be New Year's Eve. Liam was not too happy about my negativity, but actually I think that though I was going on about it a bit too much, it wasn't pessimism, but realism!
We went for lunch and had a lovely dinner of pigeon (inexplicably served with popcorn), stone-grilled chicken skewers and spring roll type things. Very nummy. But lots of bird bones by the end of it! Then we went to find a Bank of China so Liam could change some old traveller's cheques that he had with him just in case. That meant he could pay back some of what he owed me and also have some money for the last couple of days in Hangzhou. We finally found the bank and waited quite a while for the money to be handed over. After that, we really didn't know what to do in Hangzhou, but I had vague memories of reading about a shopping street where you could buy traditional Hangzhouvian (yeah I made that word up) handicraft. We didn't know where it was though, so we walked to a large crossroads and tried to flag taxis. They were all taken! The ones that weren't ignored us anyway, and every other person trying to flag them too. Finally one guy stopped, but wouldn't take us as he was under contract to take people to a certain place or something. After an hour or so, we gave up and walked back to the hostel. We thought we could find bus routes or something. No luck. So off out again to try our luck with the taxis of Hangzhou. Eventually we got one, despite stiff competition from every other citizen of Hangzhou who were also clearly annoyed about the lack of taxis in their city, and very victoriously asked for our destination. Turned out it was literally round the corner from the crossroads we'd originally been at! The taxi driver that had stopped could at least have told us! The street was completely rubbish anyway, there were only seriously pricey antique shops and nothing I could stretch to as a mere souvenir as opposed to a lifetime investment!
We had originally turned down the same-day tickets because of the price (sensible) and because we thought we had tourism to do! But by this point we were at a total loss! We made our way towards the lake, which is the central focus of Hangzhou, and also near our hostel. After a quick detour to Starbucks (it happens to the best of us) we got to the lakeside. A crowd of people had gathered and we heard an announcement saying the show would start in 5 minutes. We had no idea what show so we stuck around and five minutes later there was a fountain display. It was actually really pretty with coloured lights and different water jets timed to some Romeo and Juliet music. Plus the background of the still lake and the twinkly lights on the hills in the distance made for a very nice vista. And when it was done, it was beddybyes time!

The fountains.

Christmas Travels Numero Ocho - A Pleasant Day-trip to Hell.

2008-04-13T13:24:00.003+01:00

We got up early the next day because we had decided to make an excursion to Huangshan. Huangshan translates as Yellow Mountain; there are five famous mountains in China which according to legend should be visited, but they say that once you've seen Huangshan, because it is so spectacular, all other mountains pale into comparison. And hey, there's every good chance it IS spectacular, but I wouldn't know, because I never got to see it.

It went like this. We got the bus at the bus station which claimed to be going to Huangshan. Lies, all lies. The bus in fact, after several hours, took us to a truly delightful village called Tangkou. I don't know if any of you have seen the Hills Have Eyes, but in this film, in the middle of the American West desert there is a rundown village full of inbred, deformed cannibals. I couldn't help but feel that Tangkou shared some of the same properties as said village. Except this time, I wasn't in the cinema watching a rubbishy horror film (rubbishy though it was, it still scared the hell out of me!), but I was actually walking through it. We didn't at first realise that this was our final destination because we weren't at Huangshan, but they cleared the bus out and said we'd reached the terminus. Immediately the population was on us like a pack of wild animals, trying to convince us to stay in their hotel, or go to their restaurant, and so on. One particularly tenacious bottomfeeder spoke a little English and told us that we had to catch another bus to Huangshan from the bus station. But for the time being, we'd be better off going to eat in his restaurant. It has Eeeenglish menu. He told us where the bus station was and we set off in that direction. Unfortunately for us, his restaurant was the same way, so he came with us. We were accompanied by a female relation of his, but we were never clear whether she was his wife, or sister, or mother... no idea. She didn't speak putonghua (standard Chinese) but instead spoke some incomprehensible Anhui dialect. The only thing she could say in putonghua was "aren't you cold? You should wear more." She probably knew how to say this because for some reason the Chinese frequently repeat this sentence in a manner similar to a broken record. Or a parrot. Anyway, she enjoyed practising her only putonghua phrase on Liam, and did so repeatedly for the entire 15 minute walk. We were quite disheartened at the development of this Tangkou diversion, and very quickly realised that we didn't stand a chance of getting to Huangshan, climbing it, climbing back down, and getting back to Hangzhou all in one day. This would mean staying in Tangkou that evening and going to Huangshan first thing. Both of us were distinctly uncomfortable in this environment and added to that neither of us actually had enough money with us to afford the hotels (they were stupidly inflated prices in Tangkou, seeing as the buses all stopped there!). Our only choice was to give it all up and go back to Hangzhou.
The annoying man was still trying to convince us to go into his restaurant. We said we wanted bus tickets. He said in his restaurant there were maps which we could look at/buy off him, but we said we didn't want a map. He then said "but you need a map, you can't speak Chinese." That really annoyed us, because he hadn't bothered to find out if we spoke Chinese but just assumed. Plus, how did he think we were responding to his wife-type person if we didn't speak Chinese? A map may well have been useful but Liam and I now make a point of only buying things from/getting into the taxis of etc people that don't pester us in such a rude and inconsiderate manner. We finally managed to fob him off. He left us looking very disgruntled, and we walked on up the street to the bus station, and asked for tickets back that same day, as soon as possible. Suddenly to our horror the man was back, peering over our shoulder! He had driven his pick-up up to the bus station to continue pestering us. He was saying "yesyesyes tomorrow buy bus four o'clock" on loop. He was seemingly oblivious to the fact that the staff were saying "so your bus is at four thirty, okay?" We had two hours or so to wait for the bus and we were at a bit of a loss as to what to do. His constant presence was really grating on me by now. He grabbed our tickets and realised we were going back today instead of tomorrow, which stunned him for a while. But he gathered his reserves and then started saying that we should eat in his restaurant before our bus back home. We told him that under no circumstances were we going to his restaurant. He angrily stormed off to his pick-up truck and we set off down the road to waste two hours doing goodness-only-knows-what. As we were walking he pulled up next to us and tried one last time. We said no. He drove off and as he did yelled at us that we were "stupid foreigners!" Lovely chap. So down the road we continued, and to our dismay, his incomprehensible mystery female relative was standing directly in our path, with another mystery younger female. Liam walked right on past but she took my arm and, suddenly able to speak putonghua, asked me fairly gently why I wasn't going to the restaurant. I said that we weren'y hungry and apologised because she was being much nicer than the man and then went to walk off. Suddenly the other woman turned round and YELLED at me! She said I was stupid, and that I should "get into the restaurant RIGHT now, if I knew what was good for me" (well Chinese to that effect anyway). Obviously I was now certainly not going into the damn restaurant; if I had been willing before, which I wasn't, then I definitely wasn't now!
I stalked off and caught Liam up - he had missed the whole exchange but was not too happy about their attitude either. We spotted a cashpoint and Liam wanted to get some money out because he had practically none. The ATM vestibule was up some steps so we gratefully ran up, and Liam got some money out. We had been hassled every minute of being there thus far and the peace of the vestibule was great; we almost didn't want to leave it! Then to my horror I took a glance down the steps and saw that the man's pick-up truck had stopped next to us. The wife-woman got out and started up the steps towards us. Before she could do anything, Liam went off down the steps past her, and I intercepted her and pre-emptorily said: "Look, I understand you want us to go into your restaurant, but actually, we don't have any money, so there's no point following us. We didn't realise it would take so long to get to Huangshan, but now we know, we realise we can't afford to stay here so we HAVE to go back home. In fact, this is why we were at the bank. But the bank won't give us money, so we still have none. Therefore, if we have no money, we can't spend money, can we?" She shook her head sheepishly and said "buhaoyisi" which is effectively an apology. She got back in the truck at last and must have told the man the state of play because we never saw him again.
But we still had ages to spare. As we walked through the streets, the people all turned to glare at us (they are probably all related to the annoying man and took our refusals personally...). We found one shop where the people didn't hate us on sight and got some snacks. Then we went back to the bus station to wait it out. It was unbelievably boring. We found a lovely little stray dog and it's mother. We called the mom Hope and the dog Lucky. They were our only happy things in the entire town. Hope disappeared for ages, which we took figuratively... all Hope has gone...
After a few more incidences of being pestered to buy various stuff like maps and flowers and so on (including jam, which took me quite by surprise), it was about four and a minibus pulled up. They told us if we wanted to go to Hangzhou, we had to get into this minibus. Hmm. We chose to trust them and hopped in, and sure enough, they took us to a much bigger bus station. Our bus driver from that morning discovered that we were going straight back, which amused him somewhat. And soon we were back off to lovely non-Hills Have Eyes Hangzhou : D
The journey took till late at night because they kept on going through small towns and picking people up at random locations (I have always wondered how these people know where to wait. I have since learnt that you can flag any minibus/coach/bus etc wherever the hell you fancy - if they're allowed to pick more passengers up, they will.) When we got back to Hangzhou we weren't up for much more, and went to bed, having well and truly wasted that day. Hopefully we'll find a way to Huangshan at a later date, perhaps with a tour group. I hate tour groups on principle, but I may have to lower myself to joining one. I have always considered tour groups a bit of a tourism cop-out; if you are going to travel, do it by yourself! I guess in some cases you do learn more than you would just looking by yourself, but if the place you're going has displays then why don't you just read the displays? Since going on a tour to the Great Wall and Ming Tombs with a tour group, my hatred for them has grown. I hate that you have to go at their required pace and have to be interested in what they tell you to be interested in as opposed to what you are genuinely interested in. Now, my feelings towards tour groups has gathered into a sort of frenzied hatred. Everywhere I go in China, there's a goddamn tour group in my way. Grrrrrrr. But if that is my only way to Huangshan that doesn't involve going back to Tangkou EVER AGAIN, then I will take it!

