Three days and counting...

I apologise that I am posting this out of order (we just arrived today at Guangzhou however we haven't yet posted the last entry for Xiamen), but I just need to have a quick rant about why we are both so looking forward to leaving China. 

Today the inhabitants of this city reminded Michael and I that even though we are so close to the border, we are still well and truly in China.

We attempted to spend a quiet day getting our bearings, replenishing supplies and seeing a movie at the local cinemas. However the locals managed to make even those tasks a frustrating experience.

For example, I was waiting in a line consisting of three people to buy my shampoo, conditioner and razors. There was a lady in front of me making a purchase, myself and then another lady behind me. When the first lady had finished and moved to walk away, I moved forward. However, the b**ch behind me tried to sneak in front to get to the counter first!

I was like, are you serious?? You can't wait another 20 seconds for me to buy 3 items? It's not like I have a full trolley or anything! Usually I would just stare in amazement, however, learning from Michael's actions in Shanghai, I made an "oh no you don't" noise (I would have actually said "oh no you don't" except I didn't know how to in Chinese), shouldered her out of the way and made sure that I got my things to the counter before her. 

This method of finding a foreigner and cutting in front of them seems to be a perfectly acceptable way of getting ahead in a line, which we also witnessed happening to fellow foreigners at Hangzhou Airport.

Then we went to see the movie, Clash of the Titans. Even though there was only about 8 other people in the cinema, we had to endure 90 minutes of people talking, mobiles ringing and one especially annoying women who kept kicking the back of Michael's chair. It completely ruined the movie for us, although the bad script and poor acting were doing a pretty good job by themselves.

While there are certain places in China that I have recommended in the blog, as a complete package I would definitely not recommend China as a holiday destination. The only reason that I am glad that we came to China is that it makes me appreciate the fact that I do not have to live here! I can honestly say that the best part of this leg of the trip will probably be leaving. In fact, Michael and I have both agreed that we will not be returning to China unless our jobs requires us to do so.

We have definitely seen some amazing things, but I don't think that they are so amazing that they outweigh having to live with this level of rudeness. I would much rather go and see similarly spectacular things within an environment where I would be treated with the same level of respect as I show other people. 

Apologies for the rant, because you might be one of those people who agree with the Lonely Planet's view that this is just "part of the fun". However, if this is your idea of fun then I would suggest that you should either stop smoking illicit substances or go and see a therapist.

Hangzhou - Even us backpackers need a bit of a relaxing holiday

Those of you back home doing the day to day grind, you are probably going to want to ring my neck when I say this, but even backpackers sometimes feel like a little bit of rest and relaxation. Before you throw your hands up in disgust and stop reading this article, let me explain.

Although Jenni and I are not experiencing the day to day stress of work that we used to experience back home in Perth, we are instead now under a different kind of day to day stress due to the challenges that we face each day while travelling in a foreign country. Making sure that we have a place to sleep each night, trying to find accomodation that is in an easy to access area, trying to figure out how to get from city to city, figuring out where to go to buy tickets for transportation, making sure we don't miss our transportation, trying to find our accomodation once getting there and most importantly, making sure that we have a clean pair of underpants to wear the next day can really burn you out. Even finding somewhere to eat for lunch can be stressful as we need to walk around the streets looking for somewhere that is reasonably priced, having either an English menu or at least pictures of the dishes so we can point to them to order and is clean enough looking inside so that we can eat food that will not get us sick.

Our toughest tasks are always trying to get to some of the more out of the way places which we travel to on our day trips. Planning to go on one of these usually involves a good couple of hours scouring through travel guides and internet pages to gather the most clear set of directions on how to get there. Once we set off there are always further complications along the way, like the directions not being particularly clear on where to go to get a connecting bus or train and signing on bus stands and ticket booths not being written with English characters so we have no idea where to go. Even once we finally figure out how to get there, the stress doesn't completely go away as we are always conscious that we need to be able to get back to our accomodation for the night and need to make sure that we don't miss the last trains or buses because if we did, we would find ourselves stranded a very long way away from our beds.

