Ni Hao!

So I arrived in Beijing on 30^th October however its taking me a while to write this, I didn’t start until 10^th November and its now 14^th November where I’m going to finish off up to date as I’m sitting on the boat cruising down the Yangtze river and everyone else is off taking an afternoon nap.  I think when I publish this on the blog I’ll do it in stages otherwise its an essay for you to read in one go!

I can’t believe how long it took me to fly to Beijing from Hong Kong what with my connection in Singapore – I was exhausted!  My taxi driver didn’t seem to know where the hostel was, only the area, but of course no English at all.  Thankfully I had gotten them to write out the address in Chinese and underneath was the phone number so he called them and as it turned out was about 30 seconds away.  I couldn’t have picked a better hostel (well I don’t think – it was an improvement on the Hong Kong one by a lot anyway but I’ve plenty more to experience!).

My room was nice enough with a window and a bathroom with a working hot shower!  It was relatively late so I just ventured into the lounge area and got chatting with a few people.  I found it surprisingly easy – you hear a conversation and just sort of join in!  I hope that all the other hostels will be the same and everyone will be just as friendly as it seems easy to meet new people if it is the same as this everywhere. 

I think that evening I was chatting to a welsh girl (I can’t kind of remember her name but no idea how to spell it!) and a girl from Canada and a guy from India – Caitie and Gulam.

The next day I decided to attempt to explore a little bit of Beijing – and not very successfully!!  Its enormous – some of the road signs are in english letters but a lot of the small roads (you know the ones you use to orientate yourself) are only in Chinese characters and aren’t even on the maps you buy!  I managed not to get lost but was out for about 3 hours and wasn’t quite sure how to even find my way back to the Hostel – I made it back – but more by luck than judgement! 

I started walking and found my way into a park where I saw people dancing, playing cards, and generally walking around but it was so pretty and nice

   

My biggest mission for going out was to buy a hairdryer – Beijing was so cold I couldn’t go out with wet hair so decided it was time to buy one J  Well its certainly an experience buying goods in a communist department store.  I finally managed to find the electrical department, chose a hairdryer, then the girl on the counter writes out this slip of paper thing and hands it to me.  I look at it, then her, and think, ok – what do I do with this!  (there’s no price on it for me to pay or anything) so I stand there and have to mimic a I’m clueless sign please help me (yes yes I know -  not very hard for me to do!) She finally works it out and takes me over to another counter where I have to queue and pay.  So I do, and the woman hands me a receipt – again it’s a “ok what do I do with this? I just want my hairdryer”.  The miming gets harder here as she doesn’t understand my shrugs and thinks I’m just questioning the receipt.  I end up standing there mimicking drying my hair and attempting to make a noise like a hairdryer!  Eventually they understand and walk me back round to the ORIGINAL counter where I hand them the receipt and they finally give me my hairdryer.  I think the whole process took about an hour!

I found the tea shop after that which is in my guidebook and I was only going in to look around but this salesgirl started walking next to me.  I do mean next to me.  She didn’t say anything at first and then when I realised she was following me around I said hello and she started talking and then took me over to try some different teas.  Well I’m afraid to say that after trying all the different types of tea – I’m still a standard English tea with milk drinker. They were good – but not my cup of tea! Boom boom!!

I also managed to find the Wang Fu Street Snack Market – an interesting experience, packed with locals, smelly, busy, noisy.  I saw plenty of scorpians (still alive) on sticks not to mention all the other weird and wonderful creatures – no I didn’t try anything! I’m not that adventurous!

  

I was so exhausted trying to find my way about I decided to try and head back to the hostel and managed it – but I have no idea how! I was so tired after all the travelling in India and sightseeing in Hong Kong I thought hibernating in the cosy hostel was a good idea. I chatted a lot to a polish guy called Karol – very interesting man as he had been living in Hawaii for the last 5 years doing specialist underwater diving filming and specialised electrics for very posh houses – his stories were really interesting – like if he got called by a client needing a repair on their system and he was in China – he would tell them to find a way to get him there and more often than not they would send him over to the US on a private jet, and then back again! I was VERY jealous!

That night I ended up having a few beers in the hostel with Caitie, Gulam and some other guys that were in there, an English guy called Nick looking for a teaching job and another Canadian called Christopher who was teaching Maths. Was a very funny night and we ended up staying up till about 4am – although some of them didn’t go to bed till about 6am I heard the next day!

