I've been home already for more than 2 weeks. I managed to live through illness (caught some nasty virus/flu), got back to work in a new wonderful office, were thrown right back in to fight with the construction people at my apartment and started a full new season pretty much the same week. So lots has been going on, hence the delay with the summary and final word. Majority of people have also requested a short version and overview of my trip - i'll be preparing that within weeks as well.
Things I will not miss:
- all the ugly snorting noises they make right before spitting, spitting by the way takes place everywhere. there are "no-spitting on the floor" signs up, but then they find bottles or other containers so they will still go through with the whole procedure only it will not land on the floor.
- all the ugly noises they make when eating, they eat with their mouth open and that is not helping with appetite at all
- extremely awful smells all over the place, well mainly on the streets, but also in certain eating areas and other public places. smell would be produced of rotten foods laying around in blazing sun or people using walls instead of toilets or general pollution in all its "wonderful" formats. in short: it is dirty-dirty-dirty there, just filthy :(
- the difference in manners in general, understanding on what is polite and what is not is so very different from Europe/Americas and other places I've been at. I can't see myself getting used to that, I try to understand, but it does not come easily.
- their inability to stand in line. such a common sense thing for the rest of the world, but not for Chinese people - strangest thing :)
Other things that I sorta enjoyed for a short period of time and someday when I get to experience them again I'll get this wonderful feeling of recognition:
- walking in the heat, having very high moisture percentage, there is no breeze and you are soaked from head to toe basically immediately. that was kinda neat :) I've never experienced anything like that before.
- explaining something for another person who does not speak any language that you do, so there is no common language, neither of you understands the other person. but after some mutual drawing, pointing on the map, saying words in English very slowly, looking up some similar phrases in the travel guide and reading facial expressions it all gets magically figured out :) seriously, this was amazing how the understanding always somehow appeared. true, more than once we were actually guided to a wrong direction :) but generally we were able to understand each other somehow, usually it took extremely long time - but it did happen.
- unexpectedness. as the American guy in Shanghai said: everything that can go wrong will go wrong in China in the worst possible way one can imagine. and he was definitely right. it adds this magical not-knowingness, can give you nightmares, but that is part of the thrill.
Now are the things I will miss for sure:
- experiencing rapid growth and change. it was visible everywhere in China and even in Vietnam, but in smaller quantities there. rapid growth in China stuck out most for me in big cities, things happen fast there.
- Hong Kong area. it was great, it was absolutely great. in Hong Kong I had the feeling that this is where everything happens, this is the center of the world and if you are not here you are nowhere at all. it was just so busy and multi-cultural, experiencing the vibes there just blew my mind. I want to return there and be part of it.
- nature of Vietnam: Halong Bay and Sapa were wonderful. I have heard great stories about beaches in Hue and further south - I'm sure I can't even imagine the beauty there.
- I have to say the food :) I liked the kitchen there, even more than in Peru - I think. Food was generally very good, variety was huge and it was mostly good and very enjoyable.
Compared to Peru - China and Vietnam are a lot safer for travellers. Apparently the charges are very harsh and there consequences are bad for your whole family - I got the impression that there is not that much crime around.
Education system seems to be quite a bit different in China (I don't know the story of Vietnam in that matter). Students are taught to remember facts and "think" alike (which means to think like majority does and not think like individuals, or at least it is not suggested to stand out with your own ideas).
Infrastructure was kinda impressive to me in China. For such a huge country it worked without delays or any major hassles, it was organized quite well and seemed to go like clockwork. I hope they get Maglev going longer distances soon enough :)
Allright, that is pretty much it for a short summary. Any questions are more than welcome and will be answered within.. umm.. say a week :)
Showing posts with label china. Show all posts
Showing posts with label china. Show all posts
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Sunday, September 7, 2008
day 22 - general notes vol.3 - cultural differences
All those culture changes are making me dizzy already. We come from China where there is no English spoken at all we enter to Hong Kong that all is English based. Then in Macau there is Portugese and now we are in Vietnam that is totally different. Vietnamese language at least does not have hieroglyphs so we can read the signs. At first glance it seems that locals speak English more freely here than in mainland China.
Besides the language differences there is different money everywhere. Today is Sunday and the banks are closed in the city - so again we were moneyless. Luckily Riina was planning on withdrawing Vietnamese Dong from ATM anyways - at least those are open :) So she took 1,5 million out :D We both got shaky knees when we saw this in numbers :D Another thing is eating utensils - we can't pretty much remember when we last ate with chopsticks, must have been in Shanghai? In Hong Kong we were never given chopsticks, only fork and a spoon. The spoon thing is confusing though, they have done it couple of times - fork and a spoon, but no knife.
And then of course the toilets :) In mainland China there was mostly the modern version of "hole in the ground", which means that the whole in the ground was ceramic and you could pull the water on afterwards, but girls still need to squat. In Hong Kong I did not see a single one of those, there were only normal toilet seats, same in Macau. In Vietnam I see the same half modern "hole in the ground" thingies.
Then there is the thing with electricity and different adapter systems. The adapter I got for China was not the same in Hong Kong, in Vietnam I don't even need an adapter :) Traffic and the streets are chaos in China and even more so in Vietnam. In China it seemed that when the traffic got a red light and we could cross the street they still kept coming :) I figured that perhaps it is the same way as in some parts of US that you are allowed to make a right turn on red by yielding. Ok, that was fine. Now there we dealt mostly with cars which was a bit easier. Here in Vietnam on the other hand we are dealing with the same situation that they just keep going on red light, but the situation is ten times worse since here are mostly rollers - meaning that there are about 50 of them coming towards us at any time, usually at least 8 of them next to each other and they make strange turns every now. As rollers go very fast, it is quite scary to get across the 3 laners here :)
We were so hoping that in Vietnam they don't make those gross snorting noises and don't spit - well, we are out of luck as this is going on everywhere here as well :(
Besides the language differences there is different money everywhere. Today is Sunday and the banks are closed in the city - so again we were moneyless. Luckily Riina was planning on withdrawing Vietnamese Dong from ATM anyways - at least those are open :) So she took 1,5 million out :D We both got shaky knees when we saw this in numbers :D Another thing is eating utensils - we can't pretty much remember when we last ate with chopsticks, must have been in Shanghai? In Hong Kong we were never given chopsticks, only fork and a spoon. The spoon thing is confusing though, they have done it couple of times - fork and a spoon, but no knife.
And then of course the toilets :) In mainland China there was mostly the modern version of "hole in the ground", which means that the whole in the ground was ceramic and you could pull the water on afterwards, but girls still need to squat. In Hong Kong I did not see a single one of those, there were only normal toilet seats, same in Macau. In Vietnam I see the same half modern "hole in the ground" thingies.
Then there is the thing with electricity and different adapter systems. The adapter I got for China was not the same in Hong Kong, in Vietnam I don't even need an adapter :) Traffic and the streets are chaos in China and even more so in Vietnam. In China it seemed that when the traffic got a red light and we could cross the street they still kept coming :) I figured that perhaps it is the same way as in some parts of US that you are allowed to make a right turn on red by yielding. Ok, that was fine. Now there we dealt mostly with cars which was a bit easier. Here in Vietnam on the other hand we are dealing with the same situation that they just keep going on red light, but the situation is ten times worse since here are mostly rollers - meaning that there are about 50 of them coming towards us at any time, usually at least 8 of them next to each other and they make strange turns every now. As rollers go very fast, it is quite scary to get across the 3 laners here :)
We were so hoping that in Vietnam they don't make those gross snorting noises and don't spit - well, we are out of luck as this is going on everywhere here as well :(
day 21 - last night in Hong Kong - 06.09
Our last night in Hong Kong we decided to spend at the airport :) That is right - sleep in the terminal. This for many reasons. For one we had to check in at 7am the next morning, so we would have had to leave the hostel very early in the morning. Second was the budget matter of course. Third we wanted to try it out as on our way back we have to stay at the airport no matter what - my flight gets in at 22:00 and next morning I'll need to be back at 6:am, so no point in travelling 2-3 hrs back and fourth. And fourth - as silly as it sounds we knew we would have free internet the whole night :) Finding internet was getting quite ridiculous and we did not have time to deal with it.
So at 10 we made our way to the airport. And yes we were able to use the free wireless - but but i was not able to recharge my laptop battery as i did not have the correct adapter - grrrr.
Another strange thing was that to get to the airport we just took the airport express metro line which took us straight into the terminal, but all that without any security check!
Staying at the airport worked out surprisingly well - we both got some solid sleep in and were nice and rested, got to check-in in time without any hassle at all.
So at 10 we made our way to the airport. And yes we were able to use the free wireless - but but i was not able to recharge my laptop battery as i did not have the correct adapter - grrrr.
Another strange thing was that to get to the airport we just took the airport express metro line which took us straight into the terminal, but all that without any security check!
