Note: I started writing this over a week ago and as it got longer and longer I began to become increasingly concerned that noone was going to take the time to read the notes I’ve been slaving over for days. So, I’m doing us all a favour and posting what I have written so far, in the hope that it is still not too long to be read and in the meanwhile buying me some time to write Part 2. Here goes part one of my China epic…
It’s been a long time since I wrote last. I’d been meaning to blog as soon as I returned from China, with stories fresh in my mind, but things have been pretty hectic since I got back to BA and besides, with only 6 weeks left here I’ve been wanting to get the most out of the little time I have left here. But tonight is the night, I’ve taken an evening off dancing and am determined to write…though, worry not, I’ll be going to la Viruta 3 – 6am so I’m not totally depriving myself.
So, hmm, where to begin… a map might help, right?!
THE JOURNEY THERE
On Wed 11th April, after about 40 hours travelling across a ridiculous number of time zones (pic of Peter trying to sleep unsuccessfully on the plane) and what felt like all four seasons (Autumn in BA, baking hot sun in Miami, Snow at Chicago Airport, Spring in China) I finally disembarked off the third plane I’d boarded in the last day and 1/2 (many more were to come to Peter’s horror – to be explained later) and soon found myself in Shanghai’s Pudong airport’s lost luggage section.
Yup, my suitcase hadn’t made it to our final destination – after having a not too lengthy discussion in broken English (the first of many and by no means the worst) with efficient though seemingly strangely mannered Chinese desk staff, it transpired that my luggage hadn’t got on the third leg of its journey and was still sitting somewhere in Chicago airport... To Peter’s surprise though, I wasn’t that bothered, after all, I was in China and soon to be - that is, as soon as we left the Airport – in the midst of what I though would be a very strange and foreign place. To my surprise, Shanghai was actually not that different to your average metropolis.
SHANGHAI
Shanghai is an ultra modern city which looks in areas like some place out of a sci-fi movie and in others the architecture is more reminiscent of a European black and white (see pics above of view of people's square from ourr hotel window and the street outside at night).
Its a bustling, noise/light/air polluted place which has far more than it’s share of the world’s skyscrapers, all the top western brands you can imagine, rushing shoppers and workers, too many department stores and shopping centres, expensive coffee but names (i.e. No.1 Department Store), fashion and bureaucratic systems that are reminiscent of the soviet union and squat toilets to match.
However, like in most of China, if you’re up and out early enough, you’ll find quite a different scene in the main high street. Instead of western or western style Chinese pop music blaring out the shops, you’ll find instead, live or recorded traditional Chinese music and a scene of people, young and old (mainly older) doing Tai Chi, fan, ribbon, sword and other traditional dancing while others exercise, play badminton and old men sit smoking and watching the dancers but also taking their time to stare out ‘odd’ looking people like me who with or without a camera in hand, clearly don’t fit in.
Unfortunately, I got sold a bad memory card for my camera which didn’t save my photos, so I don’t have the pics I’d taken of the lovely dancers (in fact I am missing a big chunk of Beijing, some of Vietnam and have non of Xian or Hong Kong) but to save you from a dry blog read, I’ve found some off the internet to fill my gaps.
So, anyway, that was Shanghai in a nutshell for me, well, that and managing to buy a Gucci or perhaps ‘faucci’ bag (hard to tell the real from the fakes - lucky, brand names are of no interest to me) in Yuan market by bargaining it down from the asking price of 550Yuan (£36) to 100Yuan (£6.50). It took me over an hour and about 8 back ally trips with a tout that wouldn’t leave my tail, but I returned to my hotel room with a feeling of immense satisfaction which was not justified by the purchase itself but it’s value had multiplied in my mind and I now love it because of all the effort that went into getting it off the shelf and onto my shoulder:)
Oh, whilst in Shanghai, we also went to see the Chinese acrobats, who were AMAZING! Peter and I were at the edge of our seats during most of the show, nervous for these peoples lives or afraid they were going to drop the 50 plates they happen to be spinning or fall off their unicycle while trying to catch 6 bowls thrown from their foot to the top of their head but nothing went wrong and they just went on with whatever impossible thing they happen to be doing in perfect synchronicity and always with a calm smile across their faces.
Shanghai wasn’t really the place for sightseeing ‘traditional’ Chinese culture but we thought we should check out at least one temple. So, we made an afternoon trip to the Jade Buddha Temple, apparently one of the few Buddhist temples but it was heaving with people and mega commercial – I don’t think we lasted an hour there – though it was quite beautiful, it felt like the least peaceful holy place I’d set foot in, in a long time.
Here’s a link to more of my own photos of Shanghai
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2384&l=fa90d&id=507294168
SUZHOU
The day before flying out of Shanghai we took a day trip to Suzhou, the city praised as the ‘Venice of the East’ and ‘the most beautiful place in China’, about 2 hours bus ride west of Shanghai famous for its canals and beautiful gardens. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the impression we got of the place. I was actually unimpressed with it’s ‘beauty’, though I have to confess that we probably didn’t arrive there until 3pm and proceeded to spend most of our time trying to buy train tickets back to Shanghai, getting ripped off by tuktuk drivers and wondering the city street looking for a place to eat so, to be fair, we didn’t actually go into a single garden or for a boat ride along the canals… thought I still wonder about it being ‘the most beautiful place on earth’ as stated by some travel blogger I found on the net.
BEIJING
About 5 days into the trip and we were packing our bags again to fly north to Beijing.
Speaking of packing by-the-way, yes, my suitcase did eventually arrive, about 30 hours later than it should have, but I did get 3000 miles in compensation, which tipped me over to becoming an AA Platinum member sooner than expected – another experience in favour of my conviction that it’s always worth taking the time to politely complain! But anyway, as the trip went on and the bag began to fall apart piece by piece with every flight (we had about 12 flights in all) I began to wish it had never made it to me – typical Argentine made stuff, look alright but stuck together with nothing but spit, though granted I had over-packed – much to Peter’s annoyance!
But, anyway, back to Beijing. With a few hours delay, we arrived to an unexpectedly warm and sunny Beijing (much more so than Shanghai). I liked the place straight away. The people seemed more relaxed and friendly and they didn’t stare so hard at my odd face or fashion (non)/sense.
Ok, warning, I’m starting to run out of steam and I still have 2/3 of the trip to write about so I’m going to strip what I have to say right down.
We did a lot more ‘cultural’ stuff here. We spent a day wondering around the Forbidden City (the home of the emperor until the Communists took over and called the Forbidden City because no commoners were allowed in through the gates of this place which is big enough to be an ancient city). I did get quite carried away taking photos here and really regretted not having carried my SLR camera out with me. Here are my pics:
The Forbidden City
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2391&l=4fe18&id=507294168
The following day we took a guided day trip to the Ming Tombs and the Great Wall at Badaling. The most interesting fact I found out whilst at the Ming Tombs is portrayed in this really boring photo. Basically, if you look closely enough, you’ll see a rectangle with some faded Chinese characters in it. This piece of ancient text is what we might today call a quality assurance stamp, with a difference. The difference being that this stamp states the name and address of the stone mason who cut and made this part of the wall so that should the wall/stone not live up to the expectations’ of the Emperor, the individual responsible could be apprehended and ‘dealt with’ in a manner that made sure he would never make/have the opportunity to make such a mistake again.
The Great Wall at Badaling was definitely worth the visit. The wall itself is something like 6000km long but the government has only opened up three points for access to the public and the Badaling section is probably the most accessible of the lot and the point Mao climbed to, so you can image the draw this has on tourists (mostly Chinese). The place was heaving with people, the queues of busses and coaches trying to get into the car park ran back for about half a mile and we had to get out of our bus and walk because the wait would have taken about 1 hour.
Then the queuing began, it was like being at a theme park with a 30 minute winding queue of people waiting to get onto the un-amusing cart ride to take you half way up the wall so you’d only have to walk for an hour to get to the top. What was an odd yet nice surprise was all the bears they had at the bottle of the wall – these animals were better fed than probably the majority of China’s population.
The Great Wall
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2389&l=14c1a&id=507294168
Oh, I forgot, so the guided day trip we thought we purchased was to the Ming Tombs and the Great Wall, but once on our minibus, we discovered that we were in fact going to get taken to government run jade factory and a Chinese traditional medicine centre. The latter was interesting, we got taken into a classroom and got a brief introduction to the philosophy underlying traditional medicine and we could then be given free consultations – but this was basically the bit where they tried to sell you lots of medicine at US prices!
Another one of Beijing’s famous must see landmarks is The summer Palace. The summer Palace is actually the largest and best-preserved imperial garden in China. Its Chinese name, YiHeYuan, translates as 'Garden of Nurtured Harmony' or 'Garden for Maintaining Health and Harmony' and it really was beautiful! Unfortunately, though we took lots of pictures, none have survived:(
But here are some more generally of Beijing:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2387&l=980f6&id=507294168
The day we went to Tiananmen Square was the day we spent almost a whole working day at the travel agent, trying to book flights for the rest of our journey. The service, though very personal, was utterly ridiculous; the travel information wasn’t electronic and the agents had to make phone call after phone call trying to find out prices, availability, only to try to book an hour later and be told there was no longer availability, blah blah blah... we went in at 12noon, got asked to come back at 2 as the agent, after letting us explain our itinerary for half hour decided his ‘stomach was making noises’. So, we went back at about 2.30 (after taking a quick trip to Tiananmen Square) and didn’t finish until 5.30pm!
XI’AN
But we did get our tickets and a couple of days later we were on a flight to Xi’an, the capital of Shaanxi province and once called Chang'an, literally translated as "Perpetual Peace". Having been one of the Four Great Ancient Capitals of China and the capital of 13 dynasties, Xi’an is one of the most important cities in Chinese history and, to outsiders is probably best known for being the eastern terminus of the Silk Road, marked by the Bell Tower and for the location of the Terracotta Army from Qin Dynasty.
The story behind the Terracotta Army is an interesting one, basically, the idea of one very paranoid Emperor (1st Emperor of China) and the work of hundreds of thousands of people (slaves and prisoners) over a number of decades.
Xi’an was a cool place, I really liked it, especially when I went for a jog outside the city wall in the morning. We spent two days there and the place definitely had a distinct flavour of a different China than we’d seen so far. For one, it had a huge Muslim population and Muslim quarter, which was alive and buzzing late into the night with its night market and street food stalls and eateries and though very commercial was clearly non-western looking and full of character.
OK, I can’t go on any more and I’m sure you can’t bear this much longer either so, I’m posting this and China
Plus: Part 2 will follow in a couple of weeks with more on Hong Kong and Vietnam.
Labels: China, travel