Hiding in the ATM vestibule.

We thought we'd got away in one piece... but Liam caem back without half his body.

Christmas Travels Numero Siete (hey what better way to practise my Spanish numbers?) - Shanghai --> Hangzhou

2008-04-13T13:23:00.001+01:00

The following day was our last day in Shanghai. I was still a bit under the weather and not really up for dragging myself around Shanghai but eventually off we went. First we went to the Foreign Languages Bookstore so Liam could get some English reading material, but I made the decision to not waste my money on books that I'd only be buying for the sake of it and didn't really need. We had wanted to go for a massage, so after some time in a few bookstores, we looked for a place that Liam had read about in a guidebook, but we couldn't find it. Having spent several hours in the bookshops and then subsequently looking for this massage place, it was now late and we had to get back to say goodbye and thank you to Francesca because she was off to work all afternoon and we had to catch our train well before she's be back home at night. We gave up on the massage place and everything else besides, and went to Mister Donut, which is like Krispy Kreme and Dunkin' Donuts and therefore got a very enthusiastic thumbs-up from us. Then we went and said goodbye to Francesca, and packed up our bags. Liam discovered he couldn't find his credit card which was worrying, but he had a spare, and I would be able to lend him money if it came down to it. And so off to Hangzhou.
We took a train to Hangzhou and it got us there in no time at all. Then we checked into another Hostelling International Hostel, very near the West Lake which is Hangzhou's claim to fame. We were hungry by this point and so went for a meander to find some food. Near the lake we found an area set up with restaurants and bars. We wandered around here, scouting out somewhere suitable. Nothing was really appealing. Eventually we found a place serving Italian so we thought we'd try it out. They asked if we wanted upstairs or downstairs and we said whatever, so they took us upstairs. It was then that we realised it was a pretty classy establishment, and also that they thought Liam and I were a couple (happens a lot), as we were led to our romantic table. We didn't especially mind until we saw the prices! Now I am a pretty standard British person; I shrink away from any kind of rudeness and hate putting anybody, especiaslly serving staff, out. But I have my American friends to thank for having taught me the ease of just saying "nope, not for me" and walking out. And so Liam and I gathered our reserves and told them we were leaving. They were a bit disappointed but said there were cheaper options downstairs. We said show us a downstairs menu. It was still a bit pricey but barely in the same league, so we went downstairs. This was more like it! There were crowds of tourists, and a three-piece girl band with DJ performing some cheesy music! Liam had pizza, but I was watching my wheat so I had a chicken salad. Which was really quite inedible. Aside from the fantastically bad and therefore ironically enjoyable music, the evening wasn't very satisfying and we returned to the hostel to sleep. Big day tomorrow. We'd be visiting Hell.

Christmas Travels Numero Seis - Shanghai: the easiest way to spend all your money.

2008-04-13T13:20:00.001+01:00

Our next day in Shanghai, the last full day we'd have, had been put aside specifically to shop. We had no access to any western shops in Xinjiang, and fairly often Chinese clothes simply don't fit the bill. So we thought we'd take the opportunity to get some clothes to last us through the rest of the year. Liam spent a packet in H & M, which I would have been only too willing to do had they anything I liked; I found one acceptable top. I also bought some jeans in Zara seeing as mine were falling apart at the seams. But they are about a foot too long, because they are made for giant women and I am not of this ilk. The shops were down Huaihai Lu, (Avenue Joffre) and at night everything was lit up and very cosmopolitan. Lovely stuff. However seeing as I couldn't find anything really suitable, my clothes are in an absolute state at the moment! My jacket is pitiable. Maybe someday soon I'll go on a quest to find something wearable in Urumqi...
That evening we had our hearts absolutely set on getting a haircut. Mine was full of split ends and losing its style, and Liam's fringe was by now hanging down his nose! We don't trust Urumqi hairdressers as far as we can throw them. Which is not very far. So we decided to wait until Shanghai to get haircuts, where we thought the hairstylists might be better trained. Plus, we had Vanessa there to help us out with translations for style if we got into linguistic muddles.
Vanessa recommended a salon and we made our way there. She was at work so could only come to meet us partway through the session. I got my hairwashed in a sink, but Liam got the 'dry wash' where they basically wash his hair in the seat using water sprayed from a bottle. They halfheartedly massaged my head when I got my hair washed, but I know that Chinese salons all do head massages if you ask, normally for free, and some do back massages too, for a small charge. It was quite late though and I couldn't be bothered to ask for a proper one. I showed the lovely gay hairdresser (they're all gay men hair stylists here, it's so wonderfully cliche) a photograph of my hair how it had looked when I'd last had it looking styled, and he cut it in a similar way, though the fringe was a little different. Vanessa turned up at this point and helped me ask for a more feathery fringe, thank God! He then blowdried my hair with extreme volume, which I'm not a fan of. Apparently he had told Vanessa (her translation) that my hair was "too sticky to my head". I'm going to assume he meant flat, and not something worse. Charming.
A bald Liam and a voluminous moi went to eat with Vanessa and had some Shanghai style dumplings which were good, before saying our goodbyes and going home to bed.

Christmas Travels Numero Cinco - The Lights and Sights of Shanghai

2008-04-13T13:00:00.004+01:00

On Boxing Day, it was time to be a tourist once more. In terms of tourism, Shanghai is a bit lacking in actual sites, but there is always the fun of marvelling at the sheer modernity and hugeness of everything. The most touristy bit of town is Old Town, which Liam and I set off to find in the morning. We thought we had found it but were instead walking around some of the residential bits of Shanghai where the people who are not millionaires live. It was quite interesting to see that different side of Shanghai which I imagine the average visitor does not see. We finally navigated our way to the real Old Town. The buildings here have been preserved in their original style and kept in excellent condition so that visitors can see a typical Qing style area, mixed in of course with gift shops and hawkers everywhere. Looking out towards the Old Town area there was a fantastic view of the Qing streets with the towering skyscraper Jinmao Tower just behind it. We walked through the Old Town to have a looksee and were constantly pestered by hawkers selling mostly watches, but also shoes and bags and so on. The kind of thing we can easily buy elsewhere! Our target was a teahouse right in the centre of the area, the Yu Yuan Garden. It was in the middle of a stretch of water, and to reach it we had to walk around a zigzagged path. The path was built that way to protect the buildings from evil spirits, as it was said that they can't navigate the corners! The teahouse was recommended by Francesca's guidebooks but when we got there we paid an obscene amount for a cup of tealeaves (they top up water as many times as you desire). The tea tasted like soggy grass because it was essentially just a cup full to the brim with leaves. I surreptitiously removed over half my leaves and wrapped them in a tissue in my pocket just so I could find the tea drinkable! It was STILL too strong and after a few cups just to feel we'd had our moneysworth Liam and I left. By this time, darkness had fallen and all the old buildings were lit up with fairy lights along their eaves. It was all really beautiful, but we didn't stay long as we still had a lot of ground to cover!
Next stop was the French Concession. The French Concession was one of the many foreign concessions in Qing Dynasty and Republic of China era Shanghai, and was the most affluent. It is now the hubbub of all the consumerism that Shanghai is noted for. We walked along some of the big streets checking out all the lights and westernness. The street was teeming with white people everywhere we looked! It almost felt like being back home, but bigger and brighter! (The Chinese do blatant capitalism better than we could ever dream of.) The main street we walked down, aside from Huaihai Lu, was East Nanjing Road, which was like how I imagine New York. One day I'll see for real I guess!
After seeing East Nanjing Road, our next stop was The Bund. The Bund is where all the old French Colonial buildings are next to the Yantze River. Over the river are all the new giant giant giant buildings. Basically the government decided to take a part of Shanghai, Pudong, and develop it, and so they did. To get to Lujiazui, where the Jinmao Tower is, we crossed the river via the Bund Sightseeing Tunnel. This is an incredibly cheesy experience but one that shouldn't be missed, just for pure comedy value. You go in a little capsule through a tunnel with flashing lights and solemn poetic voiceovers. When we got to the other side we had to find our way to the Jinmao Tower, which we promptly did. The tower was the tallest in China (if you don't count Taiwan) but they are building one just a little taller right next to it. It looks a bit like it's made of metal Lego, which is always encouraging. Then we waited in a queue to get to the top. You go in an elevator which climbs so fast your ears pop. It takes something like 40 seconds to go to the 84th floor. Mental. At the top we could see all of Shanghai and realised just how big the city is. We also had excellent views of the Oriental Pearl TV Tower, one of Shanghai skyline's most famous structures. I posted a couple of cards from the world's highest post office and highest postbox, 394 metres up on the 84th floor.
After climbing the tower we decided to go for dinner. By this time it was pretty late and practically everywhere was closed. Finally we found an open restaurant in the French Concession and I had some delicious sweet and sour cod steak. Pure heaven, but pricey with it! After dinner it really was getting on, and we had more to do the next day, so it was time for bed once more.

