Beijing - Tai'an - Nanjing -Shanghai

Hey All,

For those of you following Jen’s blog I’ll try and talk about other stuff that we did. But sometimes I’ll have to give my version of events…

I picked Jen up from the Beijing International airport, we had a tearful reunion after 3 months apart…Jen was exhausted from the 16hrs of travelling and hadn’t slept for ages so she attempted to sleep off the jet lag. We spent the next couple of days being culture vultures seeing all of Beijing’s main sites: Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, Summer Palace and the Great Wall. We wanted to see the Underground City (Vast network of tunnels and facilities developed by the Chinese during the cold war.) Unfortunately it was not open so we wondered around the Hutong’s (Old narrow streets, too narrow for cars).

Beijing was an awesome city, huge shopping malls, small unique shops and every type of cuisine imaginable. The cuisine really got me going, we attempted to track down the Peking duck restaurant mentioned in lonely planet twice and failed on both occasions. Once we got lost and the second I got tempted by a noodle chain called Ajisen noodles (Outstanding!). Eventually I settled for a duck restaurant next to the hostel as it was raining one evening. I was not disappointed, it was amazing. They brought separate plates containing: the crispy fat, breast meat, leg and underside. In addition a bowl of broth that the duck had initially been boiled in and the carcass that amazingly still had loads of meat on it were presented?!?! I have seen some ducks in China and even the ducks that look exactly the same as England seem to be two or three times the size. The plum sauce, pancakes and other bits were also provided. This meal could have happily satisfied three men. Bo was dining with us (On transit to North Korea.) and Jen doesn’t like duck, so we had a feast. In addition we’d ordered sweet and sour pork, a leg of lamb and a vinegary vegetable thing. The lamb was delicious seasoned with what I think was capsicum but we had ordered way way too much food… The duck was polished off but the lamb had only been dented. This whole meal for three cost us a whole 187 Y = £18 pounds. Considering we could have fed 6 people I thought it amazing value. I also love the fact that throughout China beer at restaurants is super cheap, ranging from 50p-£1.20 for a 660ml bottle. English restaurants take note!

There was a Chinese holiday starting on the 1^st of October so there were no cheap trains to Shanghai until the 2^nd /3^rd. So we got a train Tai’an instead. The main attraction is a sacred mountain. After getting in late at night and having a lie in we arrived at the start of the mountain with every intention of climbing it…Until they were trying to charge 125Y (£12.50) for what looked like quite a mundane trudge up 6000 stairs. We settled for wondering around a local park and taking photos of each other jumping off things. That evening we went to the train station to get tickets to Shanghai, again it was booked so we settled for the old capital of China Nanjing. The queue was humongous; when we got to the front come fat Chinese guy pushed in front of the guy in front of us. Jen lost it she was shouting at him in English, him and buddies seemed to size me up and decided to stay put. (I wonder if I was 6’6 if they would have pushed in…) They ‘honourably’ offered to let us in front of them. Jen tried to tell him to get to the back but he just laughed at her. Jen was fuming. Those guys couldn’t get the tickets they wanted and sulked off looking pissed. Another chap and his gf pushed in front of us just as we got to the front. Jen told this guy to get lost but his gf managed to get her order in. As they left with their tickets the guy with a ridiculous accent (and hair cut) goes “fooook yoouuuu nannnn”, I gave him some back but halfway through insulting his hair realised he wouldn’t have a clue what I was on about. Anyway I advised Jen to in future show some restraint and keep her cool. No evidence of change observed thus far.

Nanjing was a pretty cool city, I’d group it with Beijing with regards to the food options and shopping scene. The tube made transport easy and we were blessed with nice weather. We visited the Memorial Hall of the Nanjing Massacre. In 1937 the Japanese invaded Nanjing and during their occupation slaughtered over 300,000 men, women and children. Raped more than 20,000 women of all ages and destroyed a lot of the city. The museum was seriously unsettling as there were photos of the mass graves, executions and even Japanese newspaper clippings detailing the race between two Japanese soldiers to kill 150 civilians with their samari swords. The most disturbing part for me was the accounts of the Japanese soldiers that had been tracked down for the museum. These very old men admitted to gang rape and murder, all were remorseful but the admission that at the time they justified it because “everyone was doing it” was sickening. Again my lack of world history knowledge was highlighted. An Encyclopaedia of Modern World History is on the Christmas list.