When we read about Hangzhou's tranquil west lake area, we decided that even though there wasn't many big sights, we would allow ourselves a good amount of time there to just unwind and forget about the whole backpacking thing for a couple of days.

Our hostel was located right next the the south side of the lake. We made quite an entrance the night that we arrived. Our train arrived rather late to the city and as we were about to alight from the bus that dropped us off near our hostel in the dark, the heavens opened. We got soaked to the bone in a matter of minutes before we managed to get our wet weather gear on over ourselves as well as our packs. Fortunately we didn't need to keep it on for too long as the directions given to us by the hostel were excellent and we managed to find it in a matter of minutes. The front door of the hostel was stuck and Jenni had to give it a mighty heave to make it crash open. We clambered in completely soaked with the thunder and lightning from outside announcing our entrance. 

Fortunately the weather cleared up the next day and we were treated to fantastic clear weather for the rest of our stay. We spent most of our days in Hangzhou wandering around the lake. It is rather contrasting in comparison to the busy and grubby Chinese cities we have been visiting over the past few weeks. Along the lake there are beautiful clean walkways through sculpted gardens with little bridges connecting the land on each side of little ponds. Many times we found ourselves being greeted by whole classes of little school kids out for excursions around the lake, all jumping at the opportunity to practice their English by crying out in unison "hello"! Each day we would make a regular stop at the local French bakery for a coffee and cake while spending an hour or two reading our books on the couches in the upstairs seating area.

On the day before we left, we decided to stop being lazy and actually take a hike around the whole lake. It is about 15km around the perimeter. On the east side of the lake we were entertained by the local squirrels running around in the trees. We extended our hike to go through the hills on the north side of the lake to give us fantastic views of the entire lake and city on the other side of the hills. Along the hike we ventured through a set of boulders which some local mad man were using as a rock climbing playground. The guys were obviously very experienced as they quite easily scaled the vertical walls of the rocks, showing off by leaping from one ledge to the other and hanging on by only the fingertips of a single hand, but it was one of the most dangerous things we have ever seen. They didn't use any safety gear or harnesses at all and were at times hanging over high ledges with over 15m drops right over rocks. One mistake and they would have found themselves plummeting to their deaths. Other highlights included sunrise point (a lookout at the very peak of the hills that is the best vantage point to see the sun rise) and the northern hills pagoda. After finishing our hike through the northern hills, we stopped off for some lunch where we tried 'beggar's chicken', a dish that was recommended to us by another traveller, before heading back along the lake during twilight to get some snapshots of the southern pagoda which was illuminated by lights on the way back to our hostel.

Our last day in Hangzhou was short as we had to get to the airport to catch a flight to Xiamen. Our taxi driver arrived with ample time to get us there, but was determined to drive like he was competing in the World Rally Championship. The guy was an absolute lunatic, weaving in and out of cars at 110km an hour, overtaking cars in the emergency stopping lane and at one stage, slamming on the brakes to avoid crashing into the car in front, resulting in the wheels of our van locking up and us fish-tailing down the highway before he managed to get it back under control. By the time we reached the airport our legs were like jelly and we were grateful that we managed to get there alive. The only damaged caused by the taxi driver from hell was to the front leg of my jeans, due to a massive pee stain :)

Jenni and I are sad to leave Hangzhou as we have enjoyed this place more than any of the other places we have visited in China so far. Although it doesn't have the big sights like Beijing and Xi'an, we would highly recommend it to anyone visiting here in the future.

Tongli - Is that a giant-penis-to-ward-off-evil-spirits in your pants, or are you just happy to see me?

The start of our day trip to Tongli was an unmitigated disaster. Rather than taking a tour bus from Shanghai straight to Tongli, we thought we'd get clever and catch the train first to Suzhou and then a smaller bus to Tongli. Big mistake. First we had to wait an hour at the train station as the earlier trains were booked out, and we could only get standing room, not seats, for the 45min train ride! Then when we got to Suzhou it was raining and we couldn't find the ticket counter to arrange transport and entry to Tongli. Anyway, we eventually got there just after lunch time, thankful that the rain had stopped. 