Staying at the airport worked out surprisingly well - we both got some solid sleep in and were nice and rested, got to check-in in time without any hassle at all.
day 21 - exploring Hong Kong - 06.09
Day started out with another packing-our-bags action, left the bags at the hostel, checked out and left to have breakfast. We had an interesting breakfast :) Basically we chose one combo that was available and as we saw around us something that the locals had as well. It consisted of 2 pieces of toast and one fried egg with little bit of ham which was ok and normal. Then there was a choice of coffee or tea. I got tea as I don't drink coffee - well the tea was some strange milky-reddish sour yukiness. Oh it was bad. And then the last thing was instant noodles in a bowl with broth and meat - it all created a soup like thingy. That noodle+meat soup seems to be a popular breakfast here. So strange :)
After breakfast we headed to explore the city. First we looked up the avenue of stars where they have hand prints of famous people inserted into the street. Of course those famous people were mostly Chinese names that we had never heard of before, but we had fun reading the strange sounding names (just look at the pictures and you will understand ;) ). The street itself was great of course, it was by water and there was a great view to Hong Kong island. We decided that we will come back here in the evening to look at the city in lights.
From stars avenue we took a ferry across the water to Hong Kong island. Morning was sunny and very hot, but by the time we got to the other side with the ferry (it was about 7-10 minute ride) it was raining :) Great thing was that we were able to walk across town without walking in the rain as all the walkways that are on the second level above the car streets have roofs :) Anyhoo, we made our way to the longest escalator in the world, it took us all the way up from Central to other side of SOHO. Escalator ride was not all in one piece though, there were some small bits every now and then that had to be made on foot. From start to finish the ride took about 20 minutes.
Having gone up by the escalator for 20 minutes we started to make our way down again. Tried to get to some churches, but they were closed. At some point we found ourselves in a park with crocodiles :) Came out that we had unknowingly entered into the zoological and botanical gardens of Hong Kong. It was this huge open park with animals and reptiles in natural environment (or course caged off) and also all kinds of plants and a green house and many fountains and play grounds and all that for free - whatta nice place this city is.
In the travel guide there is a suggestion to go and view the city from a bank tower's 43rd floor so we figure to do that. First we could not find the correct building, after some asking around we found the correct one and helped ourselves up to the 43th floor as said in the guide. Well the whole floor was empty, there were nice and big windows though so we just enjoyed the view as we were suppose to. The floor was all quiet and for a while we just stared out of the windows - view was great. It was so pretty there though - there were huuuge windows, then the ceiling and one big pillar was made of a mirror :D Riina could not get enough of standing in front of the mirror covered pillar as it made one look so skinny. So we started to take pictures. Uh oh :) We were just having fun clicking away. At some point I got an idea that we can just set a timer for the camera and set it to the floor and then look up to the ceiling and it would take a picture of us - they I would not have the camera in front of my face. Ok so we set the timer and set the camera on the floor, giggling like mad, and then stared at the ceiling our noses together. As we stared I got a feeling that somebody was looking at us, but I did not want to turn my head away as this would have ruined the picture. So there we stand with Riina staring at the window and all I can think about is that there is probably a security guard staring at us, ready to kick us out :) And I was totally right, as soon as the picture was taken we turned our heads and indeed it was a security guard staring at us :D Oh we escaped from there as fast as we could :) Oh we were laughing so hard for quite a while, we must have looked like the biggest weirdos staring at the ceiling noses together :D
Making our way closer to the water again we tried to go and see few art exhibitions at the art center. This turned out to be a failure - for the whole 14 floors we found only 2 small exhibitions :( We spent about an hour chilling in a park reading, then headed to the subway to find the night market. Got out of the subway station at the correct location and figured to make a little detour into a park. Only way we could find to get in there were some narrow stairs and lots of them, so up we go. Once we get to the top there is nothing more there than a sports field :( And on the map it looked like a nice big park. Allright, so we decide to get back down from the other side, only to find one angry guard there telling us to go back the same way we came. We were stuck :( At the end we ended up making a huuge circle to get to the night market. Night market was not all the way open yet and at that time was quite boring :(
While resting on the top of the hill we climbed I also tried my phones GPS receiver and different applications. Nutiteq did not work at all - didn't even get GPS location for me. Google maps got the location, but as there was no internet connection then I did not get a map. Built in Nokia maps worked like a charm (I had downloaded the maps previously - or Mart downloaded them for me).
Evening was spent at the stars avenue drinking hot chocolate, looking at the lit up city panorama and talking life philosophy with Riina :D This was good times :D
I just realized that half of my vacation is over :(
After breakfast we headed to explore the city. First we looked up the avenue of stars where they have hand prints of famous people inserted into the street. Of course those famous people were mostly Chinese names that we had never heard of before, but we had fun reading the strange sounding names (just look at the pictures and you will understand ;) ). The street itself was great of course, it was by water and there was a great view to Hong Kong island. We decided that we will come back here in the evening to look at the city in lights.
From stars avenue we took a ferry across the water to Hong Kong island. Morning was sunny and very hot, but by the time we got to the other side with the ferry (it was about 7-10 minute ride) it was raining :) Great thing was that we were able to walk across town without walking in the rain as all the walkways that are on the second level above the car streets have roofs :) Anyhoo, we made our way to the longest escalator in the world, it took us all the way up from Central to other side of SOHO. Escalator ride was not all in one piece though, there were some small bits every now and then that had to be made on foot. From start to finish the ride took about 20 minutes.
Having gone up by the escalator for 20 minutes we started to make our way down again. Tried to get to some churches, but they were closed. At some point we found ourselves in a park with crocodiles :) Came out that we had unknowingly entered into the zoological and botanical gardens of Hong Kong. It was this huge open park with animals and reptiles in natural environment (or course caged off) and also all kinds of plants and a green house and many fountains and play grounds and all that for free - whatta nice place this city is.
In the travel guide there is a suggestion to go and view the city from a bank tower's 43rd floor so we figure to do that. First we could not find the correct building, after some asking around we found the correct one and helped ourselves up to the 43th floor as said in the guide. Well the whole floor was empty, there were nice and big windows though so we just enjoyed the view as we were suppose to. The floor was all quiet and for a while we just stared out of the windows - view was great. It was so pretty there though - there were huuuge windows, then the ceiling and one big pillar was made of a mirror :D Riina could not get enough of standing in front of the mirror covered pillar as it made one look so skinny. So we started to take pictures. Uh oh :) We were just having fun clicking away. At some point I got an idea that we can just set a timer for the camera and set it to the floor and then look up to the ceiling and it would take a picture of us - they I would not have the camera in front of my face. Ok so we set the timer and set the camera on the floor, giggling like mad, and then stared at the ceiling our noses together. As we stared I got a feeling that somebody was looking at us, but I did not want to turn my head away as this would have ruined the picture. So there we stand with Riina staring at the window and all I can think about is that there is probably a security guard staring at us, ready to kick us out :) And I was totally right, as soon as the picture was taken we turned our heads and indeed it was a security guard staring at us :D Oh we escaped from there as fast as we could :) Oh we were laughing so hard for quite a while, we must have looked like the biggest weirdos staring at the ceiling noses together :D
Making our way closer to the water again we tried to go and see few art exhibitions at the art center. This turned out to be a failure - for the whole 14 floors we found only 2 small exhibitions :( We spent about an hour chilling in a park reading, then headed to the subway to find the night market. Got out of the subway station at the correct location and figured to make a little detour into a park. Only way we could find to get in there were some narrow stairs and lots of them, so up we go. Once we get to the top there is nothing more there than a sports field :( And on the map it looked like a nice big park. Allright, so we decide to get back down from the other side, only to find one angry guard there telling us to go back the same way we came. We were stuck :( At the end we ended up making a huuge circle to get to the night market. Night market was not all the way open yet and at that time was quite boring :(
While resting on the top of the hill we climbed I also tried my phones GPS receiver and different applications. Nutiteq did not work at all - didn't even get GPS location for me. Google maps got the location, but as there was no internet connection then I did not get a map. Built in Nokia maps worked like a charm (I had downloaded the maps previously - or Mart downloaded them for me).
Evening was spent at the stars avenue drinking hot chocolate, looking at the lit up city panorama and talking life philosophy with Riina :D This was good times :D
I just realized that half of my vacation is over :(
Saturday, September 6, 2008
day 21 - future plans
Just a quick note about our future plans. Quick because I'm not able to recharge my laptop here :( (so ironic, for once we have free wifi and now i don't have the correct adapter - grrr)
Anyhoo, tomorrow morning (on the 7th of September) we have a flight from Hong Kong to Hanoi at 9:00 with Cathay Pacific Airways Limited (i don't know the flight number by heart). We will arrive to Hanoi at 10:00 local time.
