YuanYang for New Year 2015 (moved from old blog)

 Rice terraces in YuanYang

As I mentioned earlier, we were given a surprise week off school. I have worked at this school for three and a half years and I remember it happening only once before. So we leaped into action and planned trips to the corners of China, or in my case the southern part of Yunnan province.

Knowing I was finishing school for good in a matter of weeks, I wasn't too concerned about making a long journey and so I decided to finally get to the terraces in the southern part of Yunnan.

I took an eight hour bus journey, which was hell, to the new town of XinJie. The bus was crowded, small, smelly and the guy next to me was a pretty heavy smoker (despite the no smoking on buses policy) so not pleasant. 

I managed to get through an entire Harry Potter audio book so you should get a sense of the extreme boredom involved. We finally arrived and I was immediately shuffled into a smaller bus that would drop me off at the hostel I was staying in. David recommended it so I sort of knew what to look for, which helped as I had to follow a pitch black alleyway down into a valley to find the place. 

The room itself was pretty nice and the electric blanket on the bed made things a little better as it was freezing cold and fairly humid. I spent many hours in bed debating the act of getting showered. 
I arrived late on New Years Eve and ended up spending the evening with some enthusiastic (and drunk) Chinese grandparents. they insisted i rink with them, chatted about just about everything and then tried setting my up with their grandchildren. I refused based on the fact THEY ARE 19! 

The hostel was just outside a little village and one of the main scenic spots for the area. In total I think there are 12 but I only saw a fraction of them. I went for a walk into the fields and sat with my cheese sarnie in the middle of some of the most incredible scenery I have ever eaten in. In every direction, climbing the valley walls, were steps of terraces and rice fields full of water and reflecting the sun. 

I joined an existing tour to drive about the other scenic spots and spent an entire day either in car or taking pictures of amazing scenery. 

After two days I had seen my fill of tereraces and made my way back in the general direction of Kunming. It's a four hour bus journey to JianShui from XinJie so I was pretty relaxed about the whole thing. There is however, only one bus a day and I turned up 3 hours early so I had some time to kill. XinJie is a brand new area that has been developed purely as a gateway arrivals place for the terrace scenic area. Nothing is more than a few years old adn they definatly dont get foreigners sticking around. so naturally me chilling on a beanch in the town square with my book caused a bit of a stir. all the locals kids kept creeping closer and closer, then I would look up and they would run away. It was fun for a while anyway, for them much longer. 
Next stop JianShui.

Shangri-la December 2014 (moved from old blog)

 Shivering in Shangri-la

Again, I am a little behind in the updates but getting closer. However, this one is only 6 weeks late. 

I took some holiday from school with the intention of finally getting round to trekking Tiger Leaping Gorge and once again my plan failed me. 
As an extra bonus it was Halloween weekend so I thought I had missed the party the school makes us put on. Annoyingly someone decided that this year we were to put on two, I missed one but not the other. The Friday night was a party for the primary school kids and their parents so I had the ones in my classroom, racing with balloons between their feet or knees. It was hilarious and only one person fell over. 

whats left of the old town

I jumped on a train to LiJiang on the Saturday and arrived early Sunday morning. The bus to Tiger Leaping Gorge was cheap and fairly regular so I had no problem getting a ticket. 

I did however have trouble staying awake on the bus and sailed straight past the gorge only to wake up about half an hour outside ZhongDian or Shangri-la (it was renamed in 2002 for tourism reasons). I had no idea where I was going and it only clicked when we arrived and I checked with the ticket guy. They thought I was hilarious and called over several people to tell hem what I had done, helpfully they all laughed at me too. One was actually helpful and told me about a nice hotel and dropped me off. Shangri-la is at over 3000 meters altitude and so was pretty chilly. Luckily I had packed for hiking and so had lots of shorts and t-shirts and not loads else. So when it started to snow I was only a little freezing (sarcasm, I froze and spent three days looking for fireplaces in cafes and bars).