Tongli itself is actually very nice and picturesque. It is a canal town, with various gardens and old buildings to meander around. However, the big drawcard is the Chinese Sex Culture Museum, which we knew we had to see as soon as we heard about it. It did not disappoint. 

Covered with photos of landscapes featuring humorously-shaped rocks and trees, the museum boasts a very large collection of several thousand books, statues, paintings and other artifacts relating to sex. Founded by two sociology professors, the displays were definitely more educational than racy. It also had most of the descriptions in English and Chinese which was awesome. 

It covered a huge variety of topics, like sex and religion (giant wooden penises used in religious ceremonies to ward off evil spirits), homosexuality (a comparison of ancient sex toys and modern sex toys) and sex in nature (amusing ancient sculptures of animals performing various questionable activities with people). Some of it was pretty horrible, like the display on foot binding and the large array of implements used to punish insubordinate prostitutes and women who committed adultery. We thought it was especially interesting that there were so many examples of horrible things done to women, but the display on castration was the only one that concerned men (and even that can be argued because it was a life choice for heaps of men since eunuchs apparently enjoyed heaps of priveleges), yet another example of the effects of a patriarchal society. 

Anyway, most of the other exhibits were pretty amusing and we had a good laugh (thankfully we had the place to ourselves). After that we went to see one of the old residences, whose drawcard was a spectacular garden. Then we wandered around the canals while making our way back to the centre of town before walking back to the bus station (which for some reason is a couple of kilometres out of town).

I would have liked to have spent more time in Tongli, but I'm still glad that we went, as it was a nice change from the hustle and bustle of Shanghai. But I would definitely recommend taking the direct bus and trying to get an early start. I would also recommend going to the tourist information centre in Tongli, which is on the other side of the carpark from where the tour buses drop you off, because they have a helpful, free sightseeing map and nice toilets (a bit of a rarity over here!).

You Can Wait Like Everyone Else!

Our second day in Shanghai was spoilt by rain. We had planned to go and wander the streets of the French Concession districts to visit the little cafes, bakeries and parks, but we were put off by the down pour. Instead, we decided to visit Xujiahui train station which is at least in the same district as the French Concession, but is surrounded by a number of multi-storied shopping malls. While Jenni enjoyed browsing the large English section in one of the big book stores within Metro Plaza, I enjoyed exploring the huge multi-storied computer market, similar to the one we saw in Xi'an, but even bigger. There was even some stalls setup with work benches where once you were finished getting ripped off by the salesmen because you are a foreigner.... err I mean, finished buying your computer parts, people would put it all together for you in front of you! Next door to the computer market was a Best-Buy that had pretty much all of the major things available in the computer market, but at fixed prices. If you weren't too sure how much to bargain for something at the computer market, you could take a quick trip over to check what the standard price is to make sure that you don't get screwed on a deal.

The following day was also spoilt by rain, by we managed to keep ourselves entertained by visiting the Shanghai museum. With free admission, the day at the museum proved to be very cheap and entertaining. We were fortunate enough to see the Uffizi Gallery exhibit which is a on loan to the museum from Italy. The rest of the exhibits were based on Chinese history and included jade carvings, stone statues, paintings, calligraphy, porcelain crafts and bronze relics. The statue exhibit was excellent as nearly all of the statues were not enclosed in glass cases, enabling you to get right up close to see the detail. The jade carving exhibit was also very interesting, although I am unsure how to regard the information that we gained from it. Let me explain... 