Well the day after that it was due to snow – so perfect for hibernation mode and hangover – although it wasn’t too severe. I unfortunately couldn’t spend as long as I wanted to in bed as I had to get up to check out of the room. I hung out at the hostel until the late afternoon and then got a taxi over to the new starting hotel for my tour. It’s a nice hotel, apart from the rock solid beds – although those ones have been the worst and hardest so far in China.

Claire my room mate for the China tour was in the room already – well her stuff was, but she soon arrived back after I did. She’s from Scotland, 31 but living in Streatham in London.

So my group is:

Claire my room mate, Suzanne from Austria, about 35, Reikia (I think that’s the spelling!) from Canada, also about 35, Shelly from Canada, 35, Wallis from Canada but originally Hong Kong, Maria and Martin, 19 from Denmark, Crysta from New York – about 38 I think, Andy from Nottingham, 30 so quite a mixed group but all around the same ages.

Our guide is Olive and at first I thought she was quite stiff but nice, however as she has got to know us all we’ve found she’s lots of fun and a REALLY good guide and really nice.

We headed out for our first dinner, I have to say I can’t remember what we eat but it was very good – Olive ordered for us and got some great dishes – I think she is used to ordering for westerners and knows what sort of things we like. A few of us had a beer although it was very strange as I hadn’t quite finished mine and although we had paid the bill I thought we would sit for a few minutes after the meal (as we would normally do at home) but no, the normal thing over here is to pay and then get up and leave straight away – they don’t hang about after eating over here!

So it was back for an early night as the next day was the big challenge – the Great Wall of China!

We drove to the Mutianyu section of the wall – not one of the “normal” tourist spots which was great as it was relatively quiet – no hawkers hassling to sell us stuff – well apart from at the bottom, and not that many people at the top as you can see from my photos – hardly anyone else in them! I think it also helped that it had snowed so heavily the day before and it was FREEZING cold and quite icy on the wall! It was worth going in those conditions though as it was so beautiful and Olive said she had never been in the Winter before so hadn’t seen snow on it either (it doesn’t normally snow this early in Beijing.

So – the hike up the wall – OH MY GOD!  Olive said it takes about 30 minutes to climb up to the wall – there is a cable car that goes up but everyone else was walking, plus I did think that was cheating a little bit.  So, we all start off at quite a steady pace, it was hard but I managed to keep up for a bit, but there was some very fit people in our group and they kept on going at the same pace and I just couldn’t do it so thought, that’s fine, I’ll do it at my own pace and as long as I make it to the top that’s fine!  I think it took me about 45 minutes, maybe an hour to get up there and I was SHATTERED!  It definitely wasn’t easy but I have to say it was a great achievement to have done it and something I’m not going to forget in a hurry – not the pain the day after! 

The views from the wall of the surroundings and the rest of the wall is just breathtaking and definitely something you have to see at some point in your life. Walking along the wall was quite difficult as well – it normally isn’t too easy as its very up and down and steps on the wall as well, but it was made even harder because it was still covered in snow and ice in a lot of places.  It made for very tricky walking conditions. Olive told us that we were going to walk to point 20 I think which was the furthest point you could go on our section before tourists couldn’t walk any further, I made it most of the way but it got so icy that I decided not to bother going to point 20 as most of the views were the same all the way plus at the end there was probably another 100 steps to climb – on top of what I had already done, I thought that was enough!  I ended up chatting to another group of people on the wall who were all travel agents on a trip and ended up being their photographer with about 10 cameras hanging off my arm taking group photos of them. 

So there was an option to take a cable car back down and as I had done the hard bit walking up I decided to challenge my fear of heights and take the cable car back down.  Wasn’t as bad as I though – the cable car was all enclosed and it hugged the mountains so I wasn’t really comfortable with it but it was ok – Mum you might get me up that cable car in Benalmadena next time I go now!

    

That night our reward was our Peking duck dinner!  YUMMY!  We had the normal duck but loads of other dishes I can’t remember but you can see some of them in the photos.  We took a walk after that though another night market where Andy decided he was going to sample some of the odd foods and chose a starfish – yuk!

