Hi folks,
I have finally been on holiday again - in April I went to China for a month and now I am inviting you to come with me and re-live my holiday in the comfort of your own home. My journal is below, with photos and as always I entered everything in reverse order so YOU can read everything FORWARDS, so just go to the Blog Archive to navigate easily, to "2011" then "May" and you should have a list of each entry titled and ordered by date.
If you would like to see my photo album from China, you're welcome to view it HERE or type this into your web-browser:
https://picasaweb.google.com/brocklehurst79/ChinaHighlightsApril2011
Let me know of any mistakes I may have made or any problems and I will try to amend as soon as I can.
Let's go to China!
Siobhan xx
Wednesday, 25 May 2011
Tuesday, 24 May 2011
Saturday April 2nd / Sunday April 3rd
We got a lift to the bus station from Dad, although he couldn’t go directly to it due to random, never before seen bollards blocking the road (!). Anyway, we said farewell on a nearby street just a walk away from the station to get the National Express coach to the airport.
The journey was straight forward, pretty uneventful, and there was hardly any traffic. We dropped off our bags and went through security straight away – I was parched and starving! For once, I wasn’t the one who was searched – Mathew tried his best not to wear any metal, but his pockets had metal poppers, so he got ‘wanded’. Into the departure lounge, we immediately went to get some food. We weren’t waiting too long until our gate was open, boarding began, and we got a bus to our plane which we got onto outside on the tarmac. Take off was about 5 minutes late, but other than that, everything seemed to be going along nicely.
The flight was long at just over 10 hours! It’s certainly the longest flight I have ever done so far. The flight itself was fairly uneventful but the seats were quite soft and comfortable with built-in head rests to pull down to the shoulders to stop the head lolling to the side when dozing. We had a good amount of leg room too. Mathew and I both had a ‘roast beef dinner’ followed by what I think was a chocolate brownie with chocolate or fudge sauce!
Soon we began to fly into the night and after watching one movie, Mathew and I tried to sleep a little. I don’t think either of us was that successful – I decided to watch another movie after a while, as did Mathew. After that, I tried to sleep again and this time I think I may have managed about an hour. I thought we’d probably be sleeping off the jetlag in the hotel when we arrived anyway. We weren’t seated next to a window – Mathew was in the aisle seat and I was in the middle – so we didn’t see much in the way of any landscapes, OR Shanghai from the air.
5pm Shanghai Time
Oh My Goodness!!! It was SO good to have some fresh air after such a long long flight. Well, it wasn’t really that fresh due to the smog...but it was just nice to be out of the plane!
We landed in Shanghai around 8am, having only got about 90 minutes sleep on the flight. We were both very tired and parched, despite having had regular drinks but obviously aeroplane air conditioning never helps. We were served breakfast, although by this time and being sleep deprived, I knew my stomach wanted food but I wasn’t sure what bacon, tomato, sausage, mushroom and scrambled egg would do, as after a normal nights’ sleep I really can’t do a fry up in the morning as it just makes me feel very ill.
I decided to try it, as it didn’t really feel much like breakfast time and I thought it best to eat something. Surprisingly, it seemed my body really wanted the salt, but oddly, I couldn’t manage the mini muffin. I did, however, manage the orange juice and yoghurt – both from Wales so the labels said!
Going through Chinese Immigration was quick, easy and painless. It was all very civilized and polite, no large grins but no stern looks or accusing questions either. The first thing we noticed was the amazingly clean and shiny floor – shiny enough to see your own face in it! Yes, really! We collected our bags and found a ‘Wendy Wu’ rep who took us outside and onto the coach. We travelled about an hour to the Ramada Zhabei Hotel in downtown Shanghai and the traffic was calm and free flowing. Our rep told us that April 3rd is the Quing Ming Festival (Sweeping of the Tombs) therefore not many people were on the road today.
When we arrived in Shanghai, it was raining a little. On the coach, it was finally time to see what China was like. Closer to the airport, there seemed to be many areas in which housing developments were taking place, and these houses looked quite nice. The style was sort of colonial or incorporated colonial styles, surrounded by small gardens. The roofs were all tiled and they were never straight or flat – most of them had some sort of flying eave, typical of traditional Chinese architecture.
The further away we travelled from the airport, the more of a mish-mash of everything the landscape became. Nice new houses, run down houses, small slums, mini landfill areas, wasteland, and really pretty landscape gardening both for private and public use. It was as if the area was being developed in no methodical fashion whatsoever, but you could tell things were being done.
Upon our arrival at the hotel, we met our National guide who would be with us for the entire holiday, Jane. She was in the lobby and took our passports so she could do a mass check-in and give us our key-cards. She returned our passports to us and asked us all to meet up on the 2nd floor for lunch at midday. We got to our room and collapsed!! SO tired! We decided, as it was now 10:05am, to sleep until lunchtime.
After some sleep, we woke up and headed to the 2nd floor for lunch. It was a simple buffet and I didn’t eat much as my stomach was very confused as to what time of day it was and what meal to expect next. We discovered that our guide Jane would have a very long day today, greeting up to 30 people on this tour right up until midnight! We also discovered that we were mixed in with some Australians – it turns out they thought ‘Wendy Wu’ was just an Australian company, and weren’t expecting to meet any Brits! After lunch, we returned to our room and slept until meeting in the lobby at 6pm for dinner. We were told we could take a walk outside around town if we wanted to, but we decided that sleep is what we really needed.
We awoke at 4:15pm having slept since 1pm. I sent an email home after trying to call. No matter how many combinations of the number I tried (international codes, area codes etc) everything resulted in a message repeating “This call is barred!”. Perhaps the mobile network my phone had connected with didn’t do international calls?