Once in Hanoi we will get an overnight train to north, to a place called Sapa. So next entry will be in about 2 days (48h) from Vietnam - this is if there is internet at all :)
This is just heads up so that there are no worries :)
Take care and lots of hugs!
Anyhoo, tomorrow morning (on the 7th of September) we have a flight from Hong Kong to Hanoi at 9:00 with Cathay Pacific Airways Limited (i don't know the flight number by heart). We will arrive to Hanoi at 10:00 local time.
Once in Hanoi we will get an overnight train to north, to a place called Sapa. So next entry will be in about 2 days (48h) from Vietnam - this is if there is internet at all :)
This is just heads up so that there are no worries :)
Take care and lots of hugs!
day 20 - general notes about Hong Kong vol. 2
One of the first things we noticed when arriving to Hong Kong was that we were not being stared at any longer! What a wonderful feeling. Hong Kong is full of all kinds of people - real mecca of cultures. Here are surprisingly lot of black people, I've seen lots of Arabic and Indian people, lots of Europeans and Chinese - so the whole world is here :) and I can't even say that there is any one of them dominating.
People are overly helpful here. On a first day we had just purchased our map and I knew the street we were on but I did not know the direction we were suppose to go to (and the first 3 street corners did not help us either) so we just stood there for a little bit with the map open while all the busy people were trying to get around and past us (and there was no place to stop as the whole city seems to be too crowded for stopping on the street :) ) and one guy just stops as well and asks if he could help us with something perhaps. So nice :) It happened again and again that they approach you on their own (speaking English!) even before you realize that you should maybe ask somebody - wonderful :) gives you this warm feeling like being looked after (by strangers) :D
Another thing is this whole taking in line business - Chinese don't know how to do that :) There are special people in train stations and ticket offices who coordinate people and organize them into neat queues when waiting for something. Strange isn't it. And when there is no coordinating person then we'd take into line after the last person while next thing we know is that one local comes and just walks by to the very front of the line and just starts standing there with the very first person. So after a while there are many of them up front there and they generate a pile of people. We saw it quite often and we just looked in disbelief.
I don't understand what is the thing with intenet here? We are having the hardest time finding internet cafes and getting access - hence the long break in postings :( Finding internet access is getting more and more difficult as we move on. It is probably even harder in Vietnam.
People are overly helpful here. On a first day we had just purchased our map and I knew the street we were on but I did not know the direction we were suppose to go to (and the first 3 street corners did not help us either) so we just stood there for a little bit with the map open while all the busy people were trying to get around and past us (and there was no place to stop as the whole city seems to be too crowded for stopping on the street :) ) and one guy just stops as well and asks if he could help us with something perhaps. So nice :) It happened again and again that they approach you on their own (speaking English!) even before you realize that you should maybe ask somebody - wonderful :) gives you this warm feeling like being looked after (by strangers) :D
Another thing is this whole taking in line business - Chinese don't know how to do that :) There are special people in train stations and ticket offices who coordinate people and organize them into neat queues when waiting for something. Strange isn't it. And when there is no coordinating person then we'd take into line after the last person while next thing we know is that one local comes and just walks by to the very front of the line and just starts standing there with the very first person. So after a while there are many of them up front there and they generate a pile of people. We saw it quite often and we just looked in disbelief.
I don't understand what is the thing with intenet here? We are having the hardest time finding internet cafes and getting access - hence the long break in postings :( Finding internet access is getting more and more difficult as we move on. It is probably even harder in Vietnam.
day 20 - Macau - 05.09
Macau is another Special Administrative Region in China which grants quite high degree of autonomy in all matters except defence and foreign affairs as travel guide writes. It is about 1h boat ride from Hong Kong across the bay. Going there from Hong Kong is like going to Helsinki from Tallinn. You just go the chosen port (there are couple of them that have ferry transport to Macau), buy a ticket, go through the customs (basically cross the border to leave Hong Kong and enter Macau) and board the ferry. Very simple and convenient.
Official languages are Cantonese and Portugese, so all the street signs are written in both. Portugese traders had settled here already on 16th century. Macau itself is a peninsula off of mainland China and there are 482 000 people. I'm not able to read out the size of the peninsula, but it can't be very big as I walked from the port to the other side of the peninsula in about an hour and 15 minutes or so - so it could be max 6km by 10km perhaps (I walked the shorter side).
Closer to the port so south side of the peninsula is full of casinos - it is the Vegas of Asia as they say. Center or the old town is just like a Mediterranean city. Quite an interesting mix I'd say - there is Las Vegas and 20 minutes later you find old Spanish style houses, catholic churches, narrow and wonderful streets covered with colorful tiny tiles :D Everything is possible on this side of the globe I say :)
I visited couple of churches and Cathedral of Macau, climbed the ruins of St. Paul church, claimed to Fort Monte and took a cable car to the highest point on the peninsula called Guia which was a fort and it also had a light house. I have noticed that cable cars are very popular here and I'm starting to like those little moving cabinets hanging on the ropes :)
I also walked on the very same road where Formula 1 Grand Prix takes place in November! I believe that this November I'll be watching some Formula 1 racing :D
And the traffic is backwards here as well, just like in Hong Kong.
All in all Macau was great. At the fort of Guia I met one elderly couple who were so friendly and took a picture of me. It is always nice to talk with other travellers just to see where they come from and what they are up to :) Well this couple had moved to Thailand 2 years ago, the guy was on pension and he was born in Germany, but had lived in US for more than 30 years. He's partner was born in Thailand and had been in US for 27 years. They sold all their belongings in US, bought some land in Thailand and moved there :) Whatta nice change :D
Official languages are Cantonese and Portugese, so all the street signs are written in both. Portugese traders had settled here already on 16th century. Macau itself is a peninsula off of mainland China and there are 482 000 people. I'm not able to read out the size of the peninsula, but it can't be very big as I walked from the port to the other side of the peninsula in about an hour and 15 minutes or so - so it could be max 6km by 10km perhaps (I walked the shorter side).
Closer to the port so south side of the peninsula is full of casinos - it is the Vegas of Asia as they say. Center or the old town is just like a Mediterranean city. Quite an interesting mix I'd say - there is Las Vegas and 20 minutes later you find old Spanish style houses, catholic churches, narrow and wonderful streets covered with colorful tiny tiles :D Everything is possible on this side of the globe I say :)
I visited couple of churches and Cathedral of Macau, climbed the ruins of St. Paul church, claimed to Fort Monte and took a cable car to the highest point on the peninsula called Guia which was a fort and it also had a light house. I have noticed that cable cars are very popular here and I'm starting to like those little moving cabinets hanging on the ropes :)
I also walked on the very same road where Formula 1 Grand Prix takes place in November! I believe that this November I'll be watching some Formula 1 racing :D
And the traffic is backwards here as well, just like in Hong Kong.
All in all Macau was great. At the fort of Guia I met one elderly couple who were so friendly and took a picture of me. It is always nice to talk with other travellers just to see where they come from and what they are up to :) Well this couple had moved to Thailand 2 years ago, the guy was on pension and he was born in Germany, but had lived in US for more than 30 years. He's partner was born in Thailand and had been in US for 27 years. They sold all their belongings in US, bought some land in Thailand and moved there :) Whatta nice change :D
day 19 - Hong Kong - 04.09
Finding the correct station and line to go to from Shenzhen was quite a bit of a hassle. We walked back and forth about 20 minutes trying to figure it out of how can we cross the border and take a train and exchange money. Finally found some people who were able to help. Meanwhile we had our worst meal yet - the food was just bad as were the drinks and the dishes were so dirty that they served the food in and so on and so on - it was just very bad. This was before the crossed the border so were were glad to get to the other side.
Crossing the border was a long process as usual, one side checks you off and the other one checks you back in. Meanwhile there was lots of walking as we figured to cross it on foot and then take a metro line to the city. Metro was a breeze - so very easy. Next step was to find a hostel to stay at. The buildings (and by now I can say the whole city) is a multi level maze. For an example the hostel we are staying at has an address Nathan road 32-50 or something. Which basically means that there is one single entrance and all the firms or hostels are simply located around the building on different floors and corners. Our hostel is on 3 different floors I think and not covering the whole floor. So once you get to the correct floor then you still need to go and look for the correct area :) Sooo confusing at first. The city itself reminds a bit of the same situation - being laid out on many different levels of walkways, car roads and shopping malls with their tunnels.
Here are huuge cockroaches :( I guess everybody knows how I have long fingers, well the roaches are about the size of my thumb and they have long long legs so they move super fast. Oh those are disgusting. I hope there are none in our room (correction after 12 hours - cockroaches have been spotted in our room, but those are the small sized ones luckily).