I do not claim to be an expert when it comes to jade relics, but the dates for some of the older jade pieces on display seemed a bit too far fetched to be believed. We saw some jade relics which were small statue carvings with rather intricate patterns and components on them. The plaque would claim that this relic was created in 4,000 BC. Surely to create a carving with such level of intricacy, one would require precision metal tools. Last time I checked, the bronze age didn't occur in China until 2,000 BC, so they didn't have that technology at the time, so what then did they use to make these carvings? My questions were 'answered' when we watched a video in the jade exhibition that claimed that they used other 'hard rocks' such as flint to make the carvings. This was explained while showing a Chinese guy dressed in rags banging a piece of dark rock (I assume it was supposed to be flint) on some jade stone. I will believe that they could have created some form of jade carvings using this technique, but I am sorry... I simply find it difficult to believe that someone could carve all of those intricate patterns and components by banging a bloody hard rock against a small jade block. 

After viewing that exhibit, I was some what skeptical about the information on display in other parts of the museum. I was half expecting that the plaque in front of Sandro Botticelli's "Adoration of the Magi", on display in the Uffizi Gallery, to claim that it was painted by Chairman Mao in 1959, when he landed on the moon, a whole 10 years before the Americans did.

The next day we did a day trip to Tongli. I have been forbidden to do the post on Tongli as some immature aspects of my sense of humour may get the better of me, so I have been instructed to skip it and let Jenni write about in her next article. Don't worry, you will figure out what I am talking about when you read it!

On our final day in Shanghai, we returned to the Bund to see it in daylight. We took a trip in 'The Bund Sightseeing Tunnel'. It was certainly not what we expected. The entrance to the tunnel lies right next to the edge of the riverside and leads you down a long escalator. When we saw this, we assumed it was a tunnel that ran from one side of the river to the other, along the riverbed, with a glass top, kind of like a walk through aquarium. Upon arriving at the entrance to the tunnel, we were escorted into a small carriage that we were to ride in. Instead of being what we expected, it was more like something out of the twilight zone. The large tunnel that our carriage travelled down was pitch dark, then suddenly illuminated with coloured flashing lights and eerie music. As we travelled through the 'sightseeing tunnel', the music would change along with the patterns the lights were making and a corny voice over would sound saying something like 'Meteor Shower' or 'Molten Lava'. It was really weird, but very entertaining.

The highlight of the day came when we were travelling back to our hostel so we could make a move to get to our next accommodation. Jenni and I were waiting to purchase our ticket at the self service ticketing machine at one of the busy subway stations. As per usual, the idiots in front of us were taking forever to buy their ticket. After having to wait for about 5 minutes for them to figure the thing out, they finally managed to get their ticket. Just as I was about to step up to start purchasing ours, an old geezer barged right in front of me and started punching in the information on the machine to get his ticket. Up until this point in our trip in China, Jenni and I have been frozen in shock when things like this have happened and by the time we are able to think straight, the time to do anything about it has long past. Well not this time... To the crowds amazement, I grabbed the bloke by the shoulder, swung him around, looked straight into his eyes and yelled at him "Oi!". The guy froze as I can only assume he could see the fires of hell blazing in my eyes. I then leaned over to the machine and hammered the 'Cancel' button on his transaction, turned to him and said with a growl "Listen here you rude ****. You go to the back of the line and wait like everyone else!". I doubt that he actually understood exactly what I said to him (or what I called him), but he and his wife certainly got the gist of it as she promptly grabbed him by the arm and escorted him to the back of the line with his tail between his legs. 

I don't think I have felt so satisfied with myself in such a long time.

Now we are headed to Hangzhou, a smaller city that lies to the south of Shanghai. When I say smaller, what I mean to say is smaller than Beijing and Shanghai which both have populations of 15 million people EACH! Hangzhou is definitely smaller, but it still has a population of 6.5 million!

Shanghai - Stranded

Jenni and I had 4 days to see Shanghai, China's second biggest city. Shanghai doesn't seem to have as many historical sights to see as Beijing, but is much more modern and cleaner in comparison.

We haven't been blogging as much in Shanghai as other cities that we have visited mainly due to the fact that the internet at our hostel is really slow and constantly disconnects, making using the internet very frustrating.

According to the the China Lonely Plant that we purchased in our hostel in Beijing, a couple of the best things to do in Shanghai are to visit the French Concession district as well as 'The Bund', Shanghai's city riverside walk. 