We went to the lobby at 6pm, and boarded the coach. 15 minutes into town, we went into “Amanda Plaza” – a shopping centre, in which our first dinner was eaten in a restaurant called “Thai Riffic” (Yes, really!), and despite the name, the food was actually Chinese. It had a very cozy atmosphere with wooden and wicker decor. I particularly liked the teardrop shaped paper lanterns which glowed red, yellow and orange.
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| Typical food layout in Chinese restaurants |
We sat at a round table, in the centre of which was a large round rotating “lazy susan”, and we had our own small bowls, plates, and of course....chopsticks! A waiter appeared with a large bowl of soup which we all tucked into immediately, ladling it into our bowls. It had meat, diced potato and spring onions – it was very watery, but really tasty. As soon as we started with the soup, more and more dishes were set onto our table – rice, noodles, bean shoots, fish, chicken, omelette – none of which were spicy, all of which were full of flavour. I think I ate a decent amount, as I had caught up on some sleep, felling more awake and my stomach more settled. I was glad to have some food, and I really enjoyed it!
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| Shanghai from our hotel window |
This evening, Mathew and I watched a DVD before going to bed at 10:30pm. We had a wake up call at 7:10am, and the sleep would do us some good. My only worry was what the breakfast would be like in the morning...
Monday April 4th
This morning, we headed down to breakfast to see an array of several things on offer. I didn’t have a perfect night’s sleep, but I headed to the cereal and that went down fine. Jam on toast didn’t impress my stomach and I tried some orange juice but it was totally synthetic, possibly either cordial or diluted Sunny Delight! It turned out that most of the orange juice served in any restaurant here was just like this, so I decided not to drink any orange juice at all for the remainder of the trip. Stomach fairly satisfied, we left and upon exiting, I grabbed an apple on the way out to take with me for the day. We had a ‘briefing’ about our tour, which started me worrying about a few things but nothing too bad!
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| Shanghai Museum |
On the coach, we met our local guide, Lemon. She told us some facts about Shanghai during our journey to Shanghai Museum, facts like: Shanghai has a population of over 17 million people, and the name ‘Shanghai’ means “above the sea”. We joined the huge queue to get into the Museum, and while waiting, we were offered the opportunity to buy kites from local vendors as they were flying them. They love their kites in China! This one being shown was a giant red squid, and although a photo would have been good, it felt wrong to ask for a photo and not buy it..!
Inside the Museum, we had a brief security check, a bag scan, and we had to take a sip of water if we were holding a bottle, so they could see it wasn’t tainted with anything. We were given an hour and 45 minutes to look at the 4 floors of the Museum. It wasn’t a huge Museum, but it did have a collection of over 120,000 pieces spanning over 5,000 years! If we had our own time, I think we would have spent about 3 – 4 hours there. Mathew and I started at the top on floor 4 to look at Galleries of Chinese Ethnic Minorities’ Arts & Crafts (traditional dress), and Chinese Jade which was fabulous! Some of the jade was very impressive, some having multi-layers AND in different colours focusing mostly on animals and plants, with the odd landscape carving, as well as a few small idols. We decided to skip the currency and furniture and headed to floor 3 to see the Chinese paintings and seals, the painting gallery had motion-sensor lighting at each piece, so the lights only came on if someone was standing at a painting, which I thought was a very good idea and I don’t think I’ve seen it used before in any other Museum I’ve been to in the UK or elsewhere.
On each floor there were small themed gift shops, and on floor 3, Mathew bought a print of one of the paintings. I looked for one with animals on but I couldn’t find one I liked. I was sure I would find more of these within the next month!
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| Bronze Cauldron |
We skipped floor 2 which had a gallery of ceramics and lots of places to eat, and went to the first floor which we spent the most time on, as it had a nice collection of sculptures and a pretty amazing collection of Chinese bronze artefacts. I noticed the similarities of early Chinese sculpture with that of other cultures – I found myself comparing early wooden Chinese sculpture to Cycladic figurines! Oh dear....haha! But it’s true – I often find myself noticing lots of similarities in the art and design of objects created in the early stages of many civilizations, and I really find it interesting how two totally different and separate civilizations can create pretty much the same things, with almost the same patterns.
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| Bronze Urn |
The bronze gallery was the most impressive, especially if you compare what people in the UK were making at exactly the same time. Chinese bronze artefacts were displayed, the oldest having been made 4,800 years ago – firstly they didn’t look that old at all, they looked like they had been made yesterday. Secondly, there was no sign of corrosion either – not even a tiny tiny smidgen - and the detail of all of these bronze artefacts was absolutely amazing. It was hard to believe that here in the UK we were just learning to make spears and other simple weapons, while the level of craftsmanship in China was so skilled and advanced. Of course, I left a decent amount of time for the main shop in which I made my first purchase of a couple of bag/phone charms and a small guide book.
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| The Museum - square earth under round heaven |
Outside around the other side of the Museum in the ‘People’s Square’, we saw that the shape of the Museum itself was inspired by the shape of one of the cauldrons we had seen inside. Not only this but we learnt here that the Chinese see the Earth as square and Heaven as round, and this is seen in many places, and we were told we would see it later in the Forbidden City and the Temple of Heaven in Beijing.
Onward to lunch! We ate in the “Sea Palace Floating Restaurant” – yes, it was an actual boat! The majority of the rest of our meals on this trip at lunch and dinner took the same form as yesterday. This time, we all used chopsticks (last time, half the people grabbed the forks!), and I had some Green tea which in the UK I find very bitter and I can’t stand it, but here it’s SO much nicer. Now I find it hard to believe most people I know who drink Green Tea really enjoy the taste of it....I don’t think they would if they drank the fresh stuff here – they wouldn’t go back to it. I certainly wouldn’t!