It was back for an early night after being exhausted from the wall and ready for a full day sightseeing the next day.

So we started off the next day going to Tiananmen Square, then the Forbidden City, then for a walk around the Hutongs and then to the Temple of Heaven.  A very very full day.

I have to say that Tiananmen Square was kinda cool to see but it is mainly just a very big square.  There was an enormous queue to see Chairman Mao’s mausoleum – you would have to queue for about an hour or longer to get in to see his body – so we decided not to bother – ha ha.   There amount of Tourists in these places is amazing.  Its mainly Chinese and not westerners but its just overwhelming.  They are all in massive groups, usually wearing something matching – very funny, and then they all line up in their groups when their guide gets them together to go somewhere.  But then they just bundle you when you are near the entrance to something.

 Overall on mass I have found the Chinese to be quite rude, pushing and shoving to get in somewhere, a LOT of spitting (we didn’t really see any in India) and not very nice – it doesn’t make for a pleasant experience sightseeing as its quite stressful – more so than India, although I’m not sure how much of my negativness is from being tired.  However when you are in other situations like on the boat or the sleeper trains (which I will come to) they are much nicer and very friendly and welcoming.

So we had to leave Tiananmen Square to go into the Forbidden City which was just a mad crush over this bridge – you can see from the photo all these heads – it really was like this – and I only got this photo from putting the camera above my head and just clicking.

 So what can I say about the Forbidden City? I think my overall impression was – it was ok.  My enjoyment was marred again by the huge hordes or people and crowds.  You couldn’t get into the buildings so you had to go to the doorways to see inside and take photos from there.  Not as easy as it sounds as you have to push your way in to the front to see it and take a photo and you can’t linger and appreciate what is inside as you get pushed out the way again.  Not fun.

So after the Forbidden City a few of us decided to try and find the old Hutong areas of Beijing to see the traditional housing.  Most of it has been torn down and blocks put in its place now though, or re-built but more modern.  We did find the preserved areas in the end however they weren’t as pretty as I was expecting, but the little alley ways were interesting to walk around.

We headed over to the Temple of Heaven quite late in the afternoon but it was pretty cool as we got to see a really nice sunset and the building was really nice. 

The next day we were free until the evening to take the sleeper train so some of us headed to the Summer Palace – we took the metro which as like Hong Kong, puts the London tube to shame.  Really clean, air conditioned, very frequent and so cheap! About 30p for a single ride anywhere. I hadn’t looked up anything about the Summer Palace so when we got there I really didn’t realise just how big it was – an enourmous complex of different buildings and grounds and gardens.  I think out of everything in Bejing it was my favourite place as for the most part it was quite quiet with not too many people, as well as being really beautiful to look at. 

                             

So after 3 very busy days and lots of walking, I was aching all over and we made our way to the sleeper train. I have to say that China is definitely a more active tour than our one in India. In India we had life easy – the bus took our big bags on to our destination earlier and we only took a small daypack on the sleeper train, we didn’t really have to carry our bags much – but here in China its very very different. We all had our big bags to get on the train and the stations are madly busy – much more hectic than India. Once we got into the station we had to make our way to the waiting lounge which basically involved climbing over loads of people to try and find a spot for our little group to perch.

Then when they announce the train its like another mad rush to try and get on – everyone has tickets and reserved seats/beds but its like they all have to get on first. I am just about getting used to it but its really annoying as you have to push and shove back to stand any chance of actually getting through the ticket barriers and on to the train.

The trains were very much like the Indian trains – however I did think that the Indian ones were cleaner – I think because they were more basic, for some reason on the Chinese ones they decide to put horrible dirty carpets down, weird ruffle patterned covers on the beds, table clothes on the little end table, it all ends up feeling grimy. Unlike the Indian trains, these ones only have squat toilets…..so I spent 3 weeks in India not using a squat – and so far in China I can’t even remember the amount of times I’ve been using the squats! Of course, they aren’t that bad, I knew they wouldn’t be, its just easier using a western toilet, but the squats are generally quite clean here so its fine. The train journeys we are taking in China are also a lot longer than the one we did in India. We got on the train quite late – about 8pm I think, lights went out about 11pm and then the next day we didn’t get to Shanghai until about lunchtime.

And thats all for now folks....next installment Shanghai!