On a side point, there are two interesting facts about the China Lonely Plant I would like to mention.

1) The version of the book that we purchased here is a pirated version. Not only can you buy fake clothes and pirated DVDs here, you can even buy pirated books. Who would have thought!

2) We have heard that the China Lonely Planet book is banned here because it doesn't recognize Taiwan as part of China. That is why we were not able to locate a China version of the Lonely Planet in any of the travel sections of any book stores, even though they stocked a Lonely Planet for every other country.

We visited the Bund on Sunday evening, shortly after we arrived in Shanghai. The guide book mentioned that it is extremely busy on the weekend and it wasn't wrong. Thousands of people lined the riverside to get photos of the neon light covered cruise boats gliding down the river. The building's on the opposite side of the river to the Bund look like something out of a Sci-Fi movie, with big domes sticking out of them and lights glittering all over. We had dinner at a fancy pants restaurant (fancy pants for China; it cost us about $30 all up...) that overlooked the river. There we had a rather peculiar dish; 'Frisky Rice', which was basically rice bubbles / crispies with spices over them, roasted with crab meat throughout.

We finished our dinner and started to head back down the Bund to the nearest subway station so we could catch the subway back to the hostel. Upon arriving at the station at about 10:30pm, we noticed that some people were a bit more pushy than normal to get to the train platforms. We just passed it off as the usual 'me, me, me' attitude that most Chinese people seem to have over here. However, after one train trip to our connecting station where we needed to transfer onto the line to get to our final stop, we figured out what all of the commotion was about; the last trains were leaving and we weren't on ours!

After our realization, we found ourselves stranded at a random station. After a quick look at the subway map that closely resembled a plate of spaghetti, we quickly jumped on a train that was going on a different line that had a station kind of close to the station that we actually wanted to get to. Upon arrival at this station, we found ourselves stranded with about 100 other people, all trying to flag down taxis. Sure enough, although there were taxis left, right and centre, all of them were already occupied because every man and his dog were left in the same situation that we were in; stranded.

We busted out the map of Shanghai that we purchased earlier that day and managed to locate ourselves on the map and tried to determine the best route for us to get to our hostel. The map we were using didn't have a scale on it, but judging by how many blocks and train stations that were between us and our hostel, it looked manageable to walk. We figured that it would be safe enough to walk due to the sheer amount of people also walking around stranded like ourselves. After about 45mins of walking, we finally reached our hostel.

We are planning to take a day trip out of Shanghai to a small town called Tongli in the next couple of days. It involves a 45 minute train trip to a small town out of Shanghai and then another 1 hour bus trip from that town to Tongli. We hope that we don't miss the last trains and buses trying to get home from there, because if we do, it will be a VERY long walk back to our hostel!

Ballad of the Strangled Cat

The main purpose of our visit to Xi'an was to see the Terracotta Army and the Large Goose Pagoda. We managed to knock them off in the first two days of our 3 day visit to Xi'an, so we found that we had a free day up our sleeve to lounge around in the local cafes and shopping malls.

Next to our hostel is the south gate of the Xi'an city wall. Built in 1370 AD, the 14km wall surrounds the inner city, is 12m in height and is about 10m wide at the top. A fellow traveller mentioned to us at the hostel bar the previous night that a great way to see the city is to hire a bike and ride around the top of the wall. 

As mentioned in Jenni's previous post, the previous day was freezing when we visited the Terracotta Army. However, to our surprise the weather did a complete u-turn within a 24 hour period and was actually sunny and 20 degrees Celsius the following afternoon when we rode around the wall.

We hired a tandem bike at the south gate and rode around about half of the wall. The top of the wall is very well preserved with a few rather uneven bits every now and again, thus resulting in the two of us having rather sore backsides that evening. Along our ride we made regular stops to take a look out at the various sights around the city. A park circles the entire outer side of the wall and Jenni and I could stop at regular intervals to watch and listen to the local musicians playing various Chinese instruments. Each song that a musician would play, would be accompanied by a different Chinese woman from the crowd of on-lookers, who would 'sing' along with the music. By 'sing' I actually mean, making sounds along to the music like the sound of a cat being strangled. They were all god awful!