We proceeded to the Jin Mao Observatory 88 which is on the 88th floor of the Jin Mao Tower (well, duh!). The building is just over 370m tall and is known locally as the ‘Pagoda Building’ due to its Pagoda like appearance on the street. Very imaginative here, obviously....! The elevator took 45 seconds to reach the 88th floor, so many ears were popping!
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| Jin Mao Observatory |
The view of Shanghai from here was brilliant, as it was a sunny day with blue sky. It was quite hazy due to the smog which we had been told about by Lemon. It was a layer of greyness lying over the entire city, and it was the first time I have actually physically SEEN smog like that. The most impressive thing was the number of high rise apartments across the city, which seemed to go on forever.
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| Shanghai and Pudong |
While we were up the Tower, we also saw the tallest hotel lobby in the World (!) at 152m high and 27m in diameter, and we had some (random) “Free Peearls” (!), fortunately drilled for free, unfortunately mounted for a price. I’m sure I can make something with them when I get home. I also decided to buy some stamps for our postcards as we were here at the “Highest Aerial Post Office” .... I guess I could say I got the highest “Peearls” up there, but there was no claim about that on the ticket.
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| The highest hotel lobby in the World! |
What was cute, was a little tree on which you could buy a red decoration and hang it there after writing either someone’s name, a wish, a good luck message or putting a photo on it. Or at least that’s what we all thought – that was before we learnt about the Chinese public dating service.....
Next, we went to Longyang Road Station where – if we wanted to – we could get the train to the airport and back. No, it wasn’t completely random – this was the MagLev (Magnetic Levitation) train experience we were being offered! Basically they boast that it takes 8 minutes to travel 30km at a speed of 431km/h. Mathew and I decided not to go, as we saw it as a bit of a pointless journey. Shame we couldn’t really see it levitating when it left and arrived though, as there was a shelf on the tracks to stop it falling off (!). We strolled outside and decided on a short walk through one of the sporadic landscaped gardens under the train tracks and the roads which make up the mixture of scenes of Shanghai.
After everyone had returned, we went back to the hotel, and went for our “Welcome Dinner” at 5:50pm....which was pretty much the same deal as last night!
Tuesday April 5th
This morning, we awoke, packed our suitcases and went down to breakfast after which, we checked out of the hotel and boarded the coach. We stopped off for the loo – my first experience of a Chinese toilet! Okay, it’s not THAT exciting, but for the remainder of the holiday, all the ladies were giving a star rating out of 5 for all the toilets we used after that point, and we became obsessed with talking about toilets from then on!
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| Silk Mill: extracting silk from cocoons |
We went on to Suzhou Silk Mill where we sat down to learn about the silk making process. I had been to a silk mill in the UK before but Mathew hadn’t, so he didn’t know anything about the process at all. It was very interesting as we were told that in China, silk worms eat Mulberry leaves and the examples of worms and cocoons which we saw looked far bigger than those in the UK – they were at least twice as large. Here, they boil the cocoons, remove the silk by unstringing in one length of silk, and the leftover pupae are used in the creation of cosmetics, said to be very good for the skin – a consequence of the silk worm’s diet of Mulberry leaves.
We moved on to an exhibition in the Museum where we saw examples of the process and some past and present silk weaving looms. We then moved into the factory, where we saw everything in progress, and we were told such facts as one strand of silk is one seventh the width of one strand of hair, and it takes 300 cocoons to make one tie!
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| Silk quilt making |
After this, we moved into another area where they were making silk quilts – yes, SILK QUILTS! I never thought silk was used to make quilts. It took 4 people to stretch one sheet of silk from a double cocoon over about a 2m square, layer up on layer upon layer, and it felt SO unbelievably soft! Some of our group tried having a go but it was obviously much stronger than it looked – it took about 8 of us to do it, much to the amusement of the people who did it every day!
Onto the shop, they sold quilts, quilt covers, cushions, table cloths....Mathew and I were looking for scarves and cushion covers but we couldn’t find any – until Jane pointed out to us that there were a number of shops in different areas all selling different things! We finally found them in the “Fashion” shop which was huge, more like a mini shopping mall, and it even had toilets. No, not silk toilets, I mean proper ones for customers! I ended up buying quite a lot of souvenirs here, 2 cushion covers, 2 bags and a tie.
We left for lunch (same deal as usual), and went on to central Suzhou. It was a short journey after the Silk Mill, and we stopped off to visit the Garden of the Master of Nets. On our way to Suzhou, we learned that it is well known for its gardens, and I have to say I prefer Suzhou to Shanghai – the streets look safer, and there are so many more gardens and trees on the streets, it’s very green. It’s a shame we had missed the blossoming of the Magnolias though – so see a street lined with flowering Magnolia would have been amazing. There were other plants in bloom though, such as peonies and peach and cherry blossoms which were very pretty.
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| The Garden of the Master of Nets |
The Garden of the Master of Nets was a typical Chinese garden which was originally created in 1140 but remodelled in 1770, and the furniture was Ming Dynasty (1368 – 1644). It had a central large pond, surrounded by many roofed walkways and pavilions, decorated with rockeries, flowers and very old trees, some had been there for 700 years which would have been originally planted in the 11th Century (Song Dynasty). It was quite small and intimate, but there was so much to see as the paths and bridges took us in different directions where we could see a different view every way we turned – this is the object of a Chinese garden, the idea is not to see the entire garden from one point, but to see lots of different views from many angles. There were many pavilions, rockeries, fun pathways and bridges, and there were plenty of flowers out, it was a very nice garden to be in and anyone could have spent a whole day there.
