China travel
Later on the evening I went for a dinner with the Welsh guy, Owain from my dorm room and we finally got some Peking duck. You could see the chef just cutting thinly sliced pieces of it and then the waiter brought the slices to you fresh like A/C little by little. It was eaten together with a few sauces, some veggies and suprisingly, sugar. You were supposed to coat the skin of the duck in the sugar. It was a really sweet and savoury treat. All in all the duck was delicious and as it is like a Beijing thing, it was cool to try it. Afterwards we had some drinks at the hostel bar and another hostel which was opposite ours. Met some other backpackers from different parts of the world. Ended up eventually in our own hostel bar and met this Einstein looking old dude who was really quiet but every now and then said something hugely intelligent. There was also a guy from Montreal who was teaching in Beijing. He boasted being a great singer/songwriter and he gave us some samples of his songs and singing (not that good). In his own words, he writes songs about love (to get the ladies of course). He was also a bit drunk and ordered a pizza and tried to eat it, and I emphasize, he tried to eat it. It was an epic fail.
Next morning me, Owain and Michelle (a Canadian girl from our dorm room) headed for the Great Wall of China. Originally we were thinking of taking a tour from our hostel there the in the end, decided against it as it is so much cheaper to go there by yourselves. We made a decision to go to Badaling, which is the most visited one (hence the most tourists) but it also has some spectacular views of the wall. We had gotten some inside info about the Badaling not being that crowded at this time of year so we decided to give it a go. There are also two paths which you can hike up and the other is pretty much empty as it is really steep for most people to climb e.g. families, older people and small children. But as we’re not like most people, we were going to take that path. So in the morning we left for the train station to catch the train there but once we arrived, we found out that we had just missed one and the next one is in like hour and a half. So screw it, we’ll go to a bus stop. SO another metro ride to another place. And naturally as we are in Asia and all of us are Westerners, people tried to scam us. We got to the bus stop where there were people standing and it was supposed to be the correct bus. Next thing we know, this guy comes up to us and tells us that there are only slow buses to Badaling today, it takes 3 hours. We just ignored him and waited. After a while he comes up to us again telling the same thing and now offering a cheap taxi ride there. Luckily in the same queue were standing two American girls and a Dutch guy who had met a few Chinese girls and they showed us to the correct bus stop. So finally we go to the right bus and paid for our tickets (12 yuan =1,6 euros, not bad for a 70km ride). We arrived and started hiking up (by the way the entrance ticket was like 30 yuan). We didn’t actually remember which path, South or North was the emptier path but all we needed to do was just look at both directions and take a steeper one. It was just amazing as there were just a few other tourists taking that path in addition to us. It was great just hiking up the wall and thinking what was it like hundred and hundreds of years ago and when they were actually building that wall just going through mountains. Imagine standing guard in one of the towers in the middle of nowhere trying to spot enemies through the trees. Not an easy task!
However, to our surprise, the path wasn’t too long before it ended due to renovation. It took us maybe an hour, even less to get to the end of it. We were a bit disappointed on this though the scenery and the views were still great and totally worth it. Oh and if you decide to go to Badaling, take the left path, that’s the quieter one. Don’t remember if it was the South or North. Next time I’m in Beijing, I’ll definitely visit other sections of the Great Wall, I was so awe-struck by it. Since we are tourists, leaving Badaling was not that easy as we thought. We wanted to take the train back to Beijing but had not checked the timetables so of course, with our luck the next train was in two hours. There were also many persistent taxi drivers trying to lure us in. We decided on the bus though. There was no rush so why pay more anyway. Though we didn’t actually know how far the bus stop was to we just started walking ahead and hoping it will pop up. SO after like 20 minutes we finally saw a stop with some Chinese people waiting for the bus. Some scam artists were also trying to hustle the Chinese, so seems like they try everybody! The bus came and we got on and passed our for the rest of the ride. We went to take a turn at the hostel (some coffee), took the last member of our 4-bed dorm with us and headed for Wangfujing street to try some weird stuff. There’s a food market which sells all kinds of creepy-crawlies on sticks in addition to normal food and desserts too. Ended up eating only scorpions, dumplings, squid and lamb skewers, I know I’m lame. The scorpions however, were really delicious, just like crunchy crisps. Owain tried some grasshoppers as well and apparently they were good as well, a lot more meaty than scorpions. After “dinner” we ended up in a hutong in some small cozy bar and settled there for a few hours. Got a taxi back as there was no public transport anymore. Luckily the last member of our dorm room, Haley the researcher speaks fluent Mandarin (she also lives in Guangzhou). Otherwise we might’ve encountered some language difficulties! So that was the last night for me in Beijing. Sucks to leave but I guess I have to move on. I have to say, Beijing was my favourite place so far and I definitely want to return again (once I speak some Mandarin).
So next morning was just packing (again) and leaving. I had a train at 2pm and it was one of those high-speed trains which travel like 300km/h so the trip to Shanghai took only 5 hours. It was fairly easy to navigate to my hostel as I now have a Chinese phone. Oh I forgot to mention, I bought a phone! A Lenovo, which cost me like 450 yuan = 63 euros. And by a phone, I mean a smartphone (damn smart too!). So far I really like it, it’s fresh to use something other than iPhone. However, most of the original apps are in Chinese hahahah. So now I’m a fluent user of Baidu maps and Sinoweather. You get used to it. So I had like a day and a half in Shanghai and I have to say, I did not like it one bit (sorry Shanghai-lovers!). It’s too crowded, too many freaking metro exits and too loong a tunnels of these same metro exits. The whole place is really not pedestrian friendly as you cannot cross roads from anywhere and you need to search for an underpass. I spent a whole day hunting for a light jacket and shoes as my winter ones are a bit too hot already. REALLY hard to find cheap ones. Even though the whole city is filled with shopping malls and department stores. It’s just that they’re all high-end brands which are not suitable for budget travelers. There probably are cheaper options but I did not know about them. I also went to check out Nanjing Rd. which is one of the most popular shopping streets in the world. Big mistake. I hate Oxford street in London but this was one much worse. Horrible place with every other person coming to offer you massage, women, bags, watches, suits or anything you could ever think of. Although you can get rid of them easily just by ignoring them but still irritating. They all prey on a Westerner who is walking alone on the streets. There is one good thing about Shanghai though, just on the corner of my hostel is a BBQ stand which appears every evening around 9pm. They sell all kinds of skewers of meat, bread and vegetables. All of them really delicious and cheap. I got two dinners from that stall and both of them cost me like 14 yuans each. Only good thing about Shanghai! No but honestly, my opinion is biased and only my experience. I am sure it would’ve been better if I had a local with me there or had I done some research on the place. Now it was just skyscrapers, shopping malls, department stores and annoying people hahahah. Well, can’t enjoy every place! Next stop for me is Guangzhou for which I bought a train ticket. It is a slow train (as I wanted to save money), which takes like 24 hours. The travel time is okay but I only have a seat for this train as there were no more sleepers. So it was bound to be an interesting ride hahahaha.
The trip to Guangzhou did not start well, I almost missed my train because stupid as I was, I went to the wrong metro stop of a wrong line. Anyone who has ever been to Shanghai knows that the line transfers are not exactly a quick thing to do. I had to try though as I wanted to leave the city hahahaha. Luckily, I was fast enough in running the stairs and tunnels to reach the correct line. I still had no idea how long the metro would take to the train station so I only hoped. I actually made it with plenty of time on my hand, like 7 minutes before the train departed! So I got in the train and realized it was going to be a horrible ride. Walkways were packed, all the seats were full and I was the only foreigner. There were ten seats in each row, six on the other side (so three facing each other) and four on the other. I had an aisle seat from the six-pack (get it, six-pack hahhaha). I guess I should be used to people staring at me by now but it turns out I wasn’t. It was awkward. People were observing my every move. When I took of my jacket and packed it in my backpack, people were staring. When I got up to get some hot water for my noodles, people were staring. I would’ve really liked to know what they were thinking! Or that I could speak Mandarin…The train behavior (at least in this one) was also a bit questionable: this one guy ate oranges and just spat out the seeds on the floor. Not something I would do. Not even “when in Rome…”. Chinese people also smoke on the train and all the carriage doors were kept open so the some lingered all around the train and as a non-smoker it was a bit uncomfortable. After a while of reading I decided to hit up the restaurant carriage to get a beer. Guess what, they didn’t have any! Settled for an ice tea instead, fail..Fortunately for me, a bit later people started getting off the train in some of the stops so the train got a bit emptier. I doubt many people take the train all the way to Guangzhou. At some point it also got really cold so I had to wear my fleece, scarf, jacket and gloves (almost through the rest of the journey). There’s also people selling stuff all the time so no worries if you are late and forget to buy food and snacks. China Railways have got you covered!
I have to say, I have gotten some perspective on traveling long distances during this trip. Now I seem to think to myself that “phew, almost there, only 10 hours left”. Which might seem like a lot but for me it’s a victory in itself on longer rides. If it’s a 74 hour ride, 10 hours is nothing. Even on a long, ass-killing seater train ride. So I arrived in Guangzhou and it was raining! First time during this trip. People were running like crazy and the other people were selling umbrellas. I was pretty much the only person without one. It was actually refreshing. Temperature was like 20 degrees so a nice change to a chilly weather. The hostel was really easy to find and it was GREAT. A big lounge are with a Nintendo Wii, a big screen tv, a pool table and a table football in addition to a huge variety of board games. There were also like eight floors (though I think only from floor 4 upwards there’s dorm rooms) so the noises could not be heard from the ground floor. Beds were bigger than normal and really comfy, also pretty much everything worked. So if you’re ever in Guangzhou, go to Lazy Gaga hostel close to Xiamenkou metro station. Somehow I also instantly liked Guangzhou. A lot of street vendors, not too many people (despite being the third largest city in China) and plenty of parks (I like parks).
I had agreed to meet Haley in the evening as she was flying from Beijing on the same day as me. She took me to this great dim sum place and I just keep falling in love with Chinese food over and over again. She just ordered plenty of small dishes for us to sample and everything was great. Even the chicken feet were alright, though not my favourite. They’re just a little boney, that’s all. Supposedly they grown on you if you live in China. After dinner we went to an “‘authentic Irish pub in the heart of Guangzhou”. The title itself was a bit funny hahahah. Apparently there are a lot of Irish pubs in the city. I also saw more foreigners than I have seen during this whole trip. I guess it’s a popular place to live for expats because of Guangzhou’s location . It’s one of the biggest trade cities in China. I actually didn’t have a specific plans for my stay there so the next day I just went walking around in some parks and seeing the ordinary lives of Chinese people on their old streets. Went to this large market area where they sell all kinds of animals for pets to people. Like puppies, kittens, mini pigs, rats, mice, parrots, pigeons, fish, stingers and such. Supposedly it’s also the place where SARS broke out.
I also heard that you could buy a shark from there but I couldn’t find it :(. At some point I realized I had blisters on my feet and walking was torturous so I went to chill at my hostel for a few hours. In the evening I went for another dinner with Haley. She took me to this restaurant which serves only hot pot. Allow me to explain the concept of it: first of all, there’s a table with a kind of a hole in the middle. You order various ingredients from the menu, like vegetables, meat and such. You can also decide the broth (spicy or not, which flavour). Then they bring you the ”soup bowl” and put it in the whole and heat it up. Then they start bringing you the items you ordered and you can just put them in whenever you like. The soup itself has some basic stuff in it like corn, mushrooms, cucumber, tomatoes etc. The menu had all kinds of different things: intestines, liver, chicken, pork, lamb, frog, brains and so on. Usually the hot pot is spicy but Haley got us one which was split in half, the other being spicy and the other for me. Thank god, I would have probably died screaming and crying if I had had to eat the whole spicy half. As ingredients we had some cabbage, salad, lotus flower (?), dried tofu, pork and chicken (which was actually frog because she accidentally ordered it instead). The whole eating was a slow process and it took us more than two hours. So definitely not fast-food. It was an interesting experience and really good too (just like all the food I’ve had). The restaurant also had a ”teaman”, who kept watch all the time if we ran out of tea. Then he came running and poured some more, gotta respect that!.
Next day was time to change places again as I was bound for Hong Kong and thus exiting mainland China. My train leaves at 4pm so basically going to do nothing, just hang out and let my blisters heal. I also went and bought me a protective case from a shop, cost me 1,5 euros. I also discovered a Tesco and I had to go and see what it’s like outside of the UK. First of all, it had four floors so that’s quite a lot. It was basically like heaven, so many different fresh foods for sale. There were people cooking dumplings and baozis and they were dirt cheap. A lot of fresh pastries as well and all kinds of meat and fish you could think of. I also forgot to mention that Guangzhou is known for its food culture. The culture being that they eat everything of everything. Meaning they eat every single part of an animal including the feet, internal organs, head and brains. So you can get pretty much everything there! Nothing goes to waste, which is of course good but maybe not for me.
Now I am in Hong Kong and probably will stay here until Friday but more on that later! Oh and I can use Facebook and Gmail again woohoo!
-Jani