The biggest part of the morning we were trying to arrange plane tickets for us to go to Vietnam. For this we had to navigate ourselves to the airport which was not really complicate but quite expensive. Subway system is very convenient like in most places, convenient and easy to understand. The only question we got was about switching stations as in Beijing you could buy one ticket and travel between any line without getting a new one, but in Shanghai you have to go out of the station and get another ticket for the transfer line and then come back down again - very ridiculous. In Hong Kong you can buy one ticket for most of the trains - just airport line has a separate and very expensive ticket. Anyhoo, but after finding the right counters and getting the offers from 2 airlines which were at a different sides of the airport (and this place is huuuge you know) and after double checking the offers from internet once more and calculating our possibilities about 10 times over we got our tickets to Hanoi - weheee!!! Our possibilities included flying out of Guangzhou which would have been 35% cheaper, but would have meant taking a 2h train there and flying to Hanoi in the afternoon so we would not have caught our train to Sapa the same evening - that would have been too much effort and extra cost to us so we decided to fly out of Hong Kong to make it easier. Originally we were gonna fly out on the 8th, but later we changed the date to 7th.
After running around at the airport for ever and ever and navigating there and back for ever and ever we made it to Victoria Peak. That was awesome! Well to tell the whole story we got a combo ticket including tram ride there and back + viewing platform + Madame Toussaud's museum.
Victoria Peak is 552m up on the hillside and they have pretty neat old looking trams taking people up there which are going up in a very steep hillsides at times and best of all - they stop at the very steepest places :) so you sit there trying not to fall of your seat :D Tram ride was definitely nice experience - me liked it a lot :) Going down was same - only backwards, so you actually went back first :)
Ok, but on the top there is quite a big building with all sorts of shops and restaurants and museums. We had to take about 10 escalators to get to the viewing platform - they should think about extending the tram tracks :) So the viewing platform - wept us off the feet. It was fabulous, the whole town was like on a plate, all the extremely tall buildings were silently standing in front of us - and there were so many of them. This view was best of all, beats Shanghai and New York and anything else I've seen before. Although in New York there is no such place to look where the whole town is visible as far as I know. So yes, view was magnificent with the buildings and mountains on the background and the boats and water and ports and oh uh, it was soo great.
Last we wondered to the wax museum. I've never been to one before and there were 3 floors of wax people - celebrities, politicians, athletes, rock stars and actors. There were quite many unknown Asian ones, but being in Hong Kong this is understandable I guess. After the museum we headed back down by the tram again - backwards :D
Evening was time to exchange our money (basically get rid of Chinese one), check into our hotel and get a good dinner in.
Oh and the traffic is backwards here - like in England.
Oh and you probably noticed that the days in my headings have been redone - it was a bit incorrect at first, but now it is all fixed and neat :)
Crossing the border was a long process as usual, one side checks you off and the other one checks you back in. Meanwhile there was lots of walking as we figured to cross it on foot and then take a metro line to the city. Metro was a breeze - so very easy. Next step was to find a hostel to stay at. The buildings (and by now I can say the whole city) is a multi level maze. For an example the hostel we are staying at has an address Nathan road 32-50 or something. Which basically means that there is one single entrance and all the firms or hostels are simply located around the building on different floors and corners. Our hostel is on 3 different floors I think and not covering the whole floor. So once you get to the correct floor then you still need to go and look for the correct area :) Sooo confusing at first. The city itself reminds a bit of the same situation - being laid out on many different levels of walkways, car roads and shopping malls with their tunnels.
Here are huuge cockroaches :( I guess everybody knows how I have long fingers, well the roaches are about the size of my thumb and they have long long legs so they move super fast. Oh those are disgusting. I hope there are none in our room (correction after 12 hours - cockroaches have been spotted in our room, but those are the small sized ones luckily).
The biggest part of the morning we were trying to arrange plane tickets for us to go to Vietnam. For this we had to navigate ourselves to the airport which was not really complicate but quite expensive. Subway system is very convenient like in most places, convenient and easy to understand. The only question we got was about switching stations as in Beijing you could buy one ticket and travel between any line without getting a new one, but in Shanghai you have to go out of the station and get another ticket for the transfer line and then come back down again - very ridiculous. In Hong Kong you can buy one ticket for most of the trains - just airport line has a separate and very expensive ticket. Anyhoo, but after finding the right counters and getting the offers from 2 airlines which were at a different sides of the airport (and this place is huuuge you know) and after double checking the offers from internet once more and calculating our possibilities about 10 times over we got our tickets to Hanoi - weheee!!! Our possibilities included flying out of Guangzhou which would have been 35% cheaper, but would have meant taking a 2h train there and flying to Hanoi in the afternoon so we would not have caught our train to Sapa the same evening - that would have been too much effort and extra cost to us so we decided to fly out of Hong Kong to make it easier. Originally we were gonna fly out on the 8th, but later we changed the date to 7th.
After running around at the airport for ever and ever and navigating there and back for ever and ever we made it to Victoria Peak. That was awesome! Well to tell the whole story we got a combo ticket including tram ride there and back + viewing platform + Madame Toussaud's museum.
Victoria Peak is 552m up on the hillside and they have pretty neat old looking trams taking people up there which are going up in a very steep hillsides at times and best of all - they stop at the very steepest places :) so you sit there trying not to fall of your seat :D Tram ride was definitely nice experience - me liked it a lot :) Going down was same - only backwards, so you actually went back first :)
Ok, but on the top there is quite a big building with all sorts of shops and restaurants and museums. We had to take about 10 escalators to get to the viewing platform - they should think about extending the tram tracks :) So the viewing platform - wept us off the feet. It was fabulous, the whole town was like on a plate, all the extremely tall buildings were silently standing in front of us - and there were so many of them. This view was best of all, beats Shanghai and New York and anything else I've seen before. Although in New York there is no such place to look where the whole town is visible as far as I know. So yes, view was magnificent with the buildings and mountains on the background and the boats and water and ports and oh uh, it was soo great.
Last we wondered to the wax museum. I've never been to one before and there were 3 floors of wax people - celebrities, politicians, athletes, rock stars and actors. There were quite many unknown Asian ones, but being in Hong Kong this is understandable I guess. After the museum we headed back down by the tram again - backwards :D
Evening was time to exchange our money (basically get rid of Chinese one), check into our hotel and get a good dinner in.
Oh and the traffic is backwards here - like in England.
Oh and you probably noticed that the days in my headings have been redone - it was a bit incorrect at first, but now it is all fixed and neat :)
day 18 - Last night in China - 03.09
At the bus transfer van we met one German guy who works in Xiamen. He was going to get his new visa from Guangzhou so was going to the bus station as well. He was very talkative and we had quite entertaining hour with him :) He was so vividly explaining his experiences with this snorting and spitting here - that more than once it has happened so that there is this horrible noise coming from behind him when he is walking on the street and he just growls at the thought of a person who would do such a thing, when he looks over his shoulder to take a look at the monster who can make such noises he would find some tiny lady on high heels walking behind him :) But the way he was describing the situation was hilarious, i laughed so hard that i got tears in my eyes :)
I did not even catch the German guy's name, but we got some interesting discussions in about the ways that locals socialize and spend their free time, of how the holidays are handled here and what they consider entertaining. We also talked about the health care system and education system here - it was good information. And oh the guy was cheerful, most of the time we were laughing so hard that we got tears in our eyes. So that dude was very lively and positive, he has worked here for a year and a half already and was having conversations with the locals quite freely already in Chinese. He also gave us some good hints about arriving to Shenzhen and crossing the border as well as getting to Hong Kong from there. Very useful bits and pieces of information.
All of the sudden we came to a realization with Riina that this is the last night for us in China! We will be crossing the border and leaving China in the morning and later we will take a plane directly from Hong Kong to Vietnam. There will be different money even in Hong Kong and we realized it just at the bus station that we hadn't exchanged any Hong Kong dollars! Uh oh, we will figure it out somehow.
Last night ended up being a bumpy ride :) Seriously it seemed like the bus driver was driving on the side of the road (so on the field) or something. I had hard time sleeping in a bed that was rocking and jumping that heavily. So I did not get any sleep :( We arrived to Shenzhen 2,5 hours in advance.
I did not even catch the German guy's name, but we got some interesting discussions in about the ways that locals socialize and spend their free time, of how the holidays are handled here and what they consider entertaining. We also talked about the health care system and education system here - it was good information. And oh the guy was cheerful, most of the time we were laughing so hard that we got tears in our eyes. So that dude was very lively and positive, he has worked here for a year and a half already and was having conversations with the locals quite freely already in Chinese. He also gave us some good hints about arriving to Shenzhen and crossing the border as well as getting to Hong Kong from there. Very useful bits and pieces of information.
All of the sudden we came to a realization with Riina that this is the last night for us in China! We will be crossing the border and leaving China in the morning and later we will take a plane directly from Hong Kong to Vietnam. There will be different money even in Hong Kong and we realized it just at the bus station that we hadn't exchanged any Hong Kong dollars! Uh oh, we will figure it out somehow.