World's largest Buddhist monastery

Most of the old part of town was destroyed in a fire over the summer so lots of building work. The hotel owner was telling me that although pretty the old town was a tourist trap and he was hopeful some of the traditional elements could be restored with the new build. Time will tell I guess, but I would be interested in going back to see what they make of it. 

ZhongDian is a hugely religious and spiritual place, so most of the things to see are monasteries or temples. Although I have seen lots of temples in China, the ones I visited In ZhongDian were different and so very impressive and interesting places to look round. 
 I spent a few days chilling (literally) in ZhongDian and loved how relaxed and easy going the place felt. After about 3 days I jumped on a bus back to LiJiang before heading back to Kunming and work. I have been to LiJiang so I have ticked off the highlights tour of the town, so this time I took advantage of the warm weather and sat in the park with my book for a  few hours before finding a place to stay for the night.

I ended up in a YHA dorm room of about 30 beds and nothing else. It was amazingly cheap but the public bathrooms outside of the hostel were much nicer than anything in the room. Luckily I managed to snag a bed on the opposite end of the dorm to the bathrooms so I wasn't took bothered by them. I reluctantly got the train back to Kunming and back to work. 

Great Aussie Christmas 2014 (moved from old blog)

 Merry Kunming Christmas everyone!

After the chaos of the Christmas party, the rest of the Christmas season seemed relatively easy and stress free. We made Christmas cards with the kids and played musical chairs with Slade and The Pogues and they kids thought it was great. 


I planned a big meal at The Great Australian Bite, and it got out of hand very quickly. There were at last count, 36 people for dinner. I spent hours on the phone gathering names and then after that meal choices. God bless WeChat! 

Mostly it was Shane teachers and their various girlfriends and a few others from the random drinking scene but I believe everyone had a good time. 

Dinner was amazing and food incredible, we had a few issues and confusion with some of the meal choices and a few people could have had two dinners but we got it sorted in the end. 

Christmas was made a  little better by the sudden announcement from school that we had a week off school for new year, we spent most of the evening planning where to go. EXCITING!

My last Shane Christmas 2014 (moved from old blog)

 "It's the Shane Christmas party." "OH NO IT ISN'T!"

So as is the tradition in language schools, in China at least, all holidays that aren't Chinese are exploited for extra money and recruitment/publicity opportunities. 

Good for the school, terrible for any teacher who might actually like a certain holiday. I, for example, love Christmas but three Shane Christmas parties and I am beginning to rethink this absurd idea. Christmas means to work longer hours, to be forced to do shows for the locals entertainment and to give presents to already spoilt rotten kids right? NO? I must still be bitter from someone high jacking my Christmas. 

So as not to mess with the tradition of destroying all Christmas spirit in teachers, we were told there would be a party and we were to perform a show at this party. And so the idea of the pantomime was born.

We found a copy of Cinderella on-line that was all in rhyme (yes that was intentional) and we divided up the workload. Somehow I ended up in charge of costumes, which with 5 guys in dresses was a mammoth task, and was to play the Fairy Godmother. All the guys in the office played the girls in the show (Cinderella, the ugly sisters and the step mother) while two of the Chinese girls played Prince Charming and his buddy Herald. 

Rehearsals began, lines were learnt (sort off) and it occurred to us what a stupidly large task we had taken on. It took us weeks of going into the office early on a Wednesday to get to a semi decent level of confidence and to stop us panicking about not being ready. 

The party was on a Friday night, so classes were cancelled for the week. The party was at the Expo centre, which is miles away in the north of the city.

The room was massive with a huge stage and runway down the middle. When we got to the party room we were told we had to do a fashion show with some of the kids. In our school there are only two female teachers so we were told we had to go first. I spent ages stood on a runway with two terrified students clinging to me. Oodles of fun! 

After the fashion show we had 7 minutes to get into costumes and get ready for the panto. 
We had a minor problem with microphones, as in we didn't have any, but the kids didn't seem to notice. We had loads of kids sat on the front of the stage taking hundreds of pictures and they seemed to love all their teachers in dresses. 