    

The Hong Kong Adventure

So I left Kochi on my long long journey to Hong Kong. Put it this way – I left the hotel in Kochi at 10am and arrived at my hostel in Hong Kong at 4.30pm the following day  I think I took the longest route possible!!


First I was early for my flight, then my flight was delayed by an hour. Finally I arrived in Mumbai for my 10 hour stopover. Only to find that if I left the domestic airport for the international airport I wouldn’t be allowed even INSIDE the international airport until 3 hours before my departure!! Thankfully I found this out before I transferred over there. Laura and Eleni from my tour also had the same long stopover but had taken a flight a couple of hours earlier than me so were already there. We had planned to meet up in Mumbai airport to waste the time together, but obviously I couldn’t do that as they wouldn’t be in there either – I had no idea where they were or what they were doing and I didn’t even have their phone number. I was in the process of attempting to access facebook on the free airport internet in a vague attempt to make contact with them when beep beep my phone went and low and behold – Laura had texted me – I had completely forgotten I had given her my number about 2 weeks before!!!

They hadn’t realised that they couldn’t get inside the airport so had taken the transfer and then found they had to wait in this horrible waiting room outside for hours and hours….they thank god had more sense than to do this and decided to head off for the 5* Regency Hyatt Hotel near the airport  Now I know you will all be thinking, why didn’t I want to go into Mumbai – well, after 3 weeks in mad mad cities in India, Mumbai was the last place I wanted to experience – I had experienced enough of India to be able to say no to Mumbai. I have to admit, I was thinking about finding a hotel lobby/restaurant to go and spend my stopover in, but a 5* one never occurred to me. To say it was a stroke of genius on their part is an understatement as it was the best stopover ever!! I walked in and it was like I had already left India – it was beautiful and the most amazing service ever. They had already had a huge buffet lunch and as it was late afternoon when I reached there I waited until they had their buffet dinner on. Yes, it was expensive (although not by English standards) but it was so worth it! They had the most brilliant salad spread ever – I don’t think I have ever craved salad so much as when I was in India. Totally gorgeous. Anyway their flight to Bangkok was only an hour ahead of mine so we all headed off to the airport together.

So, left Kochi at 10am, got to Mumbai international airport at 8.30pm, got on the next flight at 00.30, reached Singapore at, I’m not even sure – I think it was like 8.40 am their time, then waited an hour and board my NEXT flight to Hong Kong. By the time I cleared customs, made my way through the airport express train and then on to the bus to the nearby hotel it was about 4.30pm. I was exhausted. When I got there I had to call the hostel to get them to come and meet me at the hotel so they could walk me round to the hostel. I’m pleased I did as although it’s literally around the corner, in my seriously sleep deprived state I don’t think I would have found it.


The room, well its tiny of course, thank god I had to book a twin as they are full as I don’t want to know how tiny the single is.

So im pretty much in la la land after all that travel and little sleep but want a shower – its cold  pretty pissed off but I take a cold shower – again! So to avoid going to sleep I had heard about this bar in the bottom of the hotel round the corner where I got off the bus, it was in the lonely planet, I thought I would check it out…..it was about 6pm by this point so not toooo terrible! Anyway I’m pleased I did as its not too bad and a bit of a lifeline seeing as I think if I spent an entire evening in my hostel room I might be considering suicide. (Its not so bad, but a room with no natural light and tiny is not such a great place to spend an entire evening on your own with nothing to do).

It turns out that the bar is in the basement of the same hotel that Francesca stays in with BA when she is in Hong Kong and knows the bar well  So not much to tell, I went to the bar, was sat on my own and then got talking to the guy next to me – don’t all get excited – I do mean talking! He’s in town on business, then some colleagues of his come down, we have a chat, and then he goes off for dinner. I have dinner at the bar….then back to the hostel for a very early night!

So now to the interesting stuff (sorry I seem to have gotten my writing blagh back. I hope its not too long for you!

Yesterday I went out to explore Kowloon – the metro system here is brilliant and so easy – its even air conditioned and people can talk on their mobiles under ground (not sure I like that idea though). I headed for the central area and got the Star Ferry over to Kowloon. First stop was Chungking Mansions. I had heard so many mixed things about this place – that it was a dump, that it was dangerous, that it was a must see place. Well it was a must see place and my god was I pleased that I found my hostel in Causeway Bay as I was going to be staying in a hostel in there otherwise!!

 
I made my way northwards towards the Jade Market and battered hard with my well earned India skills for a bracelet. Then came Ladies Market on many recommendations but particularly Francesca’s and her tips about the fake designer bags. Unfortunately all the bags I wanted they didn’t have! (have to be a little bit practical with what I’m carrying around after all. I did however manage to get a nice purse which I wanted. I also found a good top which actually fitted although the bloody women wouldn’t let me try it on (its market, no trying - they kept on saying) and I kept on saying….no trying….no buying. I kept trying to walk away they kept pulling me back, but still they wouldn’t let me try it on! Eventually I got my way!!! It fitted but I had no idea what it looked like – but I only paid about £5 for it….thank god when I got back to the hostel and put it on it actually looks quite nice. Found a few other nice bits and pieces too. I managed to get up to the Temple Street Night Market after that – but it was still too early – about 5.30, so there were a few stalls but not much – I was so tired by this point being out all day that I decided to call it a day and head back towards to the ferry…had to wait a while though as I wanted to go on it after dark to see the lights of Hong Kong Island – what a sight! It really is AMAZING!

Today was exploring Hong Kong Island day – slightly less to see and do so I started later and finished earlier but still a tiring day – so much for relaxing in Hong Kong. I have to admit today was a shopping day as yes – as you all told me, I packed faaaar to lightly – I knew that anyway but I didn’t realise quite how lightly I had packed!!!

Of course, Hong Kong doesn’t generally cater for the larger lady although I did find a couple of nice tops…..but someone told me there’s a Marks and Spencer here!! So after visiting the HSBC and Bank of China Tower off I trotted and got myself well equipped!

I generally spent the day wandering around – I did have an aim, and managed to achieve them all but more by luck than judgement. I went to see a bit of Hong Kong park which was a bit of an oasis but ruined by the noise of all the traffic still.
 
I managed to find the Central Escalator – a very bizarre thing to see in the middle of a city – its 800 metres long and runs in the middle of town up this huge hill with shops all around it. In the morning before 10am, the escalator only goes downhill so all the commuters I guess can get down easily, but the rest of the day it goes uphill (thank god!). I managed to do quite a bit more shopping today as well and found a cool bag which is made out of recycled Chinese newspapers  I nearly forgot to mention in here that there was a guy in the shop that was asking the owner all sorts of questions, so me being me, and being nosy, i asked him if he was some kind of travel writer or something, anyway, we chatted a bit, he works for an italian lifestyle magazine, and in the end he took my picture of me looking at the bag with the owner of the shop and took a few details down about me!

 

I also found a place I read about in my guide book which does foot massages and pedicures. Today I only had a pedicure but a woman in there sold me on the foot massage when she was nearly asleep during hers…It’s a very nice place with a room filled with these enormous leather armchairs with lovely big pillows and you are so comfy!

 

So continuing on from this but I’m writing in past tense as I wrote the above bit a few days ago but didn’t post it yet! That night I went to Dickens pub which is in the basement of a very nice hotel round the corner from where my hostel is. I ended up getting chatting to a guy at the bar….a 70 odd year old guy! No….i wasn’t chatting him up – or vice versa – before you all start! We chat away and I ask him what he does so he tells me he is the concierge at the Mandarin Oriental in Hong Kong (very posh!) – he’s like the head honcho there, very nice guy and we chat for a couple of hours and he supplied me with some very nice red wine. Anyway – it’s a funny story more because the next day I was flicking through my Hong Kong guide book and there in the middle of it is Giovanni – the Concierge from the Mandarin Oriental being interviewed in the Lonely Planet!

So on my last day in Hong Kong I decided to take it very easy – I got up late and went up to Victoria Peak (I couldn’t NOT go) and it was well worth it – the views are AMAZING!

I made my way back down and found a nice place for a good western burger (I needed bland western food all of Hong Kong after 3 weeks of curries!) then found the place for the amazing foot massage. Talk about relaxation, I nearly fell asleep – I floated out of there!

So i'll leave this posting on that note and with the view I had from Victoria Tower - i made it to the airport the next morning so nothing more to say :-)