Last night ended up being a bumpy ride :) Seriously it seemed like the bus driver was driving on the side of the road (so on the field) or something. I had hard time sleeping in a bed that was rocking and jumping that heavily. So I did not get any sleep :( We arrived to Shenzhen 2,5 hours in advance.
Sidenote
The days count was incorrect and I have fixed it now. Also I will be posting quite many entries in one go in a second as there is finally internet connection :) Happy reading!
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
day 18 - Gulang Yu - 03.09
Got up at 9, showered and packed our bags again. This constant packing is becoming a routine already. Now i don't even need to look into every plastic bag when i need something - i know exactly where it is, i just reach and pull it out :) nice and handy.
Then we spend about 1,5 hours on the net - me sorting out yesterdays broken photos upload (i did not get it fixed) and Riina looking for flights from Hong Kong to Hanoi (Vietnam). Apparently the best for us would be to get the plane tickets from Hong Kong, apparently it is as easy as walking up to the ticket counter and just buying them like one bus ticket to Keila or something :) I guess we will see tomorrow :D
And about the pictures - i need better internet connection for this. i was so excited when i heard that there is free wireless at this hostel, but i was not expecting it to be so dead slow. grrr. hopefully we will have better luck in Hong Kong.
So today we made our way to the island by Xiamen called Gulang Yu. It had nice old town feeling to it. We wondered around the narrow and windy old streets, visited local Aquarium and then made our way to Sunlight Rock and the parks around it. We got to take the cable car again :) Got to climb whole lotta stairs again :D (those were Riinas favorite) and of course enjoyed wonderful views to the island and to the coast from the top of the rock. We spent our good 5 hours on the island. And once more we realized - life is beautiful!
On our way to the port we found one great food place on the street. Street food is great in many ways. First it is right there, you don't need to go in anywhere, it is just right there, you walk along and wham there is food in front of you. S4econd it is delicious. Third it is quick. Fourth you don't need to guess, you just look and point. Fifth it is very cheap. Sixth you can go and eat it anywhere. We had street food for our late breakfast and also got one on our way back as well. Wonderful.
Our bus to Shenzhen leaves in about 2,5 hours, there is a ticket office close by where we got our tickets and they will also provide transportation for us to the bus station - so convenient. From Shenzhen we will cross the border and take an express train to Hong Kong. Hong Kong is one of the 5 special administrative regions so we will be leaving China and entering to Hong Kong area.
Then we spend about 1,5 hours on the net - me sorting out yesterdays broken photos upload (i did not get it fixed) and Riina looking for flights from Hong Kong to Hanoi (Vietnam). Apparently the best for us would be to get the plane tickets from Hong Kong, apparently it is as easy as walking up to the ticket counter and just buying them like one bus ticket to Keila or something :) I guess we will see tomorrow :D
And about the pictures - i need better internet connection for this. i was so excited when i heard that there is free wireless at this hostel, but i was not expecting it to be so dead slow. grrr. hopefully we will have better luck in Hong Kong.
So today we made our way to the island by Xiamen called Gulang Yu. It had nice old town feeling to it. We wondered around the narrow and windy old streets, visited local Aquarium and then made our way to Sunlight Rock and the parks around it. We got to take the cable car again :) Got to climb whole lotta stairs again :D (those were Riinas favorite) and of course enjoyed wonderful views to the island and to the coast from the top of the rock. We spent our good 5 hours on the island. And once more we realized - life is beautiful!
On our way to the port we found one great food place on the street. Street food is great in many ways. First it is right there, you don't need to go in anywhere, it is just right there, you walk along and wham there is food in front of you. S4econd it is delicious. Third it is quick. Fourth you don't need to guess, you just look and point. Fifth it is very cheap. Sixth you can go and eat it anywhere. We had street food for our late breakfast and also got one on our way back as well. Wonderful.
Our bus to Shenzhen leaves in about 2,5 hours, there is a ticket office close by where we got our tickets and they will also provide transportation for us to the bus station - so convenient. From Shenzhen we will cross the border and take an express train to Hong Kong. Hong Kong is one of the 5 special administrative regions so we will be leaving China and entering to Hong Kong area.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
day 17 - Xiamen - 02.09
We arrived to Xiamen at 1:45 in the morning by bus. As usual we were surrounded by very agressive taxi drivers and other sales people who were overly eager to take us to a hotel. It is not a good idea to arrive to a new location in the dark and at night (so basically anytime between 22:30 and 07:00) as there is no transportation other than taxis and nobody to ask for directions. We tried to avoid it this time as well, but there was no later bus than that - so nothing we could do. Already expecting such behaviour we already new what we needed to do - just keep saying no and move to any direction as fast as possible.
After a few blocks of walking we realized that we are not anywhere close to the city center as we thought we should have been - location of the bus station was known to us. Finally we still ended up taking a taxi to center of the town. No idea where we were dropped of by the bus then :) In the city center we could not locate any hostel at all, seemed like we were at a overly crowded shopping district. After some pondering and looking through our options we took another taxi to the closest youth hostel that we found from the travel guide. Arrived there at around 3:15 :D and after going through our options once more got two beds in a dormitory room again.
Oh the sleep was sweet after 2 nights in moving locations (train and bus). I opened my eyes first time at 1:30 in the afternoon :) and oh the joy of showering, yummmm! Felt like a human being again after good nights sleep and long shower. Then to town. Arranged ourselves bus tickets for tomorrow late night to Shenzhen, leaving on 3rd of September at 22:40, it will be 10 hour bus drive. Next had "breakfast" at some local eating place at 3:15 in the afternoon :D Rest of the day walked around in Xiamen, sat in a park and simply looked around the town. Bought some more snacks, this time dried pineapple, dried plums, some sort of candy and - tadaaaa - bottle of local wine :D
During our late late breakfast we also put together our initial plan for our travels in Vietnam. We are trying to get a flight from Hong Kong (or somewhere close by) to Hanoi in the morning of 8th of September and then train from Hanoi in the evening to the northern border. More specifically later on when we have the tickets.
After a few blocks of walking we realized that we are not anywhere close to the city center as we thought we should have been - location of the bus station was known to us. Finally we still ended up taking a taxi to center of the town. No idea where we were dropped of by the bus then :) In the city center we could not locate any hostel at all, seemed like we were at a overly crowded shopping district. After some pondering and looking through our options we took another taxi to the closest youth hostel that we found from the travel guide. Arrived there at around 3:15 :D and after going through our options once more got two beds in a dormitory room again.
Oh the sleep was sweet after 2 nights in moving locations (train and bus). I opened my eyes first time at 1:30 in the afternoon :) and oh the joy of showering, yummmm! Felt like a human being again after good nights sleep and long shower. Then to town. Arranged ourselves bus tickets for tomorrow late night to Shenzhen, leaving on 3rd of September at 22:40, it will be 10 hour bus drive. Next had "breakfast" at some local eating place at 3:15 in the afternoon :D Rest of the day walked around in Xiamen, sat in a park and simply looked around the town. Bought some more snacks, this time dried pineapple, dried plums, some sort of candy and - tadaaaa - bottle of local wine :D
During our late late breakfast we also put together our initial plan for our travels in Vietnam. We are trying to get a flight from Hong Kong (or somewhere close by) to Hanoi in the morning of 8th of September and then train from Hanoi in the evening to the northern border. More specifically later on when we have the tickets.
day 16 - Wengzhou - 01.09
Train ride to Wengzhou was fine. I got to sleep surprisingly well - Riina was not so lucky unfortunately. This time we had soft sleeper which meant we had soft seats which you could recline a bit. Hard seat is the one we took to Tai'an apparently - this is where we sat on a hard wooden bench squeezed in with all the locals next to us and people standing in the aisle. The train where we had beds - this was apparently hard sleeper - soft sleeper being more luxurious with separate cabinets having 4 beds on 2 levels not 6 beds on 3 levels like the hard sleeper had.
Train arrived to Wengzhou around 7 in the morning. Got directions for the bus station, arranged a bus to Xiamen the same evening, leaving at 18:30. It will be around 8h bus ride. Left our luggage to the bus station. Also got directions on how to get to town and then back again (asked them to write the bus station name in chinese just in case as there are multiple stations here). While walking away from the station there was a group of locals who tried to get into Riinas back bag :( They managed to open the bag up but then Riina noticed them. I have secured my back bags zippers so that it is not possible to simply open them - you'd have to unclip them first, so i'd hear the clip being opened and after unclipping you still have to untangle the zipper strings to unzip the bag - pretty secure system :) . Later a local girl warned us about burglers in the bus and train station as well.