Forgive the huge amount of photos!

The bustling bit of 'real' Shanghai that we stumbled across.

Old Town, plus the brand spanking new towers in the background. I like to pretend that this is arty juxtaposition that sums up the old and new which is present throughout China... but we all know this is just a not-so-good photo...

The tea-house (you can just about see the corners of the zig-zag path on the left)

So pretty! Excuse the blur.

Yu Yuan all lit up at night.

The entire area's eaves are covered in little lights like this, which really accentuate the Chinese-style architecture.

Me on East Nanjing Lu. So many pretty lights! I've always been a city slicker at heart : )I am Hello Kitty in case you are wondering.

The pure unadulterated tack that is the Bund Sightseeing Tunnel.

Jinmao Tower. I forget who pointed this out, but they were very right in saying that it looks like it's made of Lego!

I was very proud to find this window! London and Urumqi, both in the same direction. I may be far from England-home, but here in Shanghai I was also 3240km from my new home! And then you can see the lights of Shanghai and the Oriental Pearl TV Tower from here too. Basically the best window in the whole of the Jinmao Tower!

Me posting stuff from the highest postbox in the highest post office in the world!

The Oriental Pearl TV Tower. Not the best picture as the outsides of the windows were very grubby. I wouldn't want to be the one that had to clean them though!

Communism? Er... sure.

Christmas Travels Numero Cuatro - Suzhou --> Christmas in Shanghai!

2008-04-13T12:49:00.005+01:00

We knew we'd have to wake up early to see as much of Suzhou as possible before we went straight on to Shanghai later that day - it was already Christmas Eve! But by this time I was feeling really really rough, and for the life of me I just couldn't get out of bed. I felt guilty for having slowed us down and eventually got up and went to a pharmacy. I bought some Chinese cold medicine which tasted lovely, though I'm not sure how effective it actually was. Liam had found a suggested walk around Suzhou, so we followed that route. I had to keep stopping to sit down because I felt like I was going to collapse. The route took us past an opera school, where I saw little kids practising their voice warm-ups in the playground. We saw some of Suzhou and it looked like a really nice place but I just couldn't wait for the walk to be over because I was struggling to walk. We found 'China Famous Shopping Street' Guanqian Jie, and had a walk down there. We were astounded at the number of foreigners we were seeing. On the street were little McDonalds golfcarts to take you from the end of the street directly to McDonalds. The height of laziness!! Even in my fatigued state I shunned them! I loved that the street was old-style preserved Chinese architcture but big shopping chains inside the buildings; the kind of juxtapositioning I like : ) There were some markets stalls selling tack and a temple just off the street, but I really wasn't up for it so we had a drink and a sit-down for ages and then went to get the train to Shanghai.

Traditional architecture, Western stores, on Suzhou's Guanqian Jie

This time we had seats and somewhere to go once we were off the train! We thought all our friends in Shanghai had gone home for Christmas but we got a happy surprise when our friend Francesca sent us a message saying she was still in Shanghai. She had just moved into a flat with an American guy and Sarah from our Chinese class in Newcastle. Sarah had gone home for the holidays, so she very kindly said we were welcome to stay with them, and share in the Christmas celebrations. We snapped up her offer immediately and she gave us directions via subway to her apartment. When we got there her Christmas Eve party was in full swing. I had intended to go straight to bed and never wake up again... but I decided to stay and meet everyone. We met her flatmate Justin from America, lots of their Chinese and Turkish friends, including Justin's student Perry, who was lovely but more than a bit tipsy, Lachlan from Australia, and Sam from Zambia. A very multi-cultural gathering! Most of the guests had to leave quite early on because they were at work the next day, Christmas being of non-importance in China. But the Westerners stayed on, and I went to bed at some point in the wee hours of the morning!
The next day was Christmas Day!!! I stayed snuggled in bed for quite a while but eventually got up and showered. Liam and I watched Justin and Francesca open their Christmas presents from home and from some of their Chinese students (they teach English on the side, shh). After that we met back up with Lachlan and all went out for Christmas Dinner. We originally wanted to go to an Irish bar but it was closed so we ended up in the British Bulldog pub. It was just like your local! And it was on Urumqi Road, which made us oh-so-happy!
One reason I had especially been looking forward to going to Shanghai was to see my tandem partner Vanessa. The year before she had spent the year in Newcastle and helped me out to no end with my Chinese homework. Technically I was supposed to help her with her English in return, but she was practically fluent, so I helped her with Beginner's French instead! Anyway she was now back in Urumqi and was in fact my friend Frankie's Chinese tandem partner at Shanghai University. Frankie had gone home for Christmas like everyone else but obviously Vanessa was still around so we called her up and invited her for dinner. It was great to see her again, though a little surreal to meet her in a British pub in China!
After our very-close-to-the-real-thing Christmas Dinner, we moved on to one of the Shanghai group's favourite watering holes, Windows Scoreboard. On the way I phoned home to say Merry Christmas! I was going to phone Chris after, but the credit ran out halfway through my call to the parents, so that couldn't happen. Apparently I sounded drunk on the phone, but that can't have been possible as I'd had no alcohol. Okay, I lie, I had a mouthful of wine before pulling a disgusted face and giving my glass to Liam to finish off. I just don't drink wine I guess. Anyway, no drunkenness, just very high spirits as a big group of us made out way down the road and passed a couple of huge polystyrene snowmen. We went first to Huaihai Lu (formerly the famous Avenue Joffre), the main thoroughfare of the French Concession, to see China's biggest Christmas Tree all lit up. It was flippin' huge as well! Liam and I were getting very excited at all the skyscrapers and lights and stuff, which sparked a rather derisive but well-meaning laugh from Vanessa who said we were acting like 'people from the country', haha! So yeah, we went to Windows Scoreboard for cocktails and were taught some great drinking games by Vanessa and her friend Sheri, who had just joined us. We finished off our Christmas Day in a huge club called Babyface. Brilliant place. I must go back : ) We danced the night away, which is not how I tend to spend Christmas but was excellent nevertheless.

Fran and Liam with the tree.

Christmas Dinner at the British Bulldog, the boys: Lachlan, Liam and Justin

And the girls: Fran, me, and Vanessa

Giant polystyrene snowman!!!

One of the beer bottle Christmas trees all over China. Stunning stuff. (l-r) Fran, Lachlan, me, Justin, Vanessa, and Liam

Biggest Christmas Tree in China, on Huaihai Lu. For true size, look at that little person standing next to it on the left of the picture. Diddy in comparison!

Christmas Travels Numero Tres - The Nanjing Massacre Museum and then --> Suzhou.

2008-04-13T12:37:00.005+01:00

The next day was our final day in Nanjing. Nanjing is also famous for being the site of vicious Japanese attacks during the Japanese War of Agression and occupation of China, and one cannot really go to Nanjing without seeing the Nanjing Massacre Museum, so that was our plan for the morning. We caught a bus that I thought would go to the museum, and clearly my psychic vibe was switched on that day because not long later we were there. The museum really shocked us to the core. The Japanese idea was that if they decimated Nanjing, the then capital, the country would not be able to recover, and from 13th December 1937 to January 1938, so that is what they did. They killed indiscriminately. Their excuse was that any soldier could take off his uniform and blend in with civilians, so they must cull the civilians too in order to cut out the military threat. But that doesn't explain why they killed women and innocent little children too. And raped them without a care in the world. They also set fire to the city and dropped bombs all over it. The final death toll was over 300,000 people. Regular Nanjing citizens had tried desperately to clear up the dead and had created mass graves, which now lie underneath various Nanjing tourist and shopping sites. The Nanjing Massacre Museum itself lay over one of the biggest mass graves, which held 10,000 people. Apparently blood was running through the streets like rivers, and the stench of burning flesh was overpowering. The Japanese did not stop there and occupied Nanjing for years, until finally they were turfed out by the American attacks at the completion of the Second World War, and through the combined efforts of the Communist People's Liberation Army and the Capitalist Nationalist Army, who held off their own civil war to get rid of the Japanese presence. While they were in Nanjing, the Chinese were forced into effective slavery. The Japanese set up Comfort Centres, which were basically forced brothels filled with Chinese women for the enjoyment of the Japanese soldiers. To this day, the official Japanese line is that the entire massacre did not happen and that the comfort centres did not exist, despite the fact that hundreds of Japanese soldiers have confessed to it of their own initiative. The Chinese are now saying that they do not wish to punish the Japanese in any way, but want the Japanese to admit and apologise so they can continue in peace.
There were many moving exhibitions, including the Crying Wall, which was a giant motif with merely some of the names of the victims in that particular grave. As the wall stretched into the distance, we realised just how many innocent people had been massacred. We also saw some Japanese forms of torture, including a big tube with spikes on the inside; they would cram a Chinese person inside and then roll it around. Lovely fellows. There were a few parts of the museum where you could see what the ground was like underneath, and it was just a mass of bones. It was barely possible to see which parts of the human form they were from. We also saw the skeleton of a baby and a nine year old girl both of whom had had huge long nails hammered into several parts of their body, including the skull; this was one of the many Japanese methods of killing. The most affecting exhibition was a dark room with just the sound of a water drop every 12 seconds, with the names and photographs of victims reflected onto the walls. The drop represented the death toll; for an entire THREE WEEKS, a Chinese person died on average every 12 seconds. Utterly shocking.
Throughout the entire museum visitors are requested to keep a respectful silence, which made the atmosphere very sombre and glum. It was broken up by a huge group of schoolchildren who were much more interested in me and Liam than the displays of their murdered countrymen and in fact followed me around the museum until I told them off. They were much too young to know what they were seeing and could often be seen laughing. Their particular favourite was a painting entitled 'The Rape of Nanjing' which depicted the horrible scenes of the violence; the kids were amused to see naked people and clearly didn't understand that this was a painting of people twisted into horrific agony. It was a shame to see but I suppose the teachers should be blamed for bringing a giant group of small kids to such a moving place. We were pretty impressed with the museum's quality of exhibition, as for China it was of excellent standard, and we were both left fairly shellshocked by the massacre until we reached the final part of the museum, which really let the rest of it down. It was effectively a big rant at the 'foreign imperialist powers' (they like that phrase a lot in China) and how if they hadn't weakened China, then this would never have happened, so really, France Britain and America, blame yourselves. Oh, and Taiwan is ours, so there.

The huge and very moving statue outside the massacre museum. The poem underneath reads:

Never returns the son killed

Never returns the husband buried alive

Sorrow drowns the wife raped

Heavens...

Just about says it all, really.

Equally huge and equally emotive is the gigantic memorial cross inside the museum grounds.

---------------------------

A bit of a disappointing and hugely irrelevant ending to the museum, and then we were out in the bright sunny open air. Just time to sample some street food (omelette wrap with spicy sauce and wafer curl things) and then we took ourselves off to the train station. The next train to Suzhou was not leaving for quite some time and was annoyingly expensive. We wasted some time in an internet cafe, looking at things to do in Suzhou in preparation so that we didn't waste time like on the first day in Nanjing. I was starting to feel quite under the weather at this point but was hoping I wouldn't get ill.
We had no seats for the train to Suzhou so perched outside in the corridor bit. It was quite a short journey, though it was already late evening. When we got to Suzhou we got straight into a taxi and asked for a Hostelling International hostel. The hostel was located on a beautiful old style street. Suzhou is one of China's water cities and is sometimes described as the Venice of China. There were canals everywhere lined with little lights and it was all very nice to look at. The hostel we originally wanted to stay at was being renovated or something, but they pointed us in the direction of another one very nearby. We wandered down the quaint little streets until we found our hostel, which was the former house of an important family in Suzhou, the Pangs. Our hostel room was lovely and felt like pure luxury to us! We went out found some street food for dinner. Liam had some chow mein and I had some spicy chilli fried shredded potato. It was Chris' birthday so I gave him a call from the hostel phone and then off to bed.

Pretty pretty Suzhou.

Christmas Travels Numero Dos - We see Nanjing

2008-04-13T12:31:00.003+01:00

As I said, following our original plan we were a bit pushed for time and the delay at the airport had eaten up our only spare back-up day. So the next day we already had no leeway for mistakes. And then we spent the morning doing nothing, getting on pointless buses and only really seeing things at the end of the day. There was still a lot of stuff to see in Nanjing and so we knew we'd need at least another full day and a morning here to see it all. This meant that we wouldn't get to Shanghai in time for Christmas, and we weren't having that! We decided to cut Hefei out of our itinerary. We are both loath to cut anything out ever, but we had little choice, and we knew we could always fit Hefei in at another time, and geographically we couldn't cut out any of the other locations sensibly.
We spent our second day in Nanjing being very good tourists. First we struggled to find the tourist bus that would take us to Zhongshan Mountain National Park (Purple Mountain, around the foot of which virtually all the sites are located). We took a taxi to one of the places we knew the bus stopped, which cost us 27 kuai and seemed to be practically in another country considering the distance we went! We found the stop and paid our 2kuai to get to Song Meiling's villa. Song Meiling was the wife of the Kuomintang leader Chiang Kai-shek, and the sister-in-law of Sun Yat-sen. She was educated in America at a finished school and then returned to China. Her villa is celebrated for its mix of Chinese and Western architecture and decor. After seeing the villa, we waited in the rain for the bus again, and then caught it to the Linggu Temple scenic area. This is a Buddhist temple and pagoda in the settings of a pretty park at the foot of Purple Mountain. We climbed the pagoda which had spiral steps - one of my pet hates! I just can't walk up and down them properly; it makes my legs shake. A few floors up, Liam's were shaking too from the height so he went straight up to the top and then straight back down. I lingered a little longer to look out at the views, but the sky was pretty damp and misty and I couldn't see as much as the views are famed for. After exploring the entire area and checking out all the little buildings and sculptures the map pointed out, we stopped off at a Buddhist restaurant to eat some sweet and sour aubergine. Everything in the restaurant is vegetarian but it was yummy nonetheless. Apparently the restaurant is really old and can feed up to 1000 monks at a time. Impressive stuff.
Next, we went over to the Ming Tombs on one of those little touristy electric train things. I particularly wanted to see the Sacred Path, which is the path leading to the tomb itself. The path here is notable for being curved, where all the others are dead straight. Also, all Ming Sacred Paths are lined with stone animals which denote different protection and respect for the emperor. We had great fun posing pretending to be the various animals... because we are mature.
By this point we were pretty damn knackered but we fought on as all good tourists must. We got the train again to Sun Yat-sen's Mausoleum. It is a very important site in China, because Sun Yat-sen was the father of the revolution and did away with the old Imperial dynasty system, so the Chinese revere him with huge and sincere respect. We struggled our way up nearly 400 steps to see his mausoleum, and then were relieved that we had seen all the sights we had come to see. After our hard day's work posing as good tourists, we slipped back into our naughty ways and went to Costa, where I had a chocolate twist and hot chocolate, just like I have in the UK! Unfortunately it did not taste just like it does in the UK. But it was still good. As if that wasn't enough for us, we went just next door to Starbucks straight after, so Liam could have the coffee he wanted. And then, we went to Haagen-Dazs, and I got a beautiful but expensive fix of good ol' cookie and cream ice cream. Nyam nyam nyam.

Linggu Pagoda in the Linggu Temple Scenic Area.

Not many people know this, but I am in fact a heffelump. (This is on the Sacred Path at the Ming Tombs, by the way).

Sun Yat-sen's Mausoleum, or How to Cram a Stupid Number of Steps into One Tourist Site.

Me taking a welcome rest with my friend the lamppost on a street in Nanjing.

Christmas Travels Numero Uno - Urumqi --> Nanjing

2008-04-13T12:24:00.002+01:00

A lot of my friends went home for Christmas, but I wouldn't dream of doing so. No offence to you guys in little old England, but I'd much rather be out here. It costs ever such a lot as well just for a couple of weeks, and I have the rest of my life to spend Christmas in England if that's what I really want. Plus I am hoping to accumulate such an extended time in China and South-East Asia that when I go back to Britain I get huge culture shock. It might sound strange to WANT to get culture shock, but I think it will be really interesting.
Observing China from an outsider’s perspective means that I’ve learnt a lot and analyzed a lot, and learnt how best to adapt my lifestyle to fit here without leaving behind everything I know. I think looking at England in a similar detached way may mean that I can see it better – the wood for the trees and all that – instead of just accepting that that is how life is. I have already seen things in China that I’ve found I prefer to the Western way of living, and who knows what else they’ll be once I go back once more?!
With that in mind, Liam and I set off on our first multi-province trip to see some of East-kind-of-South China. The original plan was to fly to Nanjing (former national capital), then get a train to Hefei, then on to Suzhou, Shanghai, and Hangzhou, visit Huangshan (the most important mountain in China) and then fly back to Urumqi in plenty of time for New Year's Eve. Our flight to Nanjing was on the 20th of December, so we had a lot to fit into just ten or so days!
We left at 8am Beijing Time on Thursday 20th after some last minute but very light packing, and got a taxi to the airport. We flew to Nanjing with China Southern, but discovered as we checked in that actually the flight stopped in Yinchuan in Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region before flying on to the south. I was very excited (childish) because I was the first one on the plane! I'm not sure that's ever happened before. Very fortunate as the Chinese were of course faffing around like startled chickens.
We got to Yinchuan at 1pm and were told that our wait would be 40 minutes and we had to get off the plane. Time just kept on going by! And I was feeling sicker and sicker. I had eaten my plane dinner but I couldn't finish it. I assumed I was just not hungry. A sign went up saying our plane was delayed due to weather conditions, so we weren't too fussed as we now had an explanation, though I was feeling seriously uncomfortable. I had lain down across the seats, to which nobody batted an eyelid, when they suddenly announced: "due to bad weather conditions, your flight has been delayed until 11.30pm."
OH. MY. GOD. What were we supposed to do for 9 and a half hours? The chaos that ensued was not really much of note; of course there was shouting and so on but nobody seemed particularly surprised. Like with all the typical hassle that we've encountered in China, I just laughed. What else is there to do? Liam also didn't seem hugely bothered, and actually put on his Santa hat to bring some festive cheer to the airport. Whilst in the bathroom at around 4pm I heard an announcement saying we'd be sent to a hotel to relax, which in due course did indeed happen. The journey to the hotel from the airport took quite a while and I was getting more and more uncomfortable. I was also exhausted as the night before last I'd not actually gone to bed at all. Dirty stopout. When we got there and were assigned to our room I practically FELL into bed. Liam went off to explore a little and I fell into a fitful sleep. I woke up with diarrhea and then yet again a bit later, with more diarrhea. I then started to vomit, A LOT. I ended up going through the sitting next to toilet violently shaking and retching thing which I have recently become so accustomed to. Food poisoning again, from goodness knows what. I dragged myself back to bed and the next thing I knew Liam was knocking on the door to wake me up. He'd gone exploring a little but not seen much of interest, then eaten the free food the hotel and airline had put on for every guest. Now the bus would be going in 15 minutes. Still feeling very ill, I got on the bus at 9.30pm and by around half ten we were back through security. We were called into a queue at the information desk by a man absolutely reeking of baijiu but still absolutely delighted at our Westernness. We were given 200kuai each for our trouble as compensation, which is pretty nice of the airline really; 200 per passenger plus all the hotel and food stuff amounts to a helluva lot! I lay back down again but soon our flight was re-called at 11.30. We both dozed off on the flight and I woke up just as we were landing.
We claimed our very small, lightly-packed (yeah me, packing lightly. Wow) hold bags and then left. We suddenly realised we didn't have a clue where to go. Added to that we were being pressured on all sides by taxi driver who wanted us to get into their cars (this happens at every Chinese airport, long-distance bus station, and train station) and it was 2.20am. Fun all round. We jumped on the airport shuttle bus with the vague idea of getting off somewhere central so we could flag a taxi that wouldn't rip us off or be an especially long distance from anything, like those at the airport. Fortunately the very prepared Liam had some hotels written down which we figured would be in the centre, where the bus was headed. It was just potluck getting off at the right stop, but somehow we managed it! We got into a taxi with one of the stupidest drivers ever, but finally convinced him to get us to 550 Zhongshan Lu, the Jinjiang Inn. But when we got there, there was apparently no room at the inn. I'm inclined to believe they were lying again like those in Aksu, but by this point we were fairly fatalistic about the whole day. Instead of getting back into the taxi, we began to roam the streets at 4am in search of a non-seedy binguan (hotel) and came across a few street sellers already preparing their food for the day. We finally found a hotel of sorts, Longting Binguan, who accepted us! The receptionist was really insistent that we give her ID cards despite our explanation that, as foreigners, we didn't have them! We finally got into our hotel room. The bed was hard as rock but it still felt amazing to be lying in a properly horizontal position again. We set our alarm for 11am so we could get some sleep but still have time to see Nanjing the next day. I was freezing cold throughout the night and was still feeling ill with the food poisoning, so it was not the best night I'd ever had.
The next day we got up and showered and so on, booked another night in the hotel, and then went out to see Nanjing. We went to a park just near our hotel, which Liam thought was some special park. It turned out to just be a generic park, which we walked through anyway. When we came out the other side we had no idea what to do next. We wandered down some streets and went down one particular side street which was packed with schoolkids. They were very excited to see us actually, and are also the only people in China yet who have guessed that we are British and not American or Russian. I don't know how they knew, but well done kiddiewinks. We got some "oooooh"s when they saw us, and one girl who literally jumped when she saw us walking towards her. Brilliant stuff. Even adults seemed amazed by our presence and everyone was trying out their very best "hello" for us.
Full of our own self-importance, we decided to get on a random bus and hope it would take us somewhere useful. It did not. We got off at the end of the line, and then noticed a bus which seemed to be heading towards one of those brown-coloured road signs that designate tourist sites (why are these signs the same everywhere in the world? Who chose BROWN??). So we got on this bus in turn, and it headed away from the sign. Damn. The bus in fact took us further and further away from the city centre into the back of beyond and we didn't know what to do. Was it a circular and therefore best to stay on, or should we make our escape sometime soon? We finally got off at a place where there were actual buildings, and went in search of an internet cafe. They're everywhere in China and sure enough we had soon found one. We wanted to check the internet to see what there was of interest in Nanjing, because we were not finding any of it! Sure enough, Nanjing has a ridiculous amount of tourist attractions, though most of them are situated away from town near Purple Mountain.
It was already 4 or 5pm by this time, and we had read that the Confucius Temple was a good place to go because aside from the temple itself, the area around it is very lively for markets and street food and so on. We had no time for any of the huge daytime attractions, but though we could at least see some things that evening. We got a bus back to town, then got the metro to where we thought the temple was. On the metro the tickets were like blue plastic coins which puzzled us both until we saw other people using them as swipe cards. Ingenious. When we got off the metro we knew we still weren't all that close to the temple so we tried to get a taxi the rest of the way. But the drivers would only take us to the airport. Grrrr. It was okay though because we realised we had got off at the wrong stop anyway.
At this point I had not eaten for well over 28 hours because I was staving off the illness, but I was so hungry and feeling a bit faint and I cracked when I smelt some lovely waffly bits being cooked next to me. Yum yum yum. I ate them and my stomach seemed perfectly okay with this new development; a little relieved even. In keeping with the cracking out of lack of willpower, we both independently and then collectively gave up on the Confucius Temple enterprise, and decided instead to indulge our western cravings. We got the metro to the very centre of town to a huge crossroads called Xinjiekou which is the apex of the capitalist culture of Nanjing. Nanjing was the former capital of the Republic of China and then later the Kuomintang headquarters and was one of the cities least touched by communism in China. Even at the height of the Cultural Revolution, Nanjing somehow managed to keep itself more distant from the whole mess by some unknown method of capitalist willpower. Everywhere we looked on these street, we could see huge congolemerate outposts and flashing neon lights. We gave in and went to Starbucks. I am not the biggest fan of Starbucks in the UK because I don't like coffee or their hot chocolate but it was brilliant to have quality western food again! After Starbucks, just for the craic we went to McDonalds - they don't have it in Urumqi and we hadn't had it for a while, so we were wondering whether it actually tastes as bad as we remember. It does. Ick.
We rounded off the day with a trip to see the lights of Hunan Lu. This is another big capitalist street, basically full of shops and shoppers and lights. Plus there were loads of Christmas decorations on the street which were beginning to put us into a very festive mood. I posed with an amazing Christmas tree made entirely of beer bottles - any student would be proud! We later discovered these beer bottle Christmas tree creations are actually pretty common around the South-East of China, and probably elsewhere as well. Getting a taxi from here was hell though; we tried every corner of the crossroads a couple of times, and the taxis invariably stopped at the corner we had just come from. When we finally hailed one, the sheer sense of victory completed an excellent evening : )

Ready, set, GO!

Not. Impressed. (at Yinchuan Airport)

Ah, Starbucks. Ah, Western Imperialism. I heart Nanjing.

Hunan Lu.

The shambles that they called 'exams'

2008-04-06T10:15:00.000+01:00

Exams over here are most decidedly not the stressful affair that they can be in Britain. To begin with, nobody ever really knows when they are! The final dates were announced far too close to the time for my liking and made planning our Christmas escape to Shanghai much more difficult, as we intended to leave as soon as they were over. Eventually we were given dates. First exam Monday 17th December, grammar. This was when we discovered just how ridiculous the exams are. The teacher had in fact told us exactly what new vocab would be in the test, which paragraphs we should learn, and so on. The test would have been easy anyway, but with the added extra help that we all already knew the content of the exam, it became pure routine. For us. Because we had been in the class. But the Kazakhs were finding it much more difficult, and had to resort to 'subtly' using dictionaries and their textbooks, shouting questions at each other across the room, and even using their mobile phones to text or phone over the answers and questions. Halfway through the exam, a man who we call Pangpang came in and started berating Rachel for not agreeing to come to a singing competition later that week. Then he made Tobin pose for a fake photograph of him happily doing the exam. I also noticed that the girl next to me was craning her neck throughout the entire exam to see my answers. I'd have been annoyed were it not for the fact that she was doing a different exam paper. The one a level above me, as it happens. You'd think my answers wouldn't reach that standard! When Liam got up to leave, the teacher checked through his exam paper and pointedly suggested that he check for errors again. He said he'd already checked, but she kept insisting. In the end Liam flatly refused and left. The same teacher had earlier STUNNED me by coming up, reading over my shoulder and saying "ooh look you should use this character here". I started to write the wrong one in and she shook her head and wrote it for me. In an EXAM. My God. And so we experienced our first Chinese exam.
The next one was speaking and listening. I was really worried about this exam actually, as these are by far my two worst skills, but I needn't have worried. They handed around oral exam topic options on slips of paper, but said that if we were unsatisfied we could simply swap for a better one. I ended up with 'tell me about your typical weekend in China and how it differs from your typical weekend in your home country.' Okay. I can do that! Nerves slightly got the better of me in the exam and I came out with a ridiculous phrase akin to: "On the weekend we like to go to Pakistani restaurant the Pakistani restaurant is our favourite restaurant we like to go there to eat we eat dinner there almost every weekend but in England I can't go out to eat because it is so expensive but in China it is not expensive at the Pakistani restaurant so we eat at the Pakistani restaurant, almost every weekend." Smooth. Oh yeah, and for that, she gave me 93%. Mad. This particular exam was held in a room which was filled with students, with Kazakhs playing music and so on, and we were just put at the back where it was slightly calmer. Tobin's exam was interrupted by a teacher coming over and having a chat with his examiner (our good old Teacher Zhang), during Peixiangfeng's, the examiner called over some random comments to his wife seated at the front of the room, and during Liam's, he was mid-sentence and she just got up and walked off. I looked over to see Liam sitting in stunned disbelief.
Listening came straight after, and was equally ridiculous. I couldn't hear because the people next to me were talking the whole way through. To be honest, if I knew the listening texts off by heart from our classes I could have done it purely on memory, but I had missed a lot of listening classes and so I couldn't fall back on that. My listening score actually pulled my total score down considerably, so I am really annoyed by that. I think for the summer exams I will learn the textbook! It's the only foolproof way of passing a listening exam in a room full of Kazakhs! At the end of the exam I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw a girl sat with her own, unfilled-in paper in front of her, and three of her friends' papers surrounding it. She was comparing all their answers, finding the most popular answer and from that filling in her own paper. The examiner casually mentioned to her that she probably shouldn't be doing that, and then left her to it.
The next day we had our reading paper, which yet again constituted either being fantastic at Chinese, or knowing our reading textbook really well. I had flicked through the book and the advised list of vocab just that morning, so it was pretty fresh, and it took me no time at all to rip through the paper and get the hell outta there! It was in this exam that I finally saw a student just get up and walk over to his friend's table to compare answers. I had to hide my laughter with my head on the desk. Though if I had laughed out loud who would've cared? Liam and I regularly caught each other's eyes throughout all of the exams in incredulous hilarity. And so that was the shambles that was exams. I almost hope that they are the same in summer, for what better way to improve my average for Newcastle?

Christmas is coming!!!

2008-04-06T09:53:00.002+01:00

After the first snow, we realised that winter was upon us. Being late November, Liam was now wetting himself with excitement about Christmas, and we decided to give us a happy Christmas atmosphere we would make advent calendars. I made Liam a fireplace with stockings as the things to open, and Liam and I made Catherine a Christmas Pudding with little black boxes to open. We made the boxes out of white card and painted them black, but the paint rubbed off very easily so every time Catherine opened a box she'd get covered in black smudges! Later we discovered that they do in fact sell black card. D'oh. In turn, Liam and Catherine made me a bright red and white stocking calendar. Making the calendars was stupidly good fun. We bought all the stuff we needed (crepe paper, card, paint, glue and so on) at a poundsaver style shop opposite our university and then filled the boxes with Chinese pick and mix from Jiajiale, the big supermarket up our road. Sadly Chinese pick and mix is a bit hit and miss, so on some days the sweets were genuinely not edible. I was lucky (or Liam very skilful at picking sweets) for almost all of mine were tasty, though I tried some of the ones we put in Catherine and Liam's calendars and they tasted like vomit. Like, actually. Oh, while I'm on the subject, if you come to China, never eat Lovelytime chocolate. It comes in three flavours. The first tastes like cheese. Another tastes like body odour and rotten food, if I remember rightly. Then the final one tastes like sick and bile. Not long after I was tasting sick and bile for real; I threw up it was so bad. And if you value your tastebuds, never try their chewy corn-on-the-cob sweets. Ick.
We also put a few non-food items in the boxes, and it made the run-up to Christmas very satisfying in a childlike way. Oh, and gave me a reason to get out of bed of a morning : )
Decorationswise, we found a teeny weeny Christmas tree and a couple of random polystyrene Christmas-style items. We hung a wreath off our light fixture (from the door was just not going to work) and put our cards, sent from home (they don't sell them in China) on the fridge. Catherine entered into the creative spirit and made everyone Christmas cards, which was a lovely surprise. We also found a vile mouse creation thing in a random shop on the way home from buying creative calendar and card supplies. It only had one eye. It had a Christmas hat. It sang a song, and it was not a Christmas song for that matter. But it made our lives just that little bit better, perched jauntily atop our television. Catherine also found us Santa phone charms, so everything was getting very Christmassy down Urumqi way.
Christmas in China is definitely not the same as in the west. Very few people here actually celebrate it, though some of the bigger establishments put up Christmas trees and window decorations. What amused me was that they put them all up a week or two before the date, and some of them still haven't taken them down in March. It's like the backwards of Britain!
To add to the winter excitement, it was now snowing fairly regularly. Catherine and I made snowmen outside our apartment, enlisting the help of some local children to do so. We were watched in bemusement by the security guards. Hours later, after returning home from a Japanese restaurant, we were glum to find that our works of art had been viciously knocked down. They paled into comparison, though, next to the amazing snowman we found in the street. The sculptor was the owner of a Xerox copy place and made the snowman just outside his shop. Either he's an artistic genius, or he has too much time on his hands. Kinda looks like Napoleon.
I spent a day out with my Mongolian buddies looking at some of the ice sculptures they were starting to build in People's Square. I saw how they create outdoor ice rinks in this country: they make walls out of packed-up snow, and then they spray water onto the floor - it's so cold it just freezes, and hey presto! One ice rink. After seeing the ice sculptures and eating some yummy pilau and kebabs we went to a roller disco... an experience I haven't repeated but that I am dying to do soon as I can!
Catherine and I were also enjoying our snowball fights... winter was at this point not too cold for comfort and we were loving it! Catherine also treated us to our Christmas presents before we went away, and they were stockngs full of loads of cute little presents. : ) But there was one thing we weren't overly happy about, and that was the upcoming university exams.

My stocking advent calendar, made by Liam and Catherine.

Catherine opening her Christmas Pudding advent calendar, made by Liam and myself.

Our Christmas tree. Teeny weeny but enough to bring Christmas to the house! We've packed it away now but how our landlady loves to take it back out.

Cuthbert the Mouse. One-eyed and plays a mysterious tinny tune. What better decoration can one get?

The kiddywinks that helped us build our snowmen. And Catherine's 'snowman'. Looks like a heap in the ground to me... but whatever.

The most amazing snowman I have ever seen. It looks kind of like Napoleon. His sign wishes us all a Happy Christmas.

Catherine was not too impressed that they knocked our snowmen down!

Me eating sushi at the Japanese restaurant.

Liangliang (Batur, however that's spelt) and Bayin with the beginnings of the ice sculptures.

Me with my presents!

The last few bits and bobs in November

2008-04-06T08:42:00.003+01:00

After Michele left, the world kept on turning and we realised it was starting to get a bit nippy noodles. But we soldiered on to have a fun card night in our flat. Liam, Catherine and I hosted Paul, Eric, and four of their Uyghur buddies: Jack (Egbar), Maygul, Varis, and a guy who I am going to call Michael because I cannot for the life of me remember his name. The night was great fun, we learned some Uyghur games and I showed off my prowess at Snap ; ) What can I say, it's my calling. Later that month Ivan the Moldovan Kazakh celebrated his birthday, which was a night I won't forget! We all went round to his and Anjelika's apartment, where we ate some lovely food prepared by Angelika, and then she taught us some belly dancing moves. All of us tried out her sequinned belly dancing sash as we wiggled our hips Turkish style. Then we went to some mad Chinese club, which I will never enter again - it was crowded and loud which normally would mean I'd like it, but it just felt dirty somehow. We managed to escape and ran to Fubar! They came with us and tried out some other bars on the road, to return to tell us they'd found a great one. Indeed they had; they'd found the gay bar! I have always had trouble spotting whether Chinese guys are gay or not, as the straight ones are so effete, but now I see!
By this time of the year, I had returned to Erdaoqiao again, and now cannot possibly see how it was that I didn't like it the first time I went. I now absolutely love the place; it is easily my favourite part of Urumqi, and it is particularly amazing at night, when the lights are on but the people haven't stopped the hustle and bustle. Catherine and I went for a wander at some point in November, and came across the Russian part of town, and a brilliant Caspian restaurant. Yum. We love that the buildings in that part of town are so Russian, and that there were loads of Russians wandering the streets. We entered some funny little Russian shops, and found places that sold real butter and biscuits and stuff. Street sellers call out to us in Russian and we find it really amusing that they are totally thrown when we can't understand. Yep, I like Russiatown. After my first visit to Russia, I came home to find some apples had moved in on my desk. Tres amusant. But it was okay, because we had got Liam a very classy Russian-style present.
23rd November was my first ever Thanksgiving. We booked a table at the Sheraton, which is the biggest, classiest hotel in town. They put on a special Thanksgiving Dinner buffet, and though it wasn't quite right, it was pretty damn good. But then I can never control myself at buffets. It was nice to try out a different celebration, but it almost seemed like a Christmas rehearsal dinner! We finished the night in Fubar, bien sur.
We also got the first snow in November, and I am writing in March and it still hasn't melted. Take that for tenacity!

Us in the flat, pre-card playing extravaganza. (l-r) Jack, Paul, Varis, Maygul, me, Michael, Catherine, Eric

Cheat is a pretty hard game when it comes down to it.

Liam is now going to poo in my bed. So he says. For revenge for this photo.

Russian architecture in the south of Urumqi.

Thanksgiving at the Sheraton. (l-r) Catherine, Liam, Eric, me, Will, Tobin.

The first snow! Very excited we were too.

And the beat goes on...

2008-03-19T16:33:00.006Z

Me and Catherine in our favourite Western haunt, Fubar.

Time now for yet another probably-not-brief round-up of life in Urumqi, this time from coming back from our Golden Week travels, up to November 11th. Yeah, I guess November 11th seems a pretty arbitrary date, but it is in fact the day that Michele left us to go back to the States and also when we first noticed winter creeping up on us.
So what happened during this time? Seeing as it's now mid-March, I'm going to have to use my photos to do this, so it will be strictly chronological!
Firstly, on return from Hotan, Frankie had a few days left with us to explore Tianshan (Heavenly Mountain) and we also took her to the Uyghur club we know and love: Kabana. Pure joy. Though Frankie did hit a guy in the face. Well, if he's going to be silly, what can he expect. That was our big night out for a while, and may in fact be the last time we went to the club - that really needs to be rectified because we love it so much. Though I've heard tell that there's a better Uyghur club out there...
The next notable night out was the night we discovered the Scottish bar. Oh my. The bar was basically a bar-cum-restaurant and was decorated with shiny Christmas decorations and tinsel. The male staff were all decked out in kilts. Well, their interpretation of kilts, which were really just very long skirts. The women were inexplicably dressed as angels. It's traditionally Scottish, y'know. The tables had tartan tablecloth, and then it was about there that the Scottish theme ended. The beer they were trying to push was Coors Light... American. It swiftly became apparent that not only was this a Scottish place, but it was also a singles joint. They were running people's lonely hearts messages on LCD screens with contact numbers. For a laugh my friends secretly put mine and Nolan's information on... I doubt Chris would be overly happy about that but I would never respond : ) Later that night (at 5am, when I was safely ensconced in bed) I got a text message from a mystery fellow in Chinese saying: "I understand foreign cultures and languages implicitly." Nothing else. Then literally 15 minutes later, "and WHY haven't you text me back??" Wow. No wonder he's single.
Next chronologically was a trip to our landlady's apartment, where she fed us up good and proper. Mmmm. More on our landlady and our apartment at a future time though I think.
And then back to the nights out! Later in October we discovered the delightful Mongolian bar. Land of joy and dreams. I now seem to spend a bit too much of my time here. Perfect mix of music: slow dances and quiet music for a good chat and relax, then traditional Mongolian music (pure dead mental, as Tobin, the resident Glaswegian, would say), and then crazy Eurotrash dance music, with strobes to accompany, then back to the slow and quiet again. Slow dancing in China is totally different to in the west. In the west it is pretty much only acceptable to slow dance with your partner, but over here, dancing with someone doesn't have the same connotations. Plus it's not 'slow dancing' as we know it. It's just dancing, but more slowly! You assume a ballroom dance position but stand very far apart so you aren't touching, and basically turn in circles. It's kind of dull actually unless you are having a conversation with your partner, but it's also rude to turn down anyone who asks for a dance. So at the bar, I found myself dancing with any number of old drunken men. Which is okay for a laugh. Oh and also lots of girls too. Including one who followed me to the bathroom (I didn't notice this until too late) and had a conversation with me as she watched me pee (no doors in this toilet haha). Then when I was done she made me dance several dances with her. Crazy bint.
On Nolan's birthday we went out for a meal at our favourite Sichuan restaurant, where I tried baijiu for the first time. Baijiu is normally 50% and it doesn't taste that bad, but it is pretty powerful (by the end of the night, Nolan had passed out!) and is the Chinese drink of choice. They drink it at any time of day and it is not unusual to go for lunch and see baijiu toasting going on at the next, very raucous, table. 'Persuading' people to drink, normally through toasting them, is a Chinese national pastime. They say that the more people you can get to drink, the more that like you; if they refuse, it means they dislike you. And so, for this birthday occasion, we decided to adopt the sport to see how much we could get Nolan to drink through toasting and general persuasion. It wasn't that hard actually, as Nolan has a special place in his heart (liver) for baijiu. After the meal we moved on to the Mongolian bar, now our bar of choice, and there the persuasion continued, not so gently, with glasses of beer. Every time I am in that bar I am made to neck beer! I have learnt now that I can get out of this in one of two ways: playing up the fact that I am a girl, and therefore unable to consume alcohol like all these manly men around me (makes them feel good. Neanderthals.) or making my friend Bayindala drink it for me : )
I am not an alcoholic you see.
Though you wouldn't know this from my description of general life so far eh?!
Ah yes, my photos tell me that this was around the time we discovered that Urumqi has a Pizza Hut. That makes pizza JUST like the Pizza Huts in the west. Result! Far too much of my not-so hard-earned cash has already been spent in this establishment, though we do our best not to go there.
So up to this point, I had pretty much just been going to class when I wasn't ill, and going out on weekends in a big group to a variety of places, eating out at the usual places, and generally just settling in to a very comfortable life here!
The end of October hit, and we just had to celebrate Hallowe'en! We went up the two flights of stairs to Eric and Michele's, which had been very creatively decorated with paper ghosts and explanations of Hallowe'en for those not in the know. Our flat brought the drinks, and Michele and Eric had cooked up a storm. For the while we were all very distracted by the appearance of cheese, bought by Tobin and Tracey from Carrefour (yeah they have Carrefour here - it's like our European link) Real cheese. It didn't last long. But that was okay, because by then the cooked food was ready, and it was absolutely delicious. Well done to Eric and Michele for making my year with all the nummyness : D The party was full with everyone we knew, including Eric and Michele, Liam, Catherine, me, Rachel, Tobin and Tracey, Nolan, Jonny, Balindala, Ivan and Angelika, and a few others I haven't yet introduced: Andy, who was Nolan's friend from somewhere or other, is now our mutual friend and is one of the funniest guys ever; his then girlfriend (they've been forced to split up because his parents think as he is Muslim (Hui ethnicity) and she is not (she's of Han ethnicity), they cannot be together, even if she converts to Islam) which has really upset him and which I find completely unfair and unreasonable); Rachel's Uyhgur landlady and housemate Zohra; and Squeaky Voice Girl who is a Chinese Russian teacher at our uni and has a voice so unbelievably squeaky that it is actually incomprehensible. Liam remembers her as the girl that said he looked like Prince Charles, which really made us laugh, but is pretty cruel.
We loved the party as it was such a good mix of people. It was quite a small gathering so everybody talked to everybody (except I did not talk to Squeaky Voice Girl as I discovered fairly early on that I just couldn't deal with her voice, and Liam didn't talk to her because he hates her forever and ever). We also particularly enjoyed the Uyghur influence on our party: nobody was wearing shoes! When you enter a Uyghur house, the shoes come off. So at the party everyone automatically took them off. It felt genuinely strange to be at a party without shoes, but then also oddly right. We commemorated with a photograph. Also at the party, Eric and Nolan gave us a live performance with Eric on the guitar and banjo and Nolan on the erhu, a traditional Chinese stringed instrument, and with singing too. It was pretty good! Then Bayindala and Eric tried to teach me some guitar, but gave up pretty soon when they discovered JUST how unmusical I am.
So that was Hallowe'en. My photographs inform me that November before Michele left was fairly run of the mill; as you now know, run of the mill means eating out, studying, and bars at weekends. Our favourite is, as ever, Fubar. Fubar is just so fabulously Western, plus now they know us by name. I'm not sure if that's something to be proud of, or very ashamed about. One exciting happening at the start of November was the discovery of the Pakistani restaurant. How I wish we'd found it earlier! Amazing amazing amazing. I think I will do an entire post about food though so I will leave it till then.
Other than that very little happened. They increased the security on our apartment, so once we got well and truly locked out. Riveting. We went out on night to Fubar and I found a group of old British businessmen, mostly Liverpudlians, but one of them was from Burton-upon-Trent which was quite exciting. It was great to hear that Midlands twang! Nolan started up a 'speaker series' which was basically our very clever friends giving a casual talk once a week about their specialized topic. Eric went first with Language Planning Policy in Xinjiang in the 1930s and 40s... needless to say I knew nothing about this, but it was actually really interesting. And so I feel here I must introduce Will. Will is a South African, Jewish, gay, American Republican. I daresay he is one of a kind on that alone, but he also separates himself from us mortals through his impossible attitude. He is one of the most obnoxious people we have ever had the displeasure to meet, though if I'm honest I kinda miss him - every time he was there, you knew something interesting was going to happen! He argued with practically every person, though in fact he never did anything to cross me so I only dislike him for his treatment of others, particularly Catherine who he seemed to take pleasure in patronizing. Anyway, Will kindly ripped Eric's talk to pieces. Idiot. It was annoying that his talk, the following talk, was so well put-together - we all wanted to hate it! The problem with Will was that he was incredibly knowledgeable and clever, but he used that as a reason to look down on people rather than inform them. Anyway, after that the speaker series pretty much died out, though it was a good idea and it might be nice to start it back up again, so us stupids can learn stuff with the eggheads.
Then on 10th November, we went out for a goodbye meal as it was Michele's last night. The group of us had a meal at the Sichuan opposite our uni (there are three Sichuans of note: Prawns-and-Chips (our favourite dish of theirs, which Catherine and I always fight over) where Nolan had his birthday, the Sichuan near Fubar which we frequented at the beginning of our time here but now don't really ever go to, and the one opposite the uni gates which is kind of acceptable but not ab-fab). It was sad to see Michele go but she generously left Eric with us.

Authentic Scottish kilt with some authentic Scottish people (Urumqi's Scottish Contingent, which seems to be growing day by day).

Crazy Mongolian dancing: It's incredible to watch, but alas! When we foreigners come to try it, it seems genuinely physically impossible to move our body that way!

Some of the men at Nolan's Sichuan birthday dinner (l-r): Paul, Kader, Ahmad, Andy, Nolan and Liam

Nolan the ladies' man! Plus all the women at the party (l-r): 2 Uyghur women whose names I have sadly forgotten, Tracey (standing), Donna, the man himself, Catherine, Michele (standing), and yet another Uyghur girl whose name I can't remember. I suck : (

Our commemorative shoeless party photograph.

Hallowe'en shenanigans. In this photo you can see (l-r or as close as I can get!) Jonny the Kiwi in the foreground, Andy's girlfriend, Liam, me and Andy talking back left, Zohra in the foreground (Rachel's landlady and now my Chinese grammar tutor), Tracey, Tobin, Catherine and Paul talking in pairs back right, and Rachel - unmistakable with her green hair!

Nolan on the erhu and Eric playing banjo, performing some hits for us!

Back to Urumqi

2008-03-19T16:28:00.000Z

And so we were back in Urumqi for life to continue as normal. But things had been changing in our absence! Before going away, Tobin had written a pretty forceful letter to the powers-that-be at our university, demanding better standards or a refund on his tuition fees. The teachers then had finally listened to our complaints about the Kazakh students paying no attention and disrupting the class and had decided to split the class on technically politically incorrect and very clearly racist lines: one class comprised of Central Asian students, and the other the British: me, Liam, Catherine, Rachel and Tobin, the Koreans: Xuyingxi and Peixiangfeng, and the solitary Russian: Galina.
Our very tightly strung reading class teacher was off on some kind of mystery sabbatical (my vote goes to complete nervous breakdown) and we had a new teacher for this class. This teacher seemed to be a better teacher in terms of technical teaching standard, but clearly hated us and we're to this day not sure why.
They had also changed our books at long last: we finally had an acceptable reading book! Naturally, for this is the Chinese way, we didn't actually have it in our possession for the first class, so our brand new teacher had to make up a class on the spot. She opted for telling fairytales from the countries we're from, which made for a pretty good class. They also changed our listening and speaking books too, but instead of giving us the new books, they gave us photocopies of the chapters they taught from. Not ideal, but at least the standard was a little closer to what we needed. I say a little closer because the standard was really very low; so simple in fact that it got dull at times. Plus our teacher still didn't know how to teach, which meant the change of book was pretty useless.
So it was all change at the university! I'll tell you more about what my classes are like sometime when I have the willpower to wade through the frustration that is discussing/dealing with our university in any way.