The following day was spent waiting around at the hostel and cafes for our over-night train that would take us to Shanghai. After our little episode of nearly missing the train in Beijing, we made sure to leave with ample time to get the train. As per with our overnight train trip from Beijing to Xi'an, we didn't get much sleep due to people snoring so god damn loud that even a jackhammer would have been less noisy. The only thing that Jenni and I could really hope for was that the air ways in these idiots' throats and nasal cavities would become so blocked that they may die from asphyxiation during their sleep to give us some bloody peace and quiet. Alas, this did not happen and we had to make do with the limited sleep that we could manage by using earplugs to try and block out the constant drone.

The Terracotta Army - Was that really necessary Emperor Qin?

Wow - we have not had much luck with the weather when it comes to seeing the major sights! When we took the cable car to see Mt Fuji it was foggy, when we went to see the Great Wall it was raining and when we went to see the Terracotta Army it snowed! It was freezing, so we had to bring out the gloves and beanies, however the snow covering everything was very pretty and it kept the crowds to a minimum.

It is fairly easy to go to the Terracotta Army museum without a tour, however we thought that for once it would be nice to have someone just pick us up and drop us off (it was organised by the hostel). The tour was quite cheap, being only about $2 more than going by ourselves.

It turned out well. The english-speaking guide was very knowledgeable and there was a good group of about 6 other people who we got along with really well. In fact, after the tour we got the bus to drop us all of in the Muslim quarter and went and had lunch together (Muslim quarter is a must see and very cheap - lunch was less than $2 each). It was great fun!

At first we were a bit apprehensive, as on the way to the museum the bus stopped off at a place where we could see how the figures were made and 'buy the best quality replicas'. Tour groups have a bad habit of making unannounced stops to try and get customers to buy stuff (we had a similar experience in Bali), so some of us were not too impressed. However, it was actually really informative and another english-speaking guide took us around the workshop and explained the process to us while we watched people making things out of clay and porcelain. We learnt all kinds of things like that the warriors are actually hollow except for the legs, that all of the faces were sculpted individually so that no two are the same and that they were fired in a kiln at about 1,000 degrees. 

When we got to the museum we were surprised to discover that it is not all under one roof! There are three main buildings which house the three excavated pits, one building were they play an introductory film and another building which houses some other pieces discovered in the excavation such as a couple of bronze chariots complete with horses and drivers.

Another thing is that the buildings are a good 20 minutes walk from the main entrance gate! We all took a 12-seater golf-buggy thing instead which cost 5yuan.

Firstly we went into the building with the bronze chariots (except only one was real, the other one is currently in Shanghai for the Shanghai Expo) which was ok, except most of the exhibits were replicas only. There was also some enormous marionettes that were apparently used in the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games, one of a terracotta warrior and one of a young girl. They were a bit creepy.

Then we saw the introductory film which was very interesting. Through the film and the tour guide we learnt heaps of interesting facts, like that the tomb was made for Emperor Qin, who was the first emperor of China. In fact, that is where we get the name 'China', from the fact that the first line of emperors were from the Qin dynasty (Qin is pronounced Chin). Also, this Qin-guy unified the country for the first time by pretty much waging war on the other kings and then pronouncing himself as ruler. He also started the process of joining together and fortifying all of the walls to make the Great Wall of China. 

He was so chuffed with himself that he wanted the biggest, most ridiculous tomb of all time. Apparently it took nearly 40 years to complete and at one time conscripted over 700,000 workers! In fact, at one time this represented about 10% of the population which severely affected the economy for ages afterwards.