Getting to the town was a hassle as first we took a bus to a wrong direction :) It was quite difficult to get people to help us find directions once we got off the bus as first of all they were quite unwilling to help and also because they did not speak english at all. Finally one half local helped us who spoke quite good english and double checked the directions with his friend by phone. Getting to town was almost 2,5h adventure for us :D
About the town - well we walked around in a blazing sun - it was so hot hot hot, quite unmanageable. At the local pedestrian walk the only eating place we found was Pizza Hut :) so we had a very nice breakfast, consisting of hot chocolate and pepperoni pizza for me :D Pizza Hut is considerably more expensive than any local food place though. Later we walked around in town - what can I say, of all those places we have been so far, i'd say this was a totally pointless place :) To kill time we were trying to find an internet place, but the street did not have enough houses on it so we gave up and spend our afternoon at a local park bench napping and reading amongst the locals who were mostly napping :D Those benches were in shade as well so it worked out quite well - nice and relaxing.
Made our way back to the bus station and had dinner. Dinner ended up being a disaster - they wrote down our orded totally wrong, this seemed impossible though as i was mostly pointing at pictures when ordering. It was amazingly difficult to make them understand that this is not what we ordered and we will not be eating it - please bring us other food. After looots of explaining with pen and paper and pointing at pictures and showing with our hands we ended up what we ordered and got some money back for thing we did not order but they wrote down for us. Uh oh.
Later cleaned up a bit, changed clothes and then it was time to board the bus already. To our surprize the bus was equipped with beds :D :D Riina was on the lower bunk and i was above her on the upper one. There were local movies playing the whole night. Right above my head were the speakers, luckily only the first movies sound was crancked up, later the sound was turned down so it did not disturb my sleep. Another thing was the air conditioning - it blew absolutely freezing air to my feet and face :( Luckily the blanket provided was very thick so my feet were fine, for my head i ended up wrapping a blanked pilfered from finnair flight around my head and throat so that only my noze got air :D worked like a charm for cold air and for the noise as well. Got my beautisleep in without any major problems.
Train arrived to Wengzhou around 7 in the morning. Got directions for the bus station, arranged a bus to Xiamen the same evening, leaving at 18:30. It will be around 8h bus ride. Left our luggage to the bus station. Also got directions on how to get to town and then back again (asked them to write the bus station name in chinese just in case as there are multiple stations here). While walking away from the station there was a group of locals who tried to get into Riinas back bag :( They managed to open the bag up but then Riina noticed them. I have secured my back bags zippers so that it is not possible to simply open them - you'd have to unclip them first, so i'd hear the clip being opened and after unclipping you still have to untangle the zipper strings to unzip the bag - pretty secure system :) . Later a local girl warned us about burglers in the bus and train station as well.
Getting to the town was a hassle as first we took a bus to a wrong direction :) It was quite difficult to get people to help us find directions once we got off the bus as first of all they were quite unwilling to help and also because they did not speak english at all. Finally one half local helped us who spoke quite good english and double checked the directions with his friend by phone. Getting to town was almost 2,5h adventure for us :D
About the town - well we walked around in a blazing sun - it was so hot hot hot, quite unmanageable. At the local pedestrian walk the only eating place we found was Pizza Hut :) so we had a very nice breakfast, consisting of hot chocolate and pepperoni pizza for me :D Pizza Hut is considerably more expensive than any local food place though. Later we walked around in town - what can I say, of all those places we have been so far, i'd say this was a totally pointless place :) To kill time we were trying to find an internet place, but the street did not have enough houses on it so we gave up and spend our afternoon at a local park bench napping and reading amongst the locals who were mostly napping :D Those benches were in shade as well so it worked out quite well - nice and relaxing.
Made our way back to the bus station and had dinner. Dinner ended up being a disaster - they wrote down our orded totally wrong, this seemed impossible though as i was mostly pointing at pictures when ordering. It was amazingly difficult to make them understand that this is not what we ordered and we will not be eating it - please bring us other food. After looots of explaining with pen and paper and pointing at pictures and showing with our hands we ended up what we ordered and got some money back for thing we did not order but they wrote down for us. Uh oh.
Later cleaned up a bit, changed clothes and then it was time to board the bus already. To our surprize the bus was equipped with beds :D :D Riina was on the lower bunk and i was above her on the upper one. There were local movies playing the whole night. Right above my head were the speakers, luckily only the first movies sound was crancked up, later the sound was turned down so it did not disturb my sleep. Another thing was the air conditioning - it blew absolutely freezing air to my feet and face :( Luckily the blanket provided was very thick so my feet were fine, for my head i ended up wrapping a blanked pilfered from finnair flight around my head and throat so that only my noze got air :D worked like a charm for cold air and for the noise as well. Got my beautisleep in without any major problems.
Sunday, August 31, 2008
day 15 - Hangzhou - 31.08
Since at the hostel there is hot water only till 10am, I got up at 9 to take a shower (I was prepared even for lines at the shower room :)). First 5 minutes of the shower there was only hot water and from then on there was only cold water :) And all this you get used to as long as you can take your shower since you never know when/if/how and where you are able to shower next.
This morning when we woke up there was an unpleasant surprise - it was pouring outside :( Nevertheless we decided to go walking by the lake. We wrapped ourselves into waterproof clothes, packed, checked out of the hostel and headed out leaving bags to the hostel. There are 36 lakes in China that are named West Lake - the one in Hangzhou is the most famous one of them. We were pretty good at ignoring the rain as it was all worth it. The lake was beautiful. It is possible to take a walk around the lake and there are nice parks and walkways by the shore, walkways are very clean and windy, edged by weeping willows - just like in a fairytale picture book.
There are 3 islands on the lake. We took a boat to two of them, one smaller and the other bigger - the biggest of the 3. The biggest one has little water eyes inside it and during full moon it gets wonderful reflections on the water. During that night the locals come to the island and decorate it with candles - that must be worthy sight. From the biggest island we were taken back by the boat to the other side of the lake and from there we walked down to the hostel side again by special walkway. By that time the rain had stopped as well.
We had a wonderful dinner at the same restaurant where we ate last night as food there was delicious, it was Muslim restaurant. At first when we got to China we were wondering of how they manage to order so much food that their whole table is covered with plates - now we are mastering that already quite well. Of course the fact that all dishes are brought to the table at once and nothing is cleaned off before the people leave the table helps us a bit as well :)
After dinner we took one more walk on the wonderful crafts street. This time we shopped mostly for local sweets and candy. Now we are back at the hostel where we collected our bags. Loaded up some more photos and sat in a free wireless for 1,5 hours :) No idea when will the next opportunity come to visit the worldwideweb :) But now - to the train station, our train to Wenzhou leaves in 2,5 hours.
All the best to all of you!!!
This morning when we woke up there was an unpleasant surprise - it was pouring outside :( Nevertheless we decided to go walking by the lake. We wrapped ourselves into waterproof clothes, packed, checked out of the hostel and headed out leaving bags to the hostel. There are 36 lakes in China that are named West Lake - the one in Hangzhou is the most famous one of them. We were pretty good at ignoring the rain as it was all worth it. The lake was beautiful. It is possible to take a walk around the lake and there are nice parks and walkways by the shore, walkways are very clean and windy, edged by weeping willows - just like in a fairytale picture book.
There are 3 islands on the lake. We took a boat to two of them, one smaller and the other bigger - the biggest of the 3. The biggest one has little water eyes inside it and during full moon it gets wonderful reflections on the water. During that night the locals come to the island and decorate it with candles - that must be worthy sight. From the biggest island we were taken back by the boat to the other side of the lake and from there we walked down to the hostel side again by special walkway. By that time the rain had stopped as well.
We had a wonderful dinner at the same restaurant where we ate last night as food there was delicious, it was Muslim restaurant. At first when we got to China we were wondering of how they manage to order so much food that their whole table is covered with plates - now we are mastering that already quite well. Of course the fact that all dishes are brought to the table at once and nothing is cleaned off before the people leave the table helps us a bit as well :)
After dinner we took one more walk on the wonderful crafts street. This time we shopped mostly for local sweets and candy. Now we are back at the hostel where we collected our bags. Loaded up some more photos and sat in a free wireless for 1,5 hours :) No idea when will the next opportunity come to visit the worldwideweb :) But now - to the train station, our train to Wenzhou leaves in 2,5 hours.
All the best to all of you!!!
Saturday, August 30, 2008
day 14 - welcome Hangzhou - 30.08
Our packing, breakfast and check-out in Shanghai went as planned. Train ride to Hangzhou was about 1,5 hours and the train was quite fancy, even much nicer than the one we took from Beijing to Qingdao. Once we arrived in Hangzhou the first thing we tried to arrange was train tickets to Xiamen via Wenzhou. Well we got the tickets to Wenzhou just fine (leaving tomorrow, Sunday, evening at 21:41 and ride is about 8 hours), but from there on we were out of luck. Apparently there is no train traffic from Wenzhou to Xiamen. This is quite hard to believe as there are trains going everywhere :) Well, but it has to be possible to get from there to Xiamen somehow. We also tried to find out about the travels to Xiamen in advance from Hangzhou - just to be sure that we won't be stuck there, but nobody was able to help. They could not even make a phone call for us to see how could we possibly get to Xiamen from our next destination. Oh well - we will see once we are there, what is the worst that can happen :D ?!
