china

tadaima! did ya's miss me? ;) i'm pretty dang tired... just got in from china a little while ago and should probly leave this til tomorrow, but i'm so buzzed about my trip that i just HAVE to write about it now. oh m'god, where do i start??!

shanghai was first stop, so i guess i'll start with the highlights from the fastest developing city in china. totally chaotic. and so exciting! as soon as we stepped off the airport bus outside the train station we were mobbed by throngs of scruffy chinese shouting at us and waving hotel flyers in our faces. they followed us for a while although we tried our best to ignore them. we finally sorted out a taxi to our hostel and found out later that we paid about 4 times the amount it should've cost - NEVER bargain over the price of a taxi ride, we learnt that one fast. our adventures in shanghai included visiting yuyuan, a well-preserved olden-day corner of the city. it's a tad touristy of course, but the buildings are striking, and it's home to the most famous tea house in china (very pretty in the middle of a big pond). the outskirts of yuyuan are home to the city's not so fortunate. we took a turn somewhere and suddenly found ourselves in the backstreets populated by shack-dwellers. the local market was in full swing - fruit and veges laid out amongst building demolition rubble. i could see into some dark huts and there were the people - sleeping, drinking, living their lives among the noise, smells and shambles of these back-alleys. i had never seen anything so raw and so real! of course shanghai also boasts a very shiny modern commercial centre (in which we did spend a fair amount of time!), and an interesting waterfront area called the bund - very grand old european style buildings which looked magical lit up for the night. went out one night to a famous nightspot, but i got assaulted in the unisex bathroom by a very drunk chinese guy who grabbed me and wouldn't let me out the door. a bit scary and disturbing so we left (the place was overpriced anyhow). the hostel bar on the other hand was lots of fun and cheap cheap cheap! :) we also visited zhouzhuang,'the no. 1 water town in china'! it was gorgeous: canals, chinamen steering chinaboat gondolas, quaint old houses and shops, tiny narrow streets... again a bit touristy with loads of souvenir shops (but bargaining is so much fun!). the highlight of my day there came when i was allowed a go at steering our boat! wheee! on our way to this water village we got a chance to see some of the countryside from the van. lots of rice paddys. the farmhouses looked very polish (or at least what i'd imagine polish houses to look like!)... seems to be a lot of european influence in china. i spotted a farmer pull his pants down and squat in the middle of his rice field - ew! anyway... on to beijing!

we caught the overnight train up to the capital - about a 14 hour trip, but no worries in first class!! (first class comes cheap over there). it was strange and exciting to be lying on beds, wrapped up in a white linen world watching the lights outside speeding by. beijing seemed more relaxed than shanghai. the people were a bit more laid back, even the poorest of the poor didn't seem so desperate. hardly anyone begged us for money in beijing although the poverty's just as evident. there's so much to do in beijing, i really love that city and want to go back one day. tiananmen square is HUGE - a great wide expanse of concrete. quite awesome really to stand in the middle of such a wide paved space. and of course the history makes an impact too (the little that i know anyway!). we visited chairman mao in his mausoleum - there he lies in a glass coffin... looks pretty darn good for a guy who's been dead for 30-odd years. past tiananmen square we found the most awesome shopping area - local food stalls and shops mingling with the tourist traps jam-packed along bustling narrow streets. so many amazing smells and so much life! also found a stretch of street vendors selling the scariest selection of food i've ever seen (of which i dared tried the deepfried scorpions: blimin tasty, i'm not kidding, - and snake skin: blimin disgusting). we visited the forbidden city which was quite grand and beautiful but, heaven forbid (he he), far too big and therefore a little boring after about 2 hours...krister (swedish guy we befriended) and i whinged like little kids while tamao dragged us from one building to the next. highlight of my day at the forbidden city came when i found a giant pot that i could climb into and did (apparently designed for sacrificial offerings...human i like to think...). tamao ate 4 icecreams in the space of half an hour - china is hot hot hot! ok, so the most amazing experience of the whole trip was hiking the beautiful, crumbling, awe-inspiring great wall. can tick that one off my list of things to do before i die :). it was completely breath-taking. we did the jinshanling to simitai part (4 hour hike)... least crowded open to the public section and the wall in it's natural state: the whole of one side falling down the mountain in some places, plants growing up through cracks in the bricks, watch towers in ruins and open to the sky. all around us were green mountains, in every direction, as far as you could see. i felt like i was somewhere lost in time - in the middle of nowhere. i didn't want to leave!

phew! this is a very condensed version of my trip... it was just such an amazing experience. but to sum up...

strange things i ate: a whole small bird (budgie-sized, head and all - but i couldn't eat it all), roasted bullfrog (tasted like a cross between chicken and fish and likewise for the texture), a duck's head (don't look too close!), peking duck (not so strange and extremely delish!), the aforementioned scorpions and snakeskin, chicken tongues (actually quite nice but again don't look too close), and cow's stomach (vomit-inducing). they eat anything over there!

china really is a totally different world from japan. the people are brash and loud, they are not fashion-obsessed multitudes. poverty slaps you right in the face almost wherever you go. the things i'll remember most about china are all the strange things you can poke a stick up and eat, the delicious smells everywhere, the poverty, the continuous beeping, the noise, the crazy all over the road drivers and bikes, the in-your-face-people, the WALL, b.y.o toilet paper (and the fact that you're not allowed to flush it - in the bin it goes), and the cool travelling pals we met along the way.

ps. i am never flying northwest airline again. i was treated like a drug smuggler on my way out of japan and on my way back in. i and my luggage was so thoroughly inspected its a wonder they didn't stick a camera up my bum.

photos of course, are all here: http://wedged.showcard.co.nz/gallery/album12