After Lemon took us around, we were given time to walk and explore ourselves, after which we were back on the coach and off again to have a cruise along the Grand Canal in Suzhou which was great fun! Suzhou is affectionately known as the “Venice of the East”, and it is situated along part of the Grand Canal which was built over 1000 years linking Shanghai with Beijing. It consists of a network of canals, bridges and canal-side housing. It was very picturesque, and it was really like a miniature Venice. It was fun going along the narrow water-streets seeing typical Chinese houses and the people who lived in them, and all the people watching us watching them. One elderly lady even stood outside by the door smiling and waving at us.
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| Suzhou Canal |
One child policy is still encouraged in cities, but it is not so strict:
· If your 1st child is female, you can have a 2nd child
· If your 1st child dies young, is born with a disability, you can have a 2nd child
· If you have a multiple birth, you are truly blessed!
· If your 1st child is a boy you are not allowed to have a 2nd child
· If you live in the countryside you can have 2 children
· If you are of a Chinese minority, you can have as many children as you want
Also, in the city, a couple expecting a child would prefer a girl and in the countryside, a boy is preferred. This is because the boy’s family is expected to buy the house, the car etc for him and his bride, and the girl’s family is given quite a lot of money as a gift of thanks.
The boat trip in Suzhou was very enjoyable and too short! We disembarked and took a short walk to our hotel where our coach was waiting. We checked in and had dinner – this evening I played it relatively safe with sweet and sour pork and rice, some vegetable soup and....CHIPS!! Yes, chips! We weren’t expecting those!
In the evening, I washed my hair and the water was so soft, my hair felt just like silk afterwards....and no, I hadn’t pocketed any of those cocoons.....!
Wednesday April 6th
Today we went on our way to Hangzhou, which we were told was similar to Suzhou. Packed and ready to go, we first went to the Humble Administrators Garden which is one of the most famous gardens in China. It was built in 1500AD and covers 5.2 hectares, and was inscribed on the World Heritage List by UNESCO in 1997. It was much larger than the Garden of the Master of Nets and again, it would have been easy to spend an entire day here. Mathew and I personally preferred the smaller of the two gardens as we enjoyed the intimacy and appreciated how much had been fitted into small places while still managing to make the garden look quite big. The Humble Administrators Garden had a central lake surrounded by pavilions, rockeries, trees, flowers – it was great fun exploring along the craggy rocky steps. We had plenty of time to explore by ourselves after a 10 minute intro from Lemon and I think the amount of time we were given here was just about right for the size of the place. Whilst there, we stumbled upon a gift shop selling mostly artwork, but also silk (possibly silk, probably polyester!) items.
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| Humble Administrators Garden |
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| Humble Administrators Garden |
There was a painting there which I REALLY liked with herons and cherry blossom – not only was it 340 Yuan (£34) but I was wondering where I would put it at home. Just before we left the shop, I saw a much smaller one which was 68 Yuan (£6.80) which cherry blossom and flying bluebirds. The assistant told me it was painted on silk, but it felt more like paper to me, probably rice paper. It was so cute I decided to buy it, and she rolled it up and put it in a little box – very handy for packing away!
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| Humble Administrator's Garden |
After an entire morning at this garden, it was time for lunch, and the restaurant even had its own little garden – they just love their gardens here! After lunch and exploring the small restaurant garden, it was time to say our farewells to Lemon as it was time for her to leave us, and we would have a different local guide in Hangzhou. On the journey to Hangzhou, Jane told us a few things about Chinese culture – traditions, housing and employment. Many places in China are over employed resulting in people working just a few hours a day but get paid for the entire day, so they have a very easy life here, and in general, employees of the state / government are the best paid people. Jane also told us about the housing and how expensive it was to have an apartment in the city, and everything is valued at so many Yuan per square metre. It sounds like each apartment is quite big with a living room, 2 – 3 bedrooms, kitchen, bathroom and a utility room, some with a balcony on which to hang the washing. Many apartments in the city seemed to cost somewhere around 200,000 Yuan which is deemed incredibly expensive in China, but in the UK that currently equates to almost £20,000 which is really not expensive at all for an apartment to buy. The apartments and houses that cost 2 million Yuan equates to around the usual buying price for a nice country house or an apartment in London in the UK at around £190,000.
Something we all noticed was the laundry – not only people living in apartment blocks hung their washing outside (yes, even if they were on the 8th or 10th floor) but people who lived in smaller apartments hung their washing on racks just outside the windows overlooking the main roads. Some apartments had small balconies with washing lines, others had had pull-out frames to hang them on, or large racks with long poles to rest across. And if you were lacking room for putting your washing out to dry, you’d just find a place to hang it somewhere on the street – in trees, on traffic lights, street lights, telephone poles – anything you can string an ad-hoc washing line across or put a coat hanger on. Although I didn’t like the idea of having your washing drying over a stove in which a chicken was being boiled in a pan. I only saw it once, but I didn’t like the idea of having clothes smelling like boiled chicken...!
During the journey to Hangzhou, we were on the main roads with much farmland either side. Suddenly we started seeing small mounds decorated with colourful flowers in what seemed like very random patterns throughout some of the fields – some of the farmland had crops growing around the mounds, others had little copses of trees and mounds with decorations all around them. When we asked Jane about them, she told us these were very old graves and tombs. They had been decorated shortly before we had arrived in China – during the “Sweeping of the Tombs” or the Qing Ming Festival, where people go to their ancestors graves, take a picnic, tidy and decorate it and leave some food there as an offering. These ones in the countryside are very old – probably graves in the gardens of houses which were there long ago, but generations later they are still tended to today. Jane told us that since 2000, people can only be buried in designated cemeteries like we do in the West. In general, burying is not allowed and cremation is preferred due to lack of space, especially in the cities. However, minority Chinese are still allowed to bury their dead and usually this takes place in the countryside. Nowadays, people in Shanghai bury people in Suzhou due to the place having very good Feng Shui there.