So but Hangzhou seems very nice at the first glance. We arrived at the local youth hostel and found this place to be packed, ended up getting 2 beds in a dormitory room again - this time we were squeezed into a room with 2 old guys :( But since this is a budget place and we need to sleep here only 1 night we figured that we will just try to manage somehow. Then took a wonderful walk in the town, found a crafts and gifts street and went crazy with shopping :-P There were so many so nice things that we could not resist. I tried to remind myself once in a while that i need to carry all this stuff on my back for the next month - it helped a bit :)
Now we are back at the hostel, and guess what :) :) we got free wireless here!!!! Now we can do all our CS'ing and looking up hostels and review travel options and get a flight to Vietnam and all this - weheee!
Tomorrow we are planning on walking around by the lake, perhaps go to some parks and find other sightseeing places here in town. Then probably a nice dinner and then to the train station.
Time is absolutely flying by - tomorrow it will be 2 weeks from our departure from Tallinn.
So but Hangzhou seems very nice at the first glance. We arrived at the local youth hostel and found this place to be packed, ended up getting 2 beds in a dormitory room again - this time we were squeezed into a room with 2 old guys :( But since this is a budget place and we need to sleep here only 1 night we figured that we will just try to manage somehow. Then took a wonderful walk in the town, found a crafts and gifts street and went crazy with shopping :-P There were so many so nice things that we could not resist. I tried to remind myself once in a while that i need to carry all this stuff on my back for the next month - it helped a bit :)
Now we are back at the hostel, and guess what :) :) we got free wireless here!!!! Now we can do all our CS'ing and looking up hostels and review travel options and get a flight to Vietnam and all this - weheee!
Tomorrow we are planning on walking around by the lake, perhaps go to some parks and find other sightseeing places here in town. Then probably a nice dinner and then to the train station.
Time is absolutely flying by - tomorrow it will be 2 weeks from our departure from Tallinn.
Friday, August 29, 2008
day 13 - saying goodbyes to Shanghai - 29.08
waaa - i don't wanna leave :) Shanghai is wonderful, it is beautiful and it is convenient and it is exciting and it is pretty and did i say it is wonderful? We went to Cloud 9 this evening (just got back from there) in Jinmao Tower - WOOOOW. This lounge was on the 87th floor, had to take 3 different elevators to get there :) The very last floor, 88th is a viewing platform, but the access there is very expensive, so we just ordered a drink at the lounge for that money. It was amazing, all those other really tall and big buildings were like matchboxes looking from the tower. We got great table with a view to the Bund - amazing. Had 2 very tasty cocktails up there and just enjoyed the view - made us both speechless.
On our way back we had a last look at the city panorama and we said our goodbyes. Tomorrow morning we pack, eat a nice breakfast and then to the train station. We were joking with Riina, that once we start walking around in the city without a map it is time to leave as we have gotten too familiar with the city already. It has happened to Shanghai today :D
Shanghai was fabulous.
On our way back we had a last look at the city panorama and we said our goodbyes. Tomorrow morning we pack, eat a nice breakfast and then to the train station. We were joking with Riina, that once we start walking around in the city without a map it is time to leave as we have gotten too familiar with the city already. It has happened to Shanghai today :D
Shanghai was fabulous.
day 13 - last day in Shanghai - 29.08
Last night we met with another person from CS, local girl Ping. She took us out to eat to the promised Italian restaurant - food was delicious and this place even had desert! We got some cakes :) It was great. We also got whole lot of new information about Chinese culture and ways. She talked quite openly about marriage and family planning for an example as well and Chinese spirituality and connection to religion. Meeting locals adds so much more value to the trip - thank you CS :)
This morning our first trip was to the train station - we bought our train tickets to Hangzhou, train leaves tomorrow at 1pm. Most likely we will spend 1,5 days there. By the tourist guide this is suppose to be the most beautiful city in China - we'll see, famous attraction in town being the legendary West Lake. Population of the town (or rather city) is marked 6.16 million, most likely this number would vary by +1/2 million. Population of Shanghai is marked as 15 million and local girl thought it is more like 19 million in reality - sounds reasonable.
During lunch time we wondered around by the skyscrapers across from the river, by Jinmao Tower and other tall buildings like the funny TV tower with round red bubbles. Later in the evening when it gets darker, we will try to visit Cloud 9 bar that is located on the 87th floor of Jinmao Tower. This is the tallest building in China - 420.5m :)
We also stopped by at China Sex Culture Museum, it ended up being just one exhibition by the tourist tunnel. Now we are hiding from pouring rain in Starbucks Coffee place on the wrong side of the river :) I guess no Bund walk for us today as it is totally pouring outside. Too bad there is no internet, then we would have something to do at least while just sitting around in here. There is suppose to be internet in every Starbucks Coffee but in reality it is not so, even the people who work here were helpless in this regard. So we were taking thousand and one pictures of the rain through the window :)
Later we ran over to the shopping mall across the road in hope for internet there. Shopping mall is 9 stories of shops and each level is probably as big as whole Kaubamaja :D And guess what - there is no internet in the whole area, crazy huh :) Oh and on our way to the shopping mall we got soaked of course. Later we made our way to the hostel, got changed, went out for a small portion of the Bund walk and then headed over to the small streets in search of fried dumplings. After about 30 minutes of searching we found one place - oh boy were those good! This dinner was under 15 EEK for us :) and we were so full afterwards that we could barely walk.
This morning our first trip was to the train station - we bought our train tickets to Hangzhou, train leaves tomorrow at 1pm. Most likely we will spend 1,5 days there. By the tourist guide this is suppose to be the most beautiful city in China - we'll see, famous attraction in town being the legendary West Lake. Population of the town (or rather city) is marked 6.16 million, most likely this number would vary by +1/2 million. Population of Shanghai is marked as 15 million and local girl thought it is more like 19 million in reality - sounds reasonable.
During lunch time we wondered around by the skyscrapers across from the river, by Jinmao Tower and other tall buildings like the funny TV tower with round red bubbles. Later in the evening when it gets darker, we will try to visit Cloud 9 bar that is located on the 87th floor of Jinmao Tower. This is the tallest building in China - 420.5m :)
We also stopped by at China Sex Culture Museum, it ended up being just one exhibition by the tourist tunnel. Now we are hiding from pouring rain in Starbucks Coffee place on the wrong side of the river :) I guess no Bund walk for us today as it is totally pouring outside. Too bad there is no internet, then we would have something to do at least while just sitting around in here. There is suppose to be internet in every Starbucks Coffee but in reality it is not so, even the people who work here were helpless in this regard. So we were taking thousand and one pictures of the rain through the window :)
Later we ran over to the shopping mall across the road in hope for internet there. Shopping mall is 9 stories of shops and each level is probably as big as whole Kaubamaja :D And guess what - there is no internet in the whole area, crazy huh :) Oh and on our way to the shopping mall we got soaked of course. Later we made our way to the hostel, got changed, went out for a small portion of the Bund walk and then headed over to the small streets in search of fried dumplings. After about 30 minutes of searching we found one place - oh boy were those good! This dinner was under 15 EEK for us :) and we were so full afterwards that we could barely walk.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
day 12 - general notes about china vol.1
I already mentioned that there are TV's in public transportation here - this is so convenient. Think about going to work in the morning and watching the morning news while sitting in traffic :) perfect huh :)
Wanted to talk about Chinese language as well. It was Kenny who explained it to us of how it works, he has studied it intensively for 2 months and speaks it to some level now. So first there are the chinese characters, each character can be translated to latin syllables - this is how we can understand and comprehend the language. Then there are 4 tones for speaking each syllable which means that each syllable can be said in 4 ways and each way you say has a different meaning :) Fun huh :)
There are wonderful snacks available here. First great snack we found was dried kiwi fruit. It is peeled and nicely sliced up, each slice is dried and packaged on its own in a little bag, yummi stuff. Then we found dried bananas - nothing special, just like we have it at home. Next we found some interesting orange round things. We opened the package up and at some, they were sugary and chewy, tasted very good - but we have no idea what it is :) We are guessing this is dried sweetened carrot, but this is just a guess. Then last night walking to the store we were caught by one guy who was selling nut cake :) It was about 20cm in height and perhaps a bit under 1m each side forming this huge cake type thing. We got a little slice of it, which ended up being quite pricey as the price came with weight. Anyhoo, but the cake consisted of chopped up nuts and something sweet and sticky, maybe condensed milk or something like that. The whole thing formed quite a solid mass, perhaps there are also some fruits or something else mixed in there - no idea, it tastes wonderful though.