After the panto we had nearly 2 hours to kill before we were allowed to leave so we all got a little bored. The rest of the show was a mess of speeches and terrible dances, including one from McDonald's who sponsor the school. 

Thankfully this was my last Shane Christmas party as I am to finish work in a few weeks.

Into the mountains of Lijiang 2014: part 3 (moved from old blog)

 Crossing the mountains of Lijiang: part 3

 The second school was about a half an hour drive away through some of the most terrifying road I have been on. We had a driver who though he was an extra from wacky races and cliff on both sides of the car. It was a hair raising experience. When we arrived at the school we told the driver about our silent screaming and clinging to each other and he couldn't stop laughing at us. 
The second school was a boarding school with about 100 students aged between 6 and 15. Just after we arrived we were treated to lunch of chicken and veg and some homemade rice alcohol, one of which was tasty and the other not so tasty. The alcohol burnt for a long time after drinking, in true rice wine tradition. 


Grade One

 Kevin suddenly announced that he wanted us to teach a 40 minute class in five minutes time. Several break downs in communication this weekend! Anyway, I pulled a lesson out of thin air and taught Grade One (six to seven years old) who all seemed to enjoy the class. I only managed to teach them "hello", "goodbye" and "one to ten" but we had a giggle and their regular teacher seemed to have had a laugh too. I bullied him into playing basketball and the kids thought it was hilarious when their teacher was rubbish. 


After the class we gave out new school bags and pencil cases to each of the students and sporting equipment to the whole playground. We felt sorry for some of the kids as only about half of them got the cool back packs and the rest got the crummy Shane ones. we tried to even things up by giving the kids with the boring back packs the more interesting pencil cases but it didn't always work. After the gift dolling out we went and played football on the playground, but first we had to clear the broken bunk beds and oil drums off the pitch. We were at some serious altitude so running about nearly killed us. I only played badminton for about fifteen minutes but it made a huge difference. 

We packed up, said goodbye to the kids and teachers and piled back into the cars to make our way back to Lijiang and our return train. We were scared stupid for the return journey but our driver was much nicer and drove like a nun. 5 hours in a car and we were all shattered and looking forward to nothing but bed. We stopped a few times on the way home to take some pictures of the view, which was amazing!

 

Back in Lijiang Kevin took us for one final meal, a famous fish restaurant by the old town, so we tucked into the speciality dish of raw salmon slices and dipping sauce. I think Nat and I finished a whole plate between us, it was so tasty. 

Also the restaurant had an automatic Lazy Susan so the food just kept wandering past looking tasty, it just wasn't our fault. 
The train was due to leave at 10:30 and I was tucked up in the bunk by 10:15, I only woke up as we pulled into Kunming station.

A shattering weekend but I am so glad we were given the opportunity to see the schools. We have now set up a charity organisation in the school to try and help out and raise money from within Shane. Fingers crossed we will be able to help out. 

Into the mountains of Lijiang 2014: Part 2 (moved from old blog)

 

Crossing the mountains of LiJiang: Part 2

Day 2 of our trip started earl in the morning, long before the sun was up. We piled into a car and tried to get some sleep. we failed as the road soon became twisty and roller coaster like. The three of us on the back seat kept smashing into each other and so no sleep was had by anyone. 
We travelled for about three hours before stopping for breakfast in a tiny place in the middle of nowhere. Four foreigners in this little town at the crack of dawn caused quite a stir and the locals seemed quite excited/confused.

Another hour in the car and we arrived at the first school. A primary school with only ten students, one classroom and a small courtyard perched on the side of a mountain. We turned up armed with basketballs, badminton rackets, pencil cases and skipping ropes and met the kids. Their teacher has been teaching in this school for the last seventeen years and he is in charge of the donations and money the school get, he has to split up and dish out the cash.

We kicked balls about with the kids for a while and then Stefan taught them for about twenty minutes. 
One of the students took us ten minutes down the hill to see the house where she lives with her Grandmother and brother. there were about four or five little houses or huts in a collection and a  bunch of animal pens. Most of the land in the mountains is too rocky to grow anything so the majority of people make money with their animals and sell them once or twice a year for meat. The parents are usually off in local cities sending money back when they can. 