When we began to drive past new housing developments on the way to Hangzhou, they took on a mixture of Eastern and Western architectural style. In the suburbs of Hangzhou, more high rise apartment blocks began to appear and Jane told us that most of the generic apartment blocks in the cities and suburbs are 6 – 8 floors high with no elevators – stairs all the way!
When we reached Hangzhou we noticed it was even more green than Suzhou – more trees and plants everywhere. There were many more tree-lined streets, and more grassy park areas too. The trees here (at least in Hangzhou) are protected, and it is illegal to uproot ANY tree without permission. If you DO uproot a tree, you must replace it with two new ones. It is said that in Hangzhou, each person owns 6 trees. They are well aware of pollution problems all over China, which is why if there is any wasteland anywhere, it gets planted on – for example, when we saw landscaped parks underneath flyovers and busy roads, this happens all over the country. Most parks are known as “People’s Parks” too, as most don’t have any gardens themselves so residents usually walk, dance, sing, exercise, play cards, and relax in the many public gardens around the country.
Off the bus in a well known market area, we were given quite a lot of time to walk around and explore. It was a very very long street and there were an incredible amount of shops and stalls selling all sorts of crafts and clothes, and frequent tea houses and herbal medicine stores. Mathew and I are not big market or shopping fans, but we strolled around because it was a very nice street and the buildings were also really very nice too, all historic and original, many had plaques just outside the doors explaining what they used to be, and most of the tea houses and herbal medicine stores had remained such. We even found some outdoor art at the end of the street, large concrete panels incorporating objects such as bicycles, doors and tiles which was quite fun!
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| Hangzhou Market |
There was a large pavilion overlooking the entire area, on top of a hill not too far away. I think we could have gone up there instead of strolling through the market if we’d noticed the steps up there sooner, but they were right at the other end of the street. We didn’t have a map and there was no information about the hill either, so it was probably good that we didn’t try getting up there anyway. A map or a display board would have been handy to find out how far away it really was and we could have figured the best routes. We actually thought it may have been much further away than it looked!
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| Happy Buddha in Hangzhou Market |
Back on the bus, we were introduced to our next local guide Aaron. He told us some brief facts about Hangzhou before we reached the restaurant, then onto “Lily Hotel”. He also told us that when the Chinese go to school, as soon as they begin learning English, they choose an English name, partly as part of their learning process, but also to make it easier for Westerners to pronounce. Whatever name they chose, they would keep the name for the rest of their life and introduce themselves with it to Westerners. We were told that tomorrow we would be tea-tasting, boat riding and visiting a temple and a pagoda. Should be a good day!
Thursday April 7th
This morning I discovered pastries, sweet breads and cookies for breakfast! Hooray! Although the “Danish Pastries” consisted of sweet puff pastry with a slice of bacon in the middle. BACON? NO!! Of course I peeled it off!
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| Felai Feng |
The first thing we went to see today was the Lingyin Temple. The weather today was a mixture of fog and rain, but it didn’t spoil our enjoyment of the Temple. The grounds outside the Temple complex consisted of lots and lots of carvings in the limestone rock, in the only limestone hill in the area, known as Feilai Feng (translated to mean ‘The Peak that Flew Here’). The lowest carvings in the rock face were ruined during the Cultural Revolution, but many higher carvings survived after being boarded over by the locals, and the boards painted with portraits of Chairman Mao. Many of the carvings date back to the 10th century, and they’re pretty amazing! Many are of different Gods, others of different manifestations of Buddha. Here we learnt that the fat, laughing Buddha is the Chinese Buddha, whereas the curly-haired slim Buddha came from India. As Buddhism came to China from India, both versions of him are depicted everywhere around China. Apparently if you go to India you will never see fat, laughing Buddha.
Into the Temple complex, we went through a very impressive gateway entrance into a large central courtyard where incense was being burned, and worshippers were lighting sticks, bowing in all 4 directions and praying. There were 3 or 4 large cauldrons in which lit sticks were burning, the smoke rising high above us, the smell wonderful and intense. We walked up large steps to The Great Buddha Hall which was absolutely huge, and the Chinese traditional ‘flying eave’ architectural trait was in full force here! This Temple actually only had one floor, while on the outside it looked like it had three. Inside The Great Buddha Hall was the hugest Buddha I have ever seen – he stands at 66feet high (20metres) made from camphor wood. It was very impressive. On either side of the Temple walls and around the back, there were very large statues (although not as big as Buddha here!) of the students of Buddha also known as Arhats. Around the back was a clay sculpture covering the entirety of the back panel at the back of Buddha, which depicted Buddha’s 500 Arhats.
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| Lingyin Temple Complex |
The next one was the Medicine Buddha Hall where there were yet more sculptures of Buddha and his Arhats. The 3rd one we went into was the Heaven Guardians Hall with more impressive and imposing sculptures. Despite the imposing statues, I thought it felt quite peaceful and I personally felt more peaceful in a Buddhist Temple than I do in a Christian Church.
Unfortunately, we didn’t have a lot of time to spend here, and most people would have liked to. We left and walked by Feilai Feng once more, but before we got back onto the coach, we went into the cave inside of which there was an aged sculpture which came out surprisingly well with the use of flash!
On our way to Longjing Village, Aaron told us this is the home of Longjing Tea and the home of his own family. Although it was misty by this point, it was wonderful to be completely surrounded by tea terraces and to see the workers picking them, wearing those conical hats we see everywhere in China. Each tea bush grows for 100 years, and is cut back every 25 years. After the ladies pick the leaved, the men dry them by hand in large pans which are heated up to as hot as 200 degrees C – and they use their bare hands with only the tealeaves between their skin and the hot pan.
Longjing Tea is a Green tea, and not have a bitter taste nor does it contain caffeine. Leaves are picked once a week, and the best tea is picked in the spring, the autumn picked tea is okay, while the summer picked tea is the lowest quality, and this is the tea which goes into the teabags we buy in supermarkets in the UK. Lipton is one company which uses the lowest quality tea from Longjing. This tea burns in the summer sun and cannot be dried properly – it is also caffeinated, whereas the autumn and spring picked tea leaves are caffeine free.
We went into a room to sit down and taste the tea. We were given a glass of leaves into which some hot water was poured. We learnt a few things about tea drinking customs in China, such as pouring the water from the teapot in 3 large, high pours means “You’re Very Welcome!” and hot tea for guests means they are welcome while cold or iced tea means the guests are not welcome at all.
We tasted the tea which was very nice, and then added orange peel and mulberries which changed the taste completely. We were showed how Green tea can cleanse the stomach by seeing a glass of hot water containing uncooked rice and iodine to show the state of the inside of our stomachs! Eeew! When Green tea leaves were added and the glass swirled, the water was clear!! The same was done with a capsule which also had the same effect. Mathew and I bought a tin between us. We were also shown a spectacular tea which was basically a flower – when you put it in a glass and pour hot water on it, it flowers and looks like a great party piece. And of course – you can drink the water as tea.
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| Longjing Tea |
Next, we went off to the Liuhe Pagoda, one of the oldest preserved wood and brick pagodas in China. We walked up just over 100 steps to the Pagoda, where there was a huge gate in front of it. Here, Aaron asked if anyone would like to climb the Pagoda inside, - a few did including Mathew. I decided not to, as I was put off by Aaron’s description of the steps! Mathew later told me that I would not have liked it inside, as the steps were uneven, half wood, half stone and very steep. Everyone else was asking me why I wasn’t going up so I had to explain about my clumsiness and frequency of falling over which got Jane slightly worried!
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| Liuhe Pagoda |
So Mathew and the others went inside, and I explored the grounds with everyone else who didn’t. Unfortunately we couldn’t go right to the top of the hill and see all the grounds as there was a lot of construction taking place. However, it was nice to explore the bits I did, taking photos of sculptures and pavilions.
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| West Lake |
After the Pagoda, we went for a 40 minute cruise on the West Lake, which I am sure would have been absolutely lovely if it had been sunny and clear, but today it was incredibly foggy and damp, and we really didn’t see much in the way of scenery at all. Most of the talk among the group was about how they could have checked the weather this morning and spent more time at the Temple and cancelled the boat trip. We returned to the hotel and rested for a while before having dinner on the 2nd floor. This time, we were split into two side rooms, but we had no idea why...! We realised here that the Chinese don’t really DO cold drinks. According to Chinese medicine, having an ice-cold drink is never a good thing for your body, it is more of a shock to the system. Most water is rarely refrigerated or contains ice. Hot water however is very good for the body. Not many of the Australians were too impressed by being given a beer which wasn’t icy cold!
In the evening, we went to see a show at the theatre. It was only about an hour but it was absolutely amazing. It was called “The Romance of the Song Dynasty”, and it was a cultural show including dancing, acrobatics, singing, drumming and lots of costumes. The production showed the history of China in the Song Dynasty, and also included a mixture of different minority people in China, what they are known for in history and their traditional dancing and costume style. The stage was used to its maximum potential and beyond, with moving graphics projected behind everyone on the stage, alcoves in the corners which revealed flags, decorations, musicians, dancers and little Buddhas. Red lanterns were lowered from the ceiling, water was used on stage and it even began raining a fine mist on the audience!! Overall it was a pretty fantastic feast for the eyes and ears, very spectacular and it made me finally feel like I was definitely in China!
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| Romance of the Song Dynasty |
Afterwards we walked around the grounds of the theatres which were lined with market stalls selling everything from food to crafts to tourist tat. It was a little like a theme park / fair ground, but it was nice to walk through because it was dark and all the lanterns were lit, giving the whole place an amazing welcoming and cozy glow. I would have liked to have spent just a little more time exploring here, but we had to go back to the coach and back to the hotel.
Tonight we bade farewell to Aaron our local guide in Hangzhou, and tomorrow we would be heading back to Shanghai where we would stay for the next two days in the same hotel as before.
Friday April 8th
This morning, the hotel’s Danish pastries had custard in the middle! Hooray! I also had yoghurt today, which came with a straw to drink! I tried taking a Satsuma and 2 of the small pastries with me for the day, but for some reason I wasn’t allowed today. Yesterday it was no problem, but today I couldn’t take any. I asked why and the woman proceeded to tell me I couldn’t and upon asking why AGAIN, she told me she didn’t actually know why – I just couldn’t. I left the food at the counter and continued up to the hotel room. I didn’t understand! Maybe people can take food except on Fridays? Oh well, they’ll never see me again!
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| Wuzhen Water Village |
On the coach, we travelled 2 hours to a “Water Village” called Wuzhen. Basically a historic and residential village around a central canal and other smaller canals, and it may have even connected to the Grand Canal. It has a lot of history to it, and people who live there still work and make lots of crafts to sell, such as woodcarving, shoe making and cotton dying which we saw all of. The streets were narrow and the buildings mostly wooden and some of brick. There were many many carvings above doorways and in corners – the majority of which was Chinese Pine.
Market stalls were dotted around the village, selling a mixture of crafts made in the village, food and tourist tat, and most of the time, the stalls selling similar items were close together. We walked around with Jane taking us around and translating for us as the actual tour guide couldn’t speak English. There were so many other tour guides there with their own personal microphones and speakers so Jane decided to use the local guide’s equipment, but STILL the other tour guides seemed to boost their speakers and drowned Jane’s voice out completely. In the end, Jane decided to speak very quickly, and when she’d finished she would shout “Let’s go!” before the other groups could catch up with us! During our tour here, we went around a ‘Museum of Beds’ (!) which was a little random but actually quite interesting! We had time to browse a small (probably the main) market where I bargained for a hat and got it for 15 Yuan instead of 20. We had lunch in the village and the food was surprisingly plain and simple, some dishes almost English including beef and potato in gravy, tomato and scrambled egg, a huge joint of pork and some chicken soup.
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| Cotton drying and dying |
We left for another 2 hour journey to Shanghai, where we were staying for the next two nights. For some reason we got onto the subject of food and cooking, and Jane told us about men in the south are known as “soft ears”, and are known to appreciate their wife to the extent that he cooks, cleans, and makes a point of looking after her very well indeed! Jane told us that she was married to a Mongolian man who didn’t do much cooking, but she said she was working on changing him and apparently his ears are beginning to soften!
We had a different room, slightly swankier actually, and it was a ‘No Smoking’ floor, where the carpet was lovely and clean, and we discovered a washing line in the bathroom. If only we could have had it near the window like they do in the apartments here!
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| Huang Po River cruise |
We went out to dinner in a restaurant where we cooked out own ‘Hot-Pot’. A round table as usual, but all the food in the middle was raw. At each seat there was a hotplate with a split pan ready to boil: one side was plain water, the other side had chillies and chilli oil inside. Again, the food was surprisingly simple, and of course I used the plain boiling water side only. It was nice to have some plain food though, with the only dressing being soy sauce. It was quite fun!
Back on the coach, we went to the riverside where we went on an evening cruise on the Huang Po River. It was quite cold on the top deck but it was definitely worth it! It was the only time I wore my woolly hat here in China, and Jane couldn’t believe that most, if not all the Brits had been on the roof for the entire trip!
Saturday April 9th
This morning, the breakfast was very nice. I decided to skip the ‘Danish Pastries’ which had custard AND bacon on them (what?!) and had cereal, 2 croissants and a yoghurt.
First off this morning, we went to Yu Gardens and Bazaar. The Gardens are divided by walls into 6 areas and is a little like a maze – a typical Chinese garden. It has a large rockery – apparently one of the best and largest Ming rockeries. It is said to “recall the peaks, caves and gorges of southern China”.
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| Yu Gardens |
We were allowed some ‘free time’ with which Mathew and I explored the Garden for a few more minutes (as Jane had taken us around already), and then we spent the rest of the time exploring the Bazaar – a close collection of modern shops in old style buildings (the buildings weren’t old, they had just been built in traditional style), and lots of market stalls. There was certainly a range of things to buy, and there was an equal range of quality too! Everything is sold here from snacks to souvenirs, genuine overpriced jewellery and probably some fakes, and I am sure we didn’t manage to explore the Bazaar in its entirety, but it was certainly fun wandering among the stalls.
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| Yu Bazaar |
I bought a Jade necklace – actually I’m not totally sure it’s real Jade or not. The assistant put a flame underneath it and then rubbed it on the glass counter – I’m not sure if it was supposed to scratch it or not....! Well anyway, she told me it was priced at around 850 Yuan, but she asked for 450. I did like it, so I decided to haggle – I suggested 200, she came down to 400. I said 225, she said 350. I said 250, she said 300 and as I was about to walk away, she stopped me and said “Ok, Ok, 250!” SOLD! This was the moment I realised I actually enjoyed haggling much more than I thought I would! I also bought 5 Chinese knot tassels at another stall for 40 Yuan instead of 50, although I wish I’d stuck at 35. Well 40 Yuan is only £4 so that’s not too bad, especially as I saw the same tassels priced at 58 Yuan each further down the street! I also bought a pack of postcards for 15 Yuan instead of 20, but we had been told the packs are actually worth 15 and some try to tell at 20 or 25. And I still have no real idea if my Jade necklace is genuine Jade, but I really like it and I know it is definitely a stone. If it isn’t Jade, it’s probably Agate.
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| Chinese instruments |
We then had an interesting lunch where the desserts came first, followed by Chow Mein and other savoury dishes, then one more dessert. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to eat much Chow Mein as I was the last to get the bowl, and I couldn’t eat the beef dish because it was just gristle and I could hardly make a dent in it. I wasn’t fond of the dumplings or the last dessert either, so I ended up eating much less than usual for lunch. While we ate there were two musicians playing traditional Chinese instruments – a zither (played horizontal) and a lute-like instrument called a pipa.
Everyone gave the ladies toilets here a 5 star rating, for being Western, having paper, being clean and having individual sinks and mirrors, paper to dry your hands, driers to dry your hands AND lids on the bins in the cubicles! Wow!
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| The Bund, Shanghai |
Next, we took a walk along the river promenade by “The Bund”, also known as Zhongshan Dong Yi Road, it was the old heart of colonial Shanghai and most of the old buildings are still in place. After the Bund area, we got back onto the coach and headed to Nanjing Road, which is the main shopping area. We had one hour here and as Mathew and I didn’t really need any retail therapy, we wandered around and then found a park to sit in. There was some sort of show on in the main square of the area promoting tourism, lots of (INCREDIBLY LOUD!!!) singing and dancing.
Eventually we boarded the bus again and headed back to the hotel. We went out in the evening to a Cantonese restaurant and I think it was everyone’s favourite meal so far, and I have to say that I definitely made up for not eating much at lunchtime today!
On the bus back to the hotel after dinner, Jane told us about our flight to Guilin tomorrow afternoon. She told us ‘absolutely NO liquid on the plane!’ and she said to take valuables and jewellery with you in the hand luggage. Do people steal from the suitcases in the airports? Jane also told us that when we go onto the train, people COULD break into our suitcases regardless of locks. Well, I thought that by then I could put my dirty socks in the front pockets, that should deter them! Haha!
Mathew and I also decided to begin taking our anti-malarials tomorrow evening, we thought it was probably best just in case we had any immediate side effects.
Sunday April 10th
This morning, we had a late start – we were departing from the hotel at 10am and we would fly to Guilin in the afternoon. We got up at the usual time of 7am and had breakfast. Mathew hid a Satsuma for me, as although we’d had no problems taking fruit in the morning before, but I guess they could have changed their mind about it like they did in Hangzhou....!
We had already packed our bags the evening before, so we had a little spare time before our departure at 10am. We took a little walk around the block – although it was quite a big block – we were out for about 40 minutes. En route, we passed through a small park where a couple of people were practicing Tai Chi, and there were a LOT of birds – Song Thrushes – in small cages hung in trees. This is known as “Bird-walking”. They were singing very loudly, but I couldn’t help thinking that although I am sure they take good care of their pet birds, it is cruel to keep a WILD bird in such small cages, and hang them in a tree for them to see the huge expanse of space they could be free to fly in, but they’re not. I’m sure they think it’s kind to give the bird fresh air....I just wasn’t expecting to see such tiny cages. I wonder if they’re kept in larger cages when at home, although I doubt it.
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| Streets of China |
Our walk took us around what most would probably consider to be the heart of China – we saw how everyday people live at street level at our own pace, instead of the usual fleeting glance on the coach. We had a closer look at the high rise apartment blocks with the washing hanging outside the windows, and the family / home run businesses and workshops spilling out onto the street with the apartments above, also hanging their washing outside the front windows or even on the streets – these apartments looked slightly more run down....or perhaps they were just very old and not too well maintained externally, I have no idea.
It was a nice walk, if only just to see how everyone lived. Aesthetically, the streets aren’t very attractive – at least to Westerners anyway – but this is how they live. Between the workshops there were random people with tiny tiny stalls or tables awaiting business like cobblers and people with sewing machines offering to mend or alter clothes. The strangest thing we saw was a man out walking with a bird on his shoulder. It was a real black bird just sitting there...I know, I should have stopped him and asked for a photo!
We arrived back at the hotel with 45 minutes still to spare, and when we went down into the lobby everyone was buying a map of China from the “Shopping Arcade” – which was really just one shop selling a random assortment of items, some of which we wondered if they had acquired via lost property...! So I went to buy my China map before they were sold out!
We left for the French Quarter which was very nice, very clean and had a nice Mediterranean feel to it. Strangely, most of the restaurants had Italian / English menus in their windows, so I was wondering if there were any Italian people working there. Anyway, it was in the French Quarter where I bought my first Starbucks drink in China! Hooray! As it was quite warm outside, I decided on a Vanilla Cream. Back on the coach, we headed to the airport to check in. On the way, Jane gave us all a box of 2 muffins and a banana for our lunch.
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| French Quarter |
My Vanilla Cream had filled me right up, so I only had the one muffin. After checking in at the airport and going through security, we waited 30 – 40 minutes before boarding the plane. I had the second muffin and shortly after, we were all given a drink and a small box with a snack inside, consisting of a small tray of cherry tomatoes, and a slice of carrot cake! Yet more cake and it wasn’t even Friday! Yum!
After only 2 hours in the air, we’d had quite a bit of turbulence but we had landed safely in Guilin and our suitcases were just as we had left them. The random in flight entertainment consisted of a cartoon Mr. Bean, Ice Skating from 2 years ago, some odd Wallace and Gromit style animation about a clumsy polar bear, traditional Chinese singing and dancing, and some random thing starring Michael Douglas which I think was an entire movie cut down to fit about 30 minutes. With adverts....!
Back on land, we stepped into immense humidity (WOW!) and we were introduced to our local guide in Guilin, Jessica. She seemed impressed with the Chinese which Jane had taught us! We got onto our new coach and our first impression of Guilin was a very good one, despite the mist. It is very very green, covered in grass, trees, shrubs, rice paddies....we were south of the Yangtze where rice is the main crop (in the north the main crop is wheat). Guilin is very hilly, although when you get to one of these hills close up, they look more like large craggy overgrown rocks – they are known as karsts. Some aren’t so big, others were absolutely HUGE and I also noticed there were some graves on the side of others – the decorations from the Qing Ming Festival the week before were still hanging on and showing off their colour.
The part of the Guilin suburb which we went through towards the centre is currently under much construction – lots and lots of accommodation being built. So far Guilin has 700,000 residents and they aim to have 1 million. The houses in the suburbs seemed to be built right at the base of these huge karsts. The city centre started to look familiar, just like Shanghai with apartment blocks (although not nearly as high), and washing being dried outside the windows. I have to say the apartment blocks seemed to look nicer here, but perhaps they were just newer here than they were in Shanghai?
We checked into our hotel and went straight to dinner on the 2nd floor, and the food was delicious! For the first time, I felt STUFFED. We collected our bags and went to our rooms. Our first reaction was to the dead cockroach in the toilet bowl! Eugh! Fortunately he flushed away easily. Yuk!
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| Cormorants |
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| Cormorant Fishing |
We took our anti malarials and headed out to get onto the coach to see the Cormorant Fishing – I never knew they did this in the city, I always thought it was done quite far out in the countryside, or away from built up areas at least. It was enjoyable to watch but at the same time I couldn’t help wondering if our boat was making too much noise as one of the fishermen didn’t catch any fish at all. What must they think to us watching them go fishing?
Back at the hotel, we packed our rucksacks for our 1 day stay in Yangshuo. Tomorrow we would have a 4 hour river cruise there from Guilin and we hoped the weather would be kind to us!
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