The next day we went to Zijin Mountain. We took the chair lift up and walked down. It was a nice enough view – a bit hazy. We were aiming for this restaurant for lunch but by the time I’d made Jen walk the 5 miles there and gotten lost (Terrible lonely planet map…) it was 7.00 p.m and dinner time.

I am writing this on a high speed train from Nanjing to Shanghai, 200 miles in just over an hour! We are due to stay with my cousin David and his girlfriend Michelle which should be fun. There is a world expo on as well which will be interesting.

…

I am writing this in Hangzhou after spending 6 days with Dave and Michelle. Shanghai was an awesome city, the expat community seemed more centralised than what we experienced in Beijing, but maybe that was because David and Michelle were taking us out…

The city itself was exceptionally easy to travel around and there was lots going on. We visited the Bund twice and ate out a lot in the French Concession part of town. The world expo was pretty interesting, some of the queues were enormous and I think that we would have had to go 5 or 6 times to even put a dent in seeing most of it. The U.K expo was rubbish; it was a large porcupine like structure made of Perspex rods. Inside of all the rods were seeds. This was supposed to represent a seed bank in the U.K. There was also a large space with deck chairs and artificial grass. At the exit tucked out of the way there was one model of a guard from Buckingham Palace. As U.K passport holders we got to jump the queue, this was good because the two hour wait to see it would not have been worth it. Some of the pavilions were interesting, but some were just weird; Spain’s was visually very entertaining, but the last room contained a giant robotic baby. Australia had evidently had no input into theirs as the whole attraction was a circular rotating screen playing an animated film featuring three children. A Chinese child was the main knowledgeable character and they were rabbiting on about planting a seed for the growth of the future. Every now and then the screen would be retracted and a sculpture would be revealed, the Chinese went MAD for this. What interested me most was that there were restaurants attached to most of the pavilions (The U.K did not have one?!) and you could check out the menu’s and have a peek at what everyone was eating…

Michelle took us to a water town an hour’s train journey outside of Shanghai. It was gorgeous and the weather was lovely. We were just unlucky to go during a public holiday which meant it was absolutely packed. Either way it was very picturesque and we got some good photos.

We have come to Hangzhou because there were no tickets to Xi’an from Shanghai for another week. Luckily we have got some for Sunday so we are back on track. Hangzhou itself seems a very pleasant city and I have noticed some very tasty looking restaurants. I am looking forward to getting out of the big cities after Xi’an and back into Sichuan which I became quite familiar with. It will also remove the temptation of the truly delicious bakeries and cafes that seem to populate the east coast cities. In Shanghai we indulged ourselves in some delicious western food for which I feel a little guilty, but some of it was outstanding. Shanghai is a great city and the balance of Western and Chinese culture would enable me to truly enjoy living there. Michelle’s command of Mandarin was really impressive considering how little time she has been learning and convinced me that with a little work it is possible to live and work in any developed city.

It was great to spend time with Dave and to get to know Michelle, they were really great hosts and our Shanghai experience wouldn’t have been as good without them taking us out and sharing their city know how with us.

Will try and start blogging more frequently, we have mastered circumventing the Chinese government when getting on the internet, but my bandwidth is seriously compromised when the latest episode of Eastenders is downloading...

Don’t forget to check out Jens blog for some more photos etc…www.jennalaurenslater.blogspot.com

Love to All

Alex

Rice Wine pots
Water town

Water town

Perspex seed display - U.K pavillion Shanghai world ExpoExpo

View from the Bund

Dave and Michelle taking us on a historical walk around the French Concession
Nanjing East rd -Shanghai
Shanghai
Hazy view from purple mountain
Purple mountain Nanjing

Chillin
Finally found a BK - No XL bacon double cheese though...:(
Lil pretty Jen
Wall
Wall
Tienanmen Square at Dusk
For me this photo epitomises Jens arrival in China
Forbidden City
Jen and I
Forbidden City
Forbidden City