The actual construction process was way ahead of its time. They used chrome plating on the bronze weapons which was extremely advanced technology which was not discovered again for another 2,000 years. Emperor Qin also introduced a rather unique but effective method of quality control. By forcing the artists to engrave their name and village on each piece that they made, it ensured that they would do a good job, because if they didn't they would be easily tracked down and have to face the consequence of their shoddy work.

Pit 1 is absolutely enormous, the photo above does not do it justice. It took about half an hour to walk around (while taking photos). This is where most of the warriors are (Pit 2 has mainly archers and Pit 3 is where the officers are located). Pit 1 is set out as follows: the front part of the pit is excavated and the warriors have been restored, the middle part shows you how the warriors look when they are first excavated (i.e. broken into hundreds of pieces) and the back section shows you the restoration process.

We were a bit disappointed when we got to Pit 2, as it remains largely un-excavated. However, this is apparently to preserve the relics for future generations which we thought was a really cool idea. 

It really has to be seen to be believed, and I wish that I could go back in another 100 years to see what else they have uncovered. The actual burial mound is still un-excavated, again in order to preserve it. According to the surviving records it was pretty spectacular, including rivers of mercury. This sounds a bit far-fetched but they have reported unusually high levels of mercury in the soil so you never know!

Along with the Great Wall and Mt Fuji, this has to be one of the most amazing sights that we have seen so far, and was definitely worth the 1,000km trip from Beijing.

The Big Goose Pagoda - Not A Goose To Be Found

We travelled from Beijing to Xi'an via an overnight train. The train left from Beijingxi (Beijing West Train Station) at 9:20pm. Our hostel was across the road from Beijingzhan (Beijing Railway Station). We had not realized that our train left from the other train station until about 1 hour before it actually left. Through the mad panic, we managed to grab a taxi driver that was able to get us across town so that we managed to get on the train with mere minutes to spare.

In the train, there are little rooms that have bunk beds where you sleep while travelling. At first we were a bit worried as there didn't appear to be room to store our large backpacks and we thought that we may have to spend the night spooning them in our beds, but fortunately we located a little ledge in each room to sling our backpacks up to so we would have enough room to sleep. The total travel time was about 10 hours and we managed to get about 5 to 6 hours sleep, being waken on regular intervals due to other people snoring in our cabin as well as a baby crying in one of the lower bunks.

Upon arrival in Xi'an we, along with other people staying at our hostel, were picked up and driven to our accommodation.

Excluding the ryokan that we stayed at in Japan, this hostel we are staying at is probably the most unique out of all of the accommodations that we have stayed at during our trip. It is in a traditional Chinese style building with open court yards connecting various lounges and rooms. It is equipped with a very good restaurant which has an open area that is covered by a large sun roof and also has its own funky little bar with couches, a pool table, good music and a great atmosphere each night. To add to the backpacker feel of the place, along all of the hallways and stair cases, hundreds of past travellers have signed their names, written comments and decorated the walls and ceilings. The only draw back to the place would be the very unusual shower in our bathroom that does not have a drain in it. Water from the shower spills onto the bathroom floor and must escape via the drain at the centre of the bathroom, soaking the entire floor. If we don't place a barrier of towels down to direct the water to the drain, it flows right into our room too! 

The first day in Xi'an we were pretty tired due to the little sleep we got on the train, so we decided to see something close to the hostel and take it easy. We took a bus to go and see the 'Big Goose Pagoda'. I was rather excited to see this as I was looking forward to seeing the big goose and hoping that he would be big enough for me to ride him, but alas there was no goose to be found :( The lack of big goose was made up for by the beautiful gardens and water fountains around the 7 storey high pagoda. The surrounding gardens even came equipped with its own KFC and Baskin and Robbins.

We climbed the 7 storey high pagoda and were treated to an excellent view of Xi'an at the top. However, the visit to the top was short lived as we could not stand the stench of bad breath from all of the old Chinese tourists at the top. I am not exaggerating in the least when I say that even Napoleon, Jenni's Jack Russel pet dog, has much more pleasant smelling breath than that lot of Chinese tourists up there as he at least chews on his little 'chewies' that help keep his teeth clean.