A few minutes looking about her house and the area and we were back to the school to take about a thousand photos and say goodbye to the kids. We were off to another school, this time a boarding school further round the valley. 

Into the mountains of Lijiang 2014 (moved from old blog)

Crossing the mountains of Lijiang, (part one)

Back story: The school I work for is involved in a charity organisation that supports several rural mountain schools in northern Yunnan. Our school has been helping them out for about 4 years and this year foreign staff were invited on a trip to met the kids, visit the school and deliver some school supplies and sporting equipment that the school was donating. No-one else in our school was interested so Nat and I jumped at the chance to get another trip and see somewhere we would never have been able to get to otherwise. 


We met at the train station on the Sunday night, already a little shattered after a weekend at work but ready for our 8 hour journey to LiJiang. From the western staff it was just Nat and I from DianChi (our school) and Stefan and Harriet from TaoYuan (the older school) plus about 6 Chinese staff and the big boss Kevin so we made a fair size group. 

I've been to LiJiang before but not in a long time so I couldn't remember much of the place. It turned out we were staying in ShuHu which is about 20 minutes away and coincidentally where we went for my first Christmas away. We were staying in a little hostel somewhere though a  maze of alleyways and fences. The place was really nice and had some comfortable and cosy bed, so we were happy. 


Kevin played tour guide for most of the day and we had a jam packed day. Our first stop was another village called BaiShan (I think) in which we went to meet a local Doctor who has become something of a celebrity. This guy has met hundreds of very important people including Michael Palin, members of European royal families and more. He is a 94 years old and has fantastic self taught English. He made us all take pictures of his advice for a long and healthy life, picture here. Basically don't drink/smoke/stay up late/eat meat or sugar and drink lots of herbal tea, we might have to make a few adjustments to our lives?!

Then we shipped off to meet the woman who live somewhere just outside of Lijiang who organises all of the charity donations and fund raising for most of Yunnan. From her we picked up all of the stuff were taking to the kids the following day. 
Our final stop was old town LiJiang where we were set free to wander about and explore. Kevin had taken us for a huge meal so Nat and I were walkign very slowly and slightly uncomfortably, also by this time we were completely shattered and as it was nearly the evening we didn't spend much time there. Nat and I got very lost and had to stop in a tourist information and look at at map, we were only about a 40 minute walk from where we wanted to be. The lesson here, Nat's directional instincts are not as great as first though, always consult a map! We were basically in the old town long enough to wander about and buy some yac steak pieces.

We headed back to the hostel and decided on an early night as we had to leave at about 4am the following morning. 

AnShun October 2014 (moved from old blog)

 Caves in AnShun Day 2

After getting back to AnShun town and having a speedy shower we went to investigate the food market street we had been told about. It was about half a mile of market stalls selling some of the best food i have had in Southern China. Everything was really cheap so we just bought loads of stuff to try and if it as no good we went and got something else. We found a place that sold ribs and they were amazing. So good in fact that we went back the next day and got some more.

We had an early night and a chilled Tuesday morning before heading out to the Dragon Pool Caves. We used public buses so it took hours but was amazingly cheap. Somehow I ended sitting in the front seat of the mini bus so I had an unobstructed view of the terrifying road with drop we were hurtling down. If we ignore the break neck speed we were travelling at, it was actually beautiful and impressive scenery. 

The Cave itself is in a smaller scenic area with a waterfall and another trail to follow. There were no signs in English or Chinese so we got lost constantly and found no-one but grumpy and unhelpful staff. The trail to the cave took about an hour on which there were several other little scenic attractions as they were called. One area was called "fun with stones" which was most certainly a lie. there were stones but there was nothing fun at all about them. 

We jumped into a little boat to go into the cave and were sped into the middle and back out again all in about 5 minutes. The cave was fairly impressive but not as good as the Internet or the tourist board had made us believe. We headed back to AnShun feeling a little cheated and deflated. 

 Karen had heard of a temple in town that she wanted to see and as we had plenty of time to kill we went in search of it. Many misdirections and wrong buses later we found it and discovered that it was at the end of the food market we had dinner at the previous night. On the bright side that was dinner for the Tuesday sorted. The temple was small and deserted so we sat and watched the sun set and then went and gorged on ribs for the second night running. Our train was supposed to leave at about half nine but was delayed a few hours. By the time it turned up we were both freezing and shattered and very eager to get to bed. Unfortunately the train had started in Shanghai 30 hours previously so it was in a disgusting state. No bathrooms were working, there was rubbish and half eaten food everywhere not to mention smoking people in the beds. Thankfully we were only on the train for 8 hours so it could have been a lot worse. 
It was a speedy trip but definitely worth seeing. 

AnShun: October 2014 (moved from old blog)

Waterfalls in AnShun. Day 1

I am hugely behind on my travel updates, I went to AnShun back in October but have been alarmingly busy but that's for later.


AnShun is about 8 hours away from Kunming by train so a weekend was plenty. It was just me and Karen who planned ever minute of our trip. For once all I had to do was turn up and do as I was told. 
It was the usual weekend away routine, Sunday over night train and back again on the Wednesday morning. 
We arrived into AnShun early on the Monday morning and jumped into a mini van with a bunch of strangers who were also going to the waterfall scenic area. It was only about an hours drive but it was an hour spent talking to people who just had the stupidest foreigner related questions. "Do all foreigners eat lots of pizza?" "Is there Chinese food in England?" and so on.....


HuangGuoShu wa is actually split into three areas which are about 25Kilometers apart. Our driver had a special licence so he could drive between the areas inside of the park. everyone else jumped on the public buses that run all the time. The first one was a small-ish waterfall and a short walk along a  river. 

The second area was similar looking to the Stone Forest and had a fairly large cave also along the river. The cave was full of stalagmite and tites which had all been lit up bright colours so it had a Disney feel to it. Regardless it was impressive and Karen and I spent ages playing with cameras and phones trying to get one to work in the dark. 

Second area waterfall

The final area was HuangGuoShu waterfall itself. reports varied but the best we could work out it's the tallest waterfall in China and the widest in Asia. Again we still aren't completely sure on the exact record as even in the park the signs didn't all agree. 
There was a purpose built trail that followed one side of the river, went behind the waterfall and then down the other side of the river and finally crossing the river back to the beginning. We climbed hundreds of steps up to the top of the trail (stopping occasionally for a rest and photographs). The whole trail took just under an hour and we were shattered at the end, annoyingly we then had to walk back up to the car park which was a further couple of hundred steps. A very good work out for the legs but which nearly killed Karen.
We stayed in this nasty little hotel by the train station and the phrase "you get what you pay for" definitely applied. We payed £4 each for the night so I am sure the state of the room can be imagined. 

Vietnam: Tam Coc National Day 2014 (moved from old blog)

 Boating in Tam Coc

Another of the day trips I managed to go on was to a scenic area called Tam Coc. It's about a three hour drive from Hanoi and could not be more different. I get the impression that the area doesn't see a load of international tourists as no-one and nothing was in English, generally the signs are in English even is the people don't speak it. However they clearly get lots of people going there as there were hundreds of the little boats that we hired and miles of parked bicycles for hire. 

As I was on an organised tour I was expecting a certain amount of shopping stops and people trying to sell us stuff, however it was clear that the guide had deals with particular shops as he would march us past many that were identical to get to one he approved of. 

We first stopped at the ancient Capital of Vietnam which was a time filler as otherwise the day would have been a little empty, there was nothing there just a car park which apparently was the spot the old palace was on. A little disappointing and very little time was spent here.

Next we went for lunch and then to the boats. The boats were rowed by locals who were keen to make some extra money in tips. They fussed about us in the sun, if our seats were comfy enough and panicked if they thought we were thirsty. 
The trip took about an hour and a half in which we travelled down a little river, thought some caves then turned back. The area is famous for its Karsk mountain formations which seem to be all over the place in Vietnam and South West China. The stone forest is very similar and (for avid readers of Claire vs China) the GuiZhou scenic areas in visited a few months back.

After the boat trip we were given bikes, pointed in a vague direction down a dirt road and told to be back in 40 minutes. Our guide was very little above useless, he didn't want to know and later confessed to it being his last day. However without supervision we managed to cycle through some much nicer 'off-the-beaten-track' walkways around some rice field. We were very lucky to be going past them as the sun was setting making it really rather pretty. Myself and a few others from the tour were lucky enough to get half decent bikes so the uphill part of the journey was easy, some others were not so lucky and ended up pushing their one speed death traps back to the meeting point. 

All in all the place was beautiful but the tour was terrible, if I can help it I don't use organised day tours but this place would have been impossible to get to without speaking the language. Never mind it can't be helped. 

Vietnam: Mai Chau: National Day 2014 (moved from old blog)

 Motorbiking round Mai Chau

I left Sapa and made my way back to Lao Cai to get the overnight train to Hanoi. Somehow I managed to pay for a hard sleeper bunk (cheapest) but got given a ticket for a soft sleeper which was a nice little bonus. The train takes about 10 hours and gets into Hanoi at 6 in the morning. I was lucky and bumped into some fellow Kunming holiday goers who knew the way from the train station to the old quarter so I didn't have to fight with taxi drivers telling me my hostel didn't exist (the current scam sweeping Asia).

Regular readers (always wanted to say that) will know that I have already been to Hanoi so I should still vaguely remember where the hostel was and managed to get there with only one slight mess up in directions. Hanoi Backpackers, cheap and chaotic, has become known for its tours and so most people seem to be staying there just for those. consequently the people in my room changed every night and no-one seemed to stick around for more than a day or two. I however was there for 5 days as I was based in Hanoi and just did one night or day trips out of the city. 

My first trip was to Mai Chau valley where I stayed in a "home stay" which turned out to be a dormitory style room on top of a local families house. they cooked for us and took us out on tours, and we all chipped in with the chores so all in all it worked pretty well. The first day was a bicycle tour around the farms and local villages in the area. Again it was a painfully hot day and I was constantly adding suncream desperate not to burn more than I had managed on the bike in Sapa. the family and the hostel have a stock of mix matched bikes that they lent us for the tour, mine was a bright pink think that had no breaks, instead you had to pedal backwards to slow down. we cycled for about 2 hours in a huge circle and by the end of it I still wasn't used to the breaks. 

The evening was spent having terrifying motor bike lessons (in Vietnamese) and eating the evening meal. Our lessons were basically a introduction to the bike and a drive down a straight bit of road and back again. As this was my first time on a motorbike driving for myself I was a little nervous and all over the place. I went to bed repeating what to do in my head not feeling very confident at all. 
There was literally nothing for about half a mile so we were attacked by every bug and ended up in the mosquito nets upstairs still drinking and talking in the dark. 

The second day consisted of a 40km motorbike ride to a lake and a well needed refreshing swim. we had to take the ride pretty slowly as we were all still getting used to the bikes and changing gears. I had taken to practising going up and down gears on the flat main roads, until I got told off of course. We went past a waterfall and stopped for a break and some pictures before carrying on to the lake. 
We all piled into a very small fishing boat that had been hired for the hot and tired foreigners to take a swim and did just that. The water was beautifully warm if an odd colour and we spent nearly half an hour just clinging to the side of the boat and chilling out. 

Sadly this was the end of our mini adventure in Mai Chau as we had to get back to the room, grab our stuff and pile back into a bus heading for Hanoi. The bus journey back was not at all relaxing as the driver seemed to be in a very bad mood and a hurry. We zipped around the side of mountains and flew down teh main highways all the tiem with huim shouting out of the window at the poor people he had just forsed off the road. Needless to say we were all very glad to get back and out of his bus!