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 : )
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.
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