Upon leaving the pagoda, we made our way back to the hostel, stopping along the way to visit a 4 storey high computer and electronics market.

That evening we went to see the Tang Dynasty Music and Dance show at the Xi'an Opera House. We enjoyed the show and dinner along with a brother and sister from Taiwan who were also staying at our hostel. The dinner was a dumpling extravaganza which consisted of about 6 large plates with 12 dumplings on each in addition to about 8 side dishes, dumpling soup and dessert. By the end of it, I counted that we had eaten about 20 types of dumplings throughout the dinner. After dinner, the show started. We watched the show from the table that we were served dinner at and were able to enjoy it while drinking beer and rice wine. The show consisted of many traditional Chinese dances and musical pieces. The crowd favourite was a musical piece about a bunch of squabbling ducks. It was lead by a guy playing a trumpet, but what made it the crowd pleaser was the way that the guy with the trumpet, lowered his instrument, to use his own mouth to make a series of duck noises in the same rhythm as the music.

We thought the most interesting back story to one of the dances was the one that originated from an Emperor having a dream about fairies dancing on the moon. Upon waking he wrote some some music about it and then ordered his head concubine to organise a dance to go with his music. We thought that the story would be hilarious if placed in modern day society. Could you imagine if USA's president Obama woke up from a dream about fairies, wrote hip-hop song about it and got the first lady to perform in his music video clip! It would hilarious!

The Great Wall - No goddamn rabbits gettin' past that thing!

The first time we tried to go to the Great Wall, we realised that the buses only ran until 10am, the second time we found out that the tour buses didn't go to the section of the wall that we wanted to go to and on the third time we slept in. Since we left Beijing on Monday, Sunday was really our last shot at going to this unmissable sight. Unfortunately when we got up and looked out the window it was rainy and overcast :-( On the plus side, we realised that this meant less tourists (score!). 

Since our Forbidden City experience, avoiding tonnes of tourists has been our major goal for all sight-seeing activities. This is why we choose to go to Juyong Pass, which is apparently one of the less popular destinations. We have no idea why, since it is closer to town (still took about 2hrs, but Michael figured out how to get us there and back for 14 yuan, which is just over $2 - double score!) and less dangerous than some of the other sections. Possibly because, according to the lonely planet, "all of the authenticity has been restored out". However, given my everyday lack of co-ordination on flat ground, a hike among 'authentic' crumbling ruins is top on my 'stupid things to do' list. Another reason is that the second closest destination, Badaling, is where almost every single tour bus goes. Walking around the central tour bus terminal you are constantly pestered by people saying "Badaling you want to go Badaling". After about half an hour of this Michael and I decided that if the entire wall was destroyed except for Badaling, we would still not go to Bada-frickin-ling. All the other destinations are either too far away or too dangerous.

In addition to choosing the less popular section of the wall, we choose to walk in the opposite direction to most of the other people. The popular route is up a winding hill where you get a spectacular view. However, given the lack of visibility due to the constant mist of rain we decided that no-one would be able to see much anyway, so we would go the way which didn't have such a good view but was less steep. It was a good call. At times we were completely by ourselves, only passing a handfull of other tourists. It gave us the time and space to be able to fully appreciate the amazing feat accomplished by building this enormous wall that stretches on as far as the eye can see, at times running along the top of a steep range of hills. 

The path that we took was supposed to be less steep than the other direction, however there were still sections of it that I literally had to crawl up on hands and knees, more like rock-climbing than stair-climing. However there were only a couple of these sections and we managed better than some of the other people. 

The view along the top was spectacular, and I thought that the swirling mist added to the atmosphere rather than detracting from it - the photos definitely do not do it justice. I still would have liked to be able to see what it would have looked like on a clear day, however it was not to be, and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves nonetheless.

Great Wall tips:

1. Bring toilet paper as there isn't any in the toilets.

2. Wear gloves and bring hand sanitiser as you won't want to touch the handrails but you will need to at some point. 

3. Wear proper walking shoