Tom's visit 2015 Part 1 Shanghai (moved from old blog)

 The Return of the Brother: ShangHai

As most of you no doubt know Tom was recently out here for a visit/holiday, we had 19 days of stomping about China fitting in as much as we possibly could. Looking back, I think we did very well considering how much time he was here. 

This year, we decided to meet in Shanghai. We went to Beijing last year and, although we both love Beijing, the further travel options are limited. I had already been to Shanghai as so knew a very nice hostel and the basics of the subway system, which definitely made things easier. 

The hostel is fantastic; (if anyone is interested Rock and Wood Hostel) we had  booked a private room so we could get plenty of sleep and still managed to meet people in the hostel bar, plus we didn't have to worry about keeping our stuff in order, which is always a plus. 

Our first few days were fairly chilled out and relaxed, as we knew the middle travelling part of the holiday was going to be tiring and hectic. We spent the weekend wandering about the interesting and more spectacular parts of the city making sure to find time to visit some of the attractions. We probably managed to see and do more the first three days of this years holiday than we managed in the whole of last years two weeks. Of course we were prepared for trouble! I arrived with 4 boxes of stomach tablets and Tom a further 6, between us we could have solved the problems of a vindaloo addicted elephant with a delicate constitution. 

We managed to do most of the shanghai Top 10 tourist spots and added in several of our own. Walking along The Bund is always a good few hours of people watching followed by a stroll along NanJing Road, one of the world largest pedestrianised shopping streets.  We also went up the World Finance Center, which boasts the Guinness books of Records, “Highest Observation platform” at a stomach churning 497 meters. 

It was here that we discovered that Tom was not so happy with heights. I have been up the tower before but I was unlucky to have had bad weather that day, this time it was clear and sunny so the view was incredible. Looking down on the other skyscrapers of the Shanghai skyline is really something. Tom developed a habit of muttering "wow, just wow" every time we saw something famous or impressive. 

As I am sure you can imagine, this was said  ALOT especially in the next few places we visited. 

We also booked to see a troop of local acrobats, an experience which ranged from "wow" to "I can't look any more". This was my third time seeing an acrobat show, the other two being in Beijing, and I still don't think I have seen the same act twice. 
 

Actually, the only temple we visited was in Shanghai. We visited JinAn Temple, which is beautiful but has a very strange feel to it. The temple itself could have been built yesterday and it is in the middle of a busy shopping and market street. I wouldn't have been too surprised if someone had told me one day it fell from the sky and Shanghai decided to keep it where it was. 

We were in Shanghai during the May Day holiday so the central courtyard was full of people burning candles and praying whereas the rest of the temple was almost deserted. Made for a very strange almosphere but very interesting regardless.Otherwise, our first few days were more of a 'where do I want to go back to' list as our trip would be ending back there in a couple of weeks time. We went and explored shopping areas and souvenir streets but were very restrained in not buying anything. Anything bought at this point in the holiday would have to be carried round with us or left in a bag behind a desk. 
We booked a flight to GuiLin (24 hour train journey I think NOT) for our third day so it was only a quick introduction to ShangHai. We will be back!

Spring Festival 2015 JiuZhaiGou (moved from old blog)

 Sun and snow in JiuZhaiGou

 

Chocolate box advert?

 After the stupidly long bus journey, the whole room snuggled down for a pathetically early night, the plan being to get up early and get to the park before it opened in an effort to avoid the crowds. as it turned out we needn't have bothered as it had snowed over night and this seemed to keep the crowds away leaving the park almost deserted. 
The park is spread over two valleys that join to make a Y shape, we had been given maps from the hostel but they were hugely misleading. what looked fairly close on the map was a minimum of a 4km walk, so the longer looking gaps were generally more than 30km.  On the first morning my plan was to get the bus as far as i could and then walk back to the start. After a 35 minute bus journey I figured this wasn't completely doable and instead walked only half. The was a hop on hop off bus service that ran about the park that proved to be amazing. Most of the Chinese tourists were getting off, taking pictures then getting on again and blasting to the next park of the park. In between the scenic spots of interest (their wording not mine) there were almost no people and some incredible little unknown parts. The paths wound round the other side of lakes and rivers and, on my first day at least, were covered in snow. I had Walking in a Winter Wonderland going round and round in my head for days after my trip.

 The park is incredible! We would walk a little, be blown away by the scenery, say something along the lines of "how can this get any better" and then, as if to show us up, it would get more impressive. 
The water is completely clear and a fantastic bright blue or green colour, which with the snow and the mountains made for some beautiful scenery. Walking thought the park was a good idea as I kept finding waterfalls and streams that weren't marked on the map so they were completely deserted and quiet. 
It is one of the most amazing places I have been and am so glad I finally made it. 

Spring Festival 2015 JiuZhaiGou (moved from old blog)

 The Journey to JiuZhaiGou

After finishing work nearly a month ago I have been ready to leave Kunming for a  few days. 

Annoyingly I couldn't leave the city while my new VISA was being processed so as soon as I got my passport back I was booking flights to somewhere, anywhere. So I consulted my "to go to list" and picked a place that was do-able in a  week. 

I picked JiuZhaiGou in Northern SiSchuan, one of China's original UNESCO heritage sites and one of the top 10 places to visit. I flew to ChengDu, a nice 1 hour 10 minute flight, and then booked a bus to JiuZhaiGou, a not so nice 10 hour bus journey. 

I had a few days to kill in ChengDu before my whole day on a bus, so I stocked up on audio books and bus food and headed out. 
We were crammed onto a medium sized bus and started off on an epic journey into the mountains. 

The road has recently been resurfaced so it wasn't bumpy but swingy would be an understatement. The road snaked round the bottom of gorges, along the side of the river and through 10km long tunnels and all the time I was getting more and more impressed by the scenery. I managed to take over 40 photographs just on the journey. 

Once in JiuZhaiGou town, if a string of hotels and restaurants can be called a town, I set off to find the hostel from hostelworld.com. I walked into a beautiful hotel lobby and was fairly certain I had messed up and booked the wrong place. However, the people at reception had me details and I was pointed to the fifth floor. 

The carpet stopped on the fourth floor and the fifth turned out to be the roof and the room I was pointed to, a shed/garage looking thing on the roof. The room had concrete floors and no heating so the electric blankets were just the best thing ever! The bathrooms were across the roof and we had to clamber over pipes and cables to get to some incredible showers, then again after ten hours on a hot and crowded bus any kind of shower would have been amazing. There were six of us in the room and we were all shattered having all just done the epic journey so we were tucked up in bed with a beer by about nine in the evening. Tomorrow to the park!

New Year 2015 JianShui (moved from old blog)

 

One night in JianShui

After a short break from updates, due to iffy internet connections and banned websites, I have returned with the sequel to the much anticipated New Year's week away.

Like I said YuanYang is an amazing and beautiful place but there is nothing to do once the sun goes down. A few days in the hostel bar/cafe and I was ready for a change. So I went back to the bus station and jumped on a bus to JianShui. It's a small ancient city about half way between YuanYang and Kunming and the bus was much more comfortable than the direct one. 

I arrived into JianShui in the early evening and jumped on a city bus to the old part of the town, turned out it was only 3 stops (about a 10 minute walk). 

Next stop was finding a place to stay. After being turned away from 3 hotels I was beginning to get a little nervous,  I had forgotten New Year is also a Chinese holiday so things were busier than normal. I ended up walking down a little side street and finding a slightly seedy looking hotel. 

Alarm bells were ringing when they said they didn't need to see my passport and with my key I could eat and drink for free in the downstairs KTV (karaoke bar). 

I found my windowless room and cleared out the big bugs who were perfectly comfortable in the bathroom and settled into a noisy night in bed. Regardless, I managed to have a good night in the bar with some Chinese Lady Gaga fans. As it turns out, I am lacking in my Lady Gaga song knowledge. 
JianShui is actually a really cool place, its an old city that is actually old! Most in China are built just to look old but few are more than a couple of years old. JianShui has remaining city gates and parts of the wall, cobbled streets and parks. There is a chilled out vibe throughout the whole place and the newer parts just outside the wall are equally as nice. I spent several hours just wandering about perfectly happy and causing chaos. I don't think here had been any foreigners there in a long time. 

About an hour outside of the city is one of China's longest underground river. I can't remember the exact record but its about a 3km walk along the river to a wonderful, tasteful restaurant and shopping center, it was similar to trying to sit in a light show. The caves were called Swallow caves as once a year the swallows leave their nests on the cave walls and fly south. So up jump some death defying Chinese guys and they collect up the nests for Birds Nest Soup a local delicacy. There were hundreds of little market stalls selling sugar equivalents which tasted something like how i imagine eating housing insulation to taste. 

After a very quick stop in JianShui I jumped back on a 4 hour bus to Kunming and back to work. Only a few weeks to go. 

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.