About crime - as Kenny told us, it is quite safe in China. Penalties for small theft are very harsh and the prisons are probably worst in the world so there is not much crime around - just as Mart guessed.
When i asked about the movie theaters and how popular they are, then the local girl looked at me kinda funny and said that it is so much easier to grab a pirated copy from the street :) So that is what we did this evening - grabbed to movies from the street sellers, in English of course, total 16CNY. Movie tickets are between 30 and 80CNY depending on a movie :)
Wanted to talk about Chinese language as well. It was Kenny who explained it to us of how it works, he has studied it intensively for 2 months and speaks it to some level now. So first there are the chinese characters, each character can be translated to latin syllables - this is how we can understand and comprehend the language. Then there are 4 tones for speaking each syllable which means that each syllable can be said in 4 ways and each way you say has a different meaning :) Fun huh :)
There are wonderful snacks available here. First great snack we found was dried kiwi fruit. It is peeled and nicely sliced up, each slice is dried and packaged on its own in a little bag, yummi stuff. Then we found dried bananas - nothing special, just like we have it at home. Next we found some interesting orange round things. We opened the package up and at some, they were sugary and chewy, tasted very good - but we have no idea what it is :) We are guessing this is dried sweetened carrot, but this is just a guess. Then last night walking to the store we were caught by one guy who was selling nut cake :) It was about 20cm in height and perhaps a bit under 1m each side forming this huge cake type thing. We got a little slice of it, which ended up being quite pricey as the price came with weight. Anyhoo, but the cake consisted of chopped up nuts and something sweet and sticky, maybe condensed milk or something like that. The whole thing formed quite a solid mass, perhaps there are also some fruits or something else mixed in there - no idea, it tastes wonderful though.
About crime - as Kenny told us, it is quite safe in China. Penalties for small theft are very harsh and the prisons are probably worst in the world so there is not much crime around - just as Mart guessed.
When i asked about the movie theaters and how popular they are, then the local girl looked at me kinda funny and said that it is so much easier to grab a pirated copy from the street :) So that is what we did this evening - grabbed to movies from the street sellers, in English of course, total 16CNY. Movie tickets are between 30 and 80CNY depending on a movie :)
day 12 - Shanghai zoo - 28.08
In the morning we accidentally slept till 10:30, well actually we just decided that we won't set an alarm since there are 4 other people in the room and most likely we won't be able to get much sleep anyways. Well, we slept like babies :D Shower - noodle soup for breakfast and then to the zoo. For this we walked to the Peoples Square and looked for our bus stop - that took us ages. Peoples Square is this huuuge park and there must be at least 10 bus stop areas here, from each bus stop there are about 10 buses leaving. Finally we found the correct one. Bus ride to the zoo was 40 minutes as it is quite a bit off the center.
Zoo was nice, nothing too special but nice anyways. For better overview check the photos.
Now I understand why Kenny told us yesterday that there is nothing touristy to see in Shanghai - because all there is is mediocre and elsewhere it is much better and nicer. But oh well - we are fine with mediocre sights as well, it is still Shanghai :) And to say the least - Shanghai is great :) It is definitely the highlight of our travels so far. It has great architecture and skyscrapers, it has nice parks, it is cleaner than the other cities we have seen so far in China, it has more this big city feeling than Beijing, people speak a bit of English even so the communication is a bit better and so on and so on :D Me likes it here :D It was told us that Shanghai is only good for 3 things - shopping, eating in nice restaurants and partying. Last night we were at a foreign like restaurant and we both had a burger, this evening we should be taken to Italian restaurant Chinese way. Lets see what this will be like.
Future plans - leave to Hangzhou sometime on Saturday, will get train tickets tomorrow so will let you know then.
Zoo was nice, nothing too special but nice anyways. For better overview check the photos.
Now I understand why Kenny told us yesterday that there is nothing touristy to see in Shanghai - because all there is is mediocre and elsewhere it is much better and nicer. But oh well - we are fine with mediocre sights as well, it is still Shanghai :) And to say the least - Shanghai is great :) It is definitely the highlight of our travels so far. It has great architecture and skyscrapers, it has nice parks, it is cleaner than the other cities we have seen so far in China, it has more this big city feeling than Beijing, people speak a bit of English even so the communication is a bit better and so on and so on :D Me likes it here :D It was told us that Shanghai is only good for 3 things - shopping, eating in nice restaurants and partying. Last night we were at a foreign like restaurant and we both had a burger, this evening we should be taken to Italian restaurant Chinese way. Lets see what this will be like.
Future plans - leave to Hangzhou sometime on Saturday, will get train tickets tomorrow so will let you know then.
day 11 - Shanghai Museum and Maglev ride - 27.08
First touristy thing we figured to explore was Shanghai Museum. It gave an overview of the Chinese culture by displaying ancient art forms of pottery, sculpture, metal works, furniture, lettter seals, coins, paintings and calligraphy. Museum was located at a nice central location so all good - got some nice walk in as well.
Second attraction of the day was Maglev ride :D OhoOOOO that was COOL!!! We happened to get there at the time when it was going on maximum speed of 430-431 km/h :D Yeah, we got a round ticket so we got to do it twice! It was wonderful. Things were going by so quickly that it was like fast forwarding life :D
Finally we are seeing some Starbucks coffees around here and I checked with my phone for wifi - it was there :D YAY since the internet at the hostel is very expensive. Hostel is otherwise nice, we booked 2 beds in a 7 person room. All seems clean and fine so far. Showers and toilets are at the other end of the hallway and there is even a possibility to do laundry - which we are using already :D Tomorrow we will have some clean shirts!
For dinner we met up with Kenny from CS. He is living in Shanghai for another 3 weeks because of work, he has been here for 5 months already. It is always so fascinating to hear things from locals - or at least from people who have lived here for a while. I could have easily carried on our discussion for hours and hours, but it was getting late and we have had a long day today so it was time to get back. We did enjoy a short walk by the river and watched the lit up skyscrapers from both sides of the river - so nice, big cities are incredible. Kenny was telling us of how they turn off the lights around 11 at night in order to save energy as there are huge energy shortages in Shanghai, but apparently the ordered commercials must still stay as those have been paid for. He also gave us great hints on what to see and how to get the most out of Shanghai, also some tips on travelling.
We will stay in Shanghai at least till Saturday evening if not till Sunday evening. We have been pondering about how to make it to Hong Kong - the cheapest is to take a train, but train ride is 25 hours :(( I don't think I'm able to take that. At the hostel, in our room, one of the girls is from Hong Kong so she was gladly giving out information about getting there. Tomorrow we are meeting with a local girl for dinner, also from CS, so hopefully we will get more ideas on how to move on to Hong Kong from here. Will see, maybe there is a way to break the 25h trip to smaller chunks - if not, then gotta survive the 25h train ride somehow.
Tomorrow we are planning on going to Shanghai Zoo. Now I need to go and get the laundry and then to bed :)
Second attraction of the day was Maglev ride :D OhoOOOO that was COOL!!! We happened to get there at the time when it was going on maximum speed of 430-431 km/h :D Yeah, we got a round ticket so we got to do it twice! It was wonderful. Things were going by so quickly that it was like fast forwarding life :D
Finally we are seeing some Starbucks coffees around here and I checked with my phone for wifi - it was there :D YAY since the internet at the hostel is very expensive. Hostel is otherwise nice, we booked 2 beds in a 7 person room. All seems clean and fine so far. Showers and toilets are at the other end of the hallway and there is even a possibility to do laundry - which we are using already :D Tomorrow we will have some clean shirts!
For dinner we met up with Kenny from CS. He is living in Shanghai for another 3 weeks because of work, he has been here for 5 months already. It is always so fascinating to hear things from locals - or at least from people who have lived here for a while. I could have easily carried on our discussion for hours and hours, but it was getting late and we have had a long day today so it was time to get back. We did enjoy a short walk by the river and watched the lit up skyscrapers from both sides of the river - so nice, big cities are incredible. Kenny was telling us of how they turn off the lights around 11 at night in order to save energy as there are huge energy shortages in Shanghai, but apparently the ordered commercials must still stay as those have been paid for. He also gave us great hints on what to see and how to get the most out of Shanghai, also some tips on travelling.
We will stay in Shanghai at least till Saturday evening if not till Sunday evening. We have been pondering about how to make it to Hong Kong - the cheapest is to take a train, but train ride is 25 hours :(( I don't think I'm able to take that. At the hostel, in our room, one of the girls is from Hong Kong so she was gladly giving out information about getting there. Tomorrow we are meeting with a local girl for dinner, also from CS, so hopefully we will get more ideas on how to move on to Hong Kong from here. Will see, maybe there is a way to break the 25h trip to smaller chunks - if not, then gotta survive the 25h train ride somehow.
Tomorrow we are planning on going to Shanghai Zoo. Now I need to go and get the laundry and then to bed :)
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