National day 2013: Beijing (moved from old blog)

Back to Beijing, Last stop on the National day tour.  

I left off travelling somewhere between Qingdao and Beijing. Its only a 4 hour train journey by bullet train so I figured all would be all hunkey dorey and relaxing good fun, however I did manage to overlook the fact that i would be travelling on October the First, National Day and day one of Golden week. 

One of the busiest day to travel in the Chinese calender. I stupidly figured that most people would have already travelled and I thought I would be OK. 

I was very wrong! Hundreds of people crammed into a train station waiting area all fighting for the non existent spare seats and one one toilet (not loads of imagination required to guess what that was like), most people were perched on bags slurping pot noodles and just getting in other peoples, also eating pot noodles, way. I had a seat on the train so I wasn't too concerned about the train part but getting there was something else. Take my advice, NEVER travel on the first of October!
4 slightly cramped and uncomfortable hours later I arrived back into Beijing and headed straight to SanLiTun Hostel. The hostel itself has barely changed in the three years I have been going there, and it has a homecoming feel every time I arrive. It helps though when the staff come running to meet you in a flying hug, thank you Candy!

Beijing was my last stop on my mini adventure before heading back to Kunming and back to work, so I was determined to do as little as humanly possible and just chill for a few days. I checked into a 4 person dorm room and was immediately adopted by a group of friends travelling about who decided I needed to be added to a group. To make the world seem even smaller I met a guy in the bar one morning who I had talking into moving to China three years before. We were both staying in the same hostel, me on  a break from Shenyang and he on a little fact finding tour holiday, we got chatting one evening and apparently I can be persuasive when I want to be. Slightly scary and coincidental but really nice to see a familiar face. 
My few days in Beijing were spent sat on the decking with a beer or sitting in various bars across the area with a beer. Chilled out was what I needed and chilled out 

was what I got. The guys were new to the area so I put on my tour guide hat and took them to all the old haunts, we also did more shopping than I have ever done with anyone else. Huge backpacks were filled after every trip to a market, it was incredible to watch.
But sadly my trip was coming to a close much faster than I would have liked and I had to get on a plane and return to the teaching lifestyle. Beijing in possibly my favourite city in China so I know I will be back.

National day 2013: Qingdao (moved from old blog)

 Mini-adventure part 4: Qingdao

Qingdao; whenever I have mentioned it to anyone their first response is usually "Oh, the place with the beer!" This was definitely one of my reasons for going but not completely.

After only a few hours in Qingdao it shot to being one of my favourite places (definitely somewhere to consider relocating to anyway). I arrived into Qingdao about 3pm and it only took me about 30 minutes to find my hostel. I began walking from the train station but got slightly lost and jumped into a taxi. The taxi driver took me about 200 meters and stopped, he just giggled when I looked very surprised. Anyway, after the chaos involved with finding the hostel in Xi Tang I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was. 
The hostel was a beautiful building with nice clean rooms, the only down side being for the first few nights in the hostel I was the only person in the hostel. So the bar/common room was generally locked and I was left to wander about on my own. 


I soon discovered that my hostel was a ten minute walk from the beach and was on an old cobbled street on which dozens of seafood barbecue stands would set up in the evenings. The seafood, WOW! I don't think I have ever seen prawns so big or the sheer number of varieties of crab and the different ways to cook it. The most common way, which I saw all over the city, was a sort of bread crumb and beer batter which is fantastic! I ate loads of seafood during my brief four day stay and was truly gutted to be leaving.
Another of the greatest perks of Qingdao is the beer. Qingdao is the original home of China's beer, originally introduced by the German occupation the whole city has grown around the brewery, and seems genuinely proud of its alcoholic heritage. Personally I see nothing wrong with that. On almost every street corner and outside of the vast majority of shops, regardless of what they sell, exist piles of kegs just waiting for people to walk past and grab a beer. Naturally carrying a glass or bottle about the streets would be hugely impractical, so the obvious solution is to sell beer in bags and drink it through straws. A gimmick maybe, but I still think it is a fantastic idea. 


I believe you can guess....

One of my little excursions in Qingdao was to the beer museum (naturally) which is located at the bottom of a long and busy Beer Street. Outside of the museum are hundreds of tables and bars all selling seafood and beer. What else do you need in life? The museum is only small but is really interesting, the majority of the buildings involved are all about the history or the marketing of the beer, and then the tour goes through the current brewery. Half way through the tour I was given a sample of "raw" beer. I am not 100% certain what that means but it was bloody lovely. Then the tour continues for  a little longer before hitting souvenir shops and being given another beer. A fantastic way to spend an afternoon!
Otherwise I did very little in Qingdao; sitting on the beach reading my book, swimming in freezing cold water, wandering about the older parts of the city, eating giant prawns and drinking from plastic bags. I loved my time in Qingdao and I am seriously considering it as a future home for The Wandering English Teacher. 
I was gutted to have to leave but perked up immediately when remembering my next stop is Beijing. 

National day 2013: SuZhou (moved from old blog)

Mini-Adventure part 3: Suzhou

Xi Tang to Suzhou was only an hour journey by bus and by far the cheapest of my journeys at only 20RMB. 
Suzhou is another ancient water town made famous by its gardens and tea houses. There are hundreds of small gardens all across the city, I visited only 2. There are loads of ponds and canal ways all through the city with more fantastic bridges. Suzhou felt a lot like a bigger and more touristy Xi Tang, lots of it looks very similar. 
I spent a full three days in Suzhou and drank loads of tea. Most Chinese people I have told about my trip have asked me about the hundreds of different types of tea. 

Suzhou was another truly chilled out place where I did little but wander about and people watch. 
I was not so taken with Suzhou as it looked and felt like so many other ancient towns and cities I have been to. Everything was a little "been here, seen it" even down to the things you can buy in shops. I have seen most of these things in Kunming. I am convinced had I have visited here before places like Lijiang and Dali I would have enjoyed it much more. Still a really nice place to go and relax for a few days and one of the best places for people watching. My next stop is Qingdao, which has remained one of the few places that I have always wanted to visit.

Buying train tickets in China, especially around holiday time, is a pain in the neck. On the average week we can buy tickets 10 days in advance and its rarely  problem. In Golden week (October 1st to 7th) tickets are a nightmare to get and sell out very quickly. I was unlucky when buying my Suzhou to Qingdao ticket and had to buy a first class ticket. Definite luxury but much more expensive. The bullet train that runs between Beijing and Shanghai is fantastic. It runs at an average of 300km/h and is  really smooth ride, very good for snoozing. Annoyingly there are two train stations in Suzhou (something I found out after trying to pick up my tickets at the wrong one) and ended up having to blast across town in a taxi. oops!

National day 2013: XiTang (moved from old blog)

 Mini-adventure part 2: Xi Tang and Tom Cruise

After a blissful three days in Shanghai it was time to pack again and move on to the second place on my list, Xi Tang. Xi Tang is a small ancient water town about an hours drive from Shanghai. The town is so small that there is not a train station, and the bus station is an old lady with an umbrella and a box of cash by the side of the road. She was incredibly surprised to see me as I am fairly certain I was the only non-Chinese tourist in the whole town. 

I had only been in the town for about half an hour before getting myself into trouble. There are no taxis in the town so I jumped into a small tuc tuc thingy armed with the address of the hostel. Immediately the guy driving hatched a plan. He began by quoting me a huge number and looked really disappointed when I called his bluff, next he tried to get my to stay in a different hotel from the one I had booked telling me that mine was closed. I had heard about this particular rouse and so I didn't fall for it. I grabbed my bag and tried to walk off, he grabbed it back and started yelling at me. I rarely get a chance to use my less-than-friendly Chinese so I yelled almost every bad word I could think of and he backed off looking very surprised. Eventually a policeman appeared and I explained all. He did not seem surprised and took over, taking some books from the hotel and keys from the guys tuc tuc and then walked me to my hostel. He was a very nice man who seemed to just keep apologising the whole time we were walking. Finally we found my hostel and I checked in. 

The girl in the hostel spoke no English at all but we managed. The hostel was in a small courtyard down a long alley, had I not been with the policeman there was no way I would have found it.

Xi Tang proved to be a beautiful ancient town all set along a series of small canals with charming bridges. The whole place is really small and I walked about the whole place in a few hours having seen everything. The vast majority of the little shops and alleyways were full of touristy trinkets that can be found all over China, regardless I found a few small things that were unique to Xi Tang. Bamboo cups of all sizes being an example, I bought 2 for myself and 2 for Josh as a gimmick present although I actually really like them. 

I found out fairly soon that the place is still very proud of having had Mission Impossible 3 filmed there. At several points about the town there were big pictures of Tom Cruise with backgrounds matching the one in the picture. I also came across many signs outside of restaurants saying TOM ATE HERE or TOM'S FAVOURITE RESTAURANT. I haven't actually watched the film but I am now a little intrigued. 

I spent lots of time in Xi Tang having my picture taken or going for meals with the Chinese Students staying in my hostel. I think they appreciated the opportunity to escape their teacher as she was a very bossy and very scary woman. Not someone I would want to mess with (and I thought I was a strict teacher). 

I went with some of the students to a bar on the largest of the bar streets, 6 of us walked in and took the population of the bar to a huge 7! I suspect we may have woken up the barman when we opened the door. A few hours in there and we were basically running the place, I taught the barman mixing drinks and the students uploaded all their music onto the music system for him. Close to 20Gb of iTunes stuff although most was KPop so i doubt it will come in too useful. 

Xi Tang is beautiful and worth  visit if possible but two days there was definitely enough time.

National day 2013: Shanghai (moved from old blog)

 Mini Adventure Part One; Shanghai

October the First, or National Day, is one of the biggest holidays in China so everyone gets a minimum of a 4 day holiday. from my job I get a week. 

Not satisfied with my limited holidays this year, I set about to extend my time off. In total I manged to get myself, with some serious negotiations and pouting, 14 days with no classes/kids/lesson planning. So I decided to visit some of the places in China that I haven't managed to get to yet.

My first stop was Shanghai, by far the easiest place to fly to from Kunming, with our new snazzy airport there are about 15 flights a day between the two places. I spent a whole week in Shanghai back in February so I felt like I know the place fairly well. I stayed in the same hostel, which I am still convinced is one of the best hostels I have stayed in in China. The beautiful Rock and Wood hostel is amazingly comfortable with a huge bar which was great for meeting people and chilling out. With Shanghai being so hot and humid the air conditioning was a god-send! 

Shanghai was a fairly quiet three days with much shopping and wandering about.  The weather was cripplingly humid and very hot . Walking a few miles in the heat was enough to reduce me to a  miserable puddle poured into a chair. 
I revisited some of the places I saw in February; Nanjing Road, The Bund, several gardens and shopping areas. I got a little carried away in the Marks and Spencer's End of Summer Sale.

I ended up having to buy a fair amount of more summery clothes as the heat had taken me by surprise. Otherwise with Shanghai being the first place on my mini-adventure list, I was perfectly happy to just sit and chill.  

Next Stop; Xi Tang

Spring Festival 2013 Nanjing (moved from old blog)

 Shanghaied in Nanjing, or should that be Nanjinged?

If you are reading this without having read the first half tut tut! In a nut shell, Shanghai, great but I am now very curious about Nanjing, of which I have only heard good/interesting things.


Outside the hostel



The bullet train was remarkably cheap at £8 each way, booked with a days notice. All I had to do was go and pick them up from office 18p in the train station. The high numbers should have been a clue as to the sheer size of this train station. I remember being amazing at Beijing West but Shanghai West makes it look a little pathetic in comparison! I have seem smaller airports (although I admit, Southampton airport was a long time ago). I spent quite a long time in awe, staring at the rows and rows of ticket windows, each of which seemed to have a hundred people waiting at it. I eventually found the one I was looking for and settled down for a lengthy wait. 20 minutes later and armed with tickets, I began my search for the right gate. It truly is an unbelievable size, there are 15 security scanners before you can even get into the departure waiting area, or rather one of the departure lounges/waiting areas, I think there are 6, each one containing 50+gates and platforms. Makes Bristol Temple Meads weep! 


Anyway, the train was very exciting. I got lots of funny looks when I took a photo of the speed display, I was impressed and felt it had to be immortalised onto my camera's SD card (I much prefer says film but it doesn't really exist any more), and three hours flew by. I arrived into Nanjing, without having booked a hostel so I was a little nervous wit it still being Spring festival and all, I showed a taxi driver a small leaflet I had been given and he seemed to understand. First impressions of Nanjing were not great, on the outskirts of the city is the factory belt which the taxi driver raced through, however closer to the center of the city things changed completely. buildings are built in the more traditional style so are very pretty and well kept and the roads are lined with trees not painted (as they are in Kunming) and flowers. The hostel itself is right on the river by a huge holiday market selling all kinds of sparkly and flashing stuff. It's not really my thing but the Chinese go nuts for it. I managed to get a bed and set off on another mini adventure. I had no map, no Lonely Planet and no clue where I was going but that made it that little more interesting. I found that Nanjing has the remnants of an old city wall and in front of the wall is a street build to look like it is about 500+ years old. It failed slightly with the TV screens everywhere and the KTV (karaoke for those who are not familiar with this method of inflicting pain on foreigners) but the over effect was interesting. again lots of photo opportunities for the Chinese (who will take pictures of anything if it stays in the same place long enough) and some great people watching for me. 


Massacre Memorial

 On day 2, I set off to find the Massacre Memorial. It is the free museum/memorial for the Japanese Massacre of the People of Nanjing in 1945. 300,000 local people were killed in less than a week and the memorial really hammers that home. It is a creepy place that is packed with survivors memories and hundreds of grisly photos, the whole thing is built on tne site of one of the mass graves so at random intervals there would be a glass panel in the floor to a few uncovered bodies. Nanjing has held on to it's history better than Shanghai, the difference in the two places could not be more obvious. Huge sections of Nanjing are built in the traditional style with lots of very strong historical importance, on the other hand Shanghai regularly knocks down old buildings in favour of the next tallest skyscraper. Two very different cities and I loved both. 




View from my bed, overlooking the square

 A few days in Nanjing was enough, I loved it and I would quite happily go back but it felt like a small town after the previous 4 days in China's biggest city. On my last day I stocked up on yet more souvenirs and presents for various people back in Kunming and decided on a whim to go and see the view from the city wall/gate. Many cities in China still have city walls as almost all of them would have had them centuries ago, few however have been preserved and looked after in a way that doesn't make them look like they were built last year, Nanjing in no exception. I have been to the wall of every city I have been to that had one, Xi'an being the only one I can remember that was complete. Nanjing has only the southern part in tack and unfortunately due to the bad weather I was only able to go to one small section and have a look. On the top of the wall I could see nothing what so ever, the pollution on my last day was so bad that I could barely see the end of the wall a hundred meters away. It made for some atmospheric pictures I suppose. 
Nanjing felt like a mini holiday inside of a holiday, and i thoroughly enjoyed my flying visit to this incredible city. Back to Shanghai for a  few more days of sightseeing and maybe a little more shopping?
Then it is back to Kunming and straight into work on Wednesday, I still haven't worked out when exactly it is OK to start planning my next adventure but I hope it is soon. 

Spring Festival 2013 (moved from old blog)

 Shanghaied for Spring Festival! (2013)

Busy Bund

A joke which no-one in Shanghai actually seemed to find funny, but I still used at every possible oppertunity.
However, the rainy season has started and I am awake horribly early so I figured I should probebly get round to updating this trip/holiday/living in China blog thing. I apologise it has taken so long but I have been busy, not necessarily true I have been busy enough to have forgotten all about Shanghai updates. Better late than never I suppose!Spring festival (Chinese new year) seems like a really bloody long time ago now, loads and loads has happened since then and yet I woke up the other day and nearly had a heart attack when I realised it was May already. 
 
 
 
 

Finance Center

My trip to Shanghai was a little welcome break from China and the craziness that is Chinese New Year. I have heard it is the biggest human migration on the planet with millions and millions of people desperately trying to get themselves, their grandparents and a box of fruit onto trains and planes. It is chaos! No other word comes close. I flew the day before New Year itself and I think the whole of Kunming was in the departures lounge with me! It is a 3-hour flight from Kunming to Shanghai (just to give you some scale, that covers about two thirds of the country. China is a just little bigger than England) and I landed a little after eight in the afternoon. I soon discovered Shanghai has one of the simplest underground metro systems I have encountered and before I knew it I was in my hostel. A beautiful new building hidden down a little alleyway in a busy part of town, a 5 minute walk to the subway and then 4 stops to the Bund. Fairly central and amazing! 

Most people I met in the hostel were in a similar situation to mine, living in china and in desperate need of some home comforts and a break from the China norm. I met people who were living all over the country so we swapped noted on where was a good place to live and where was hell on earth. I also added several places to my “want to visit eventually” list, which is not getting any shorted the longer I live outside on England. 

World's highest observation platform

The city itself is a huge modern metropolis where absolutely everything has a record for something; tallest building, tallest viewing platform, biggest indoor market, longest shopping street, longest underwater tunnel, fastest train and so on. I began forgetting them and getting them confused on about the second day in the city. It is amazing but unfortunately, the novelty of records wore off fairly quickly when standing in the fourth queue of the day. Regardless, the vast majority of Shanghai is spectacular! 
In total I spent 6 days in Shanghai and 3 in Nanjing (which I will come back to), which was enough time for me to realise I really love the city. Maybe not as much as Beijing, which has a nice mix of new and old, but still I had a great holiday. Some of the highlights were the insane market from which all presents were bought at rock bottom prices and the Shanghai World Finance Center, which is not the tallest building in the world but is home to the highest observation deck in the world standing at a stomach churning 475 meters. To ensure you don’t eat from some time the designers put a glass panel (like the one in the spinnaker tower, Portsmouth) in the floor so you can look past your feet to the ground hundreds of meters below. The lift travels at a whopping 25 miles per hour to get you to the 100^th floor in a little under 20 seconds. My ears popped twice!
When not doing battle in the busy markets, I would just wander off and see what I could find. It was almost impossible to get lost as subway stations appear when you desperately need to get back or you think you are so lost it would be impossible to ever find your way home and it turns out you are two stops from where you are staying. An amazing city! The home comforts were everywhere, Marks and Spencers, bookshops, H & M, bread that does not taste like cake and a decent club sandwich in the hostel. I left with my batteries fully charged and ready to take on China for another year (6 months at least). 
During my stay in Shanghai, I met many people who raved about nearby Nanjing so I did some research and discovered a bullet train (300 km/h) could get me there in three hours. So I booked and jumped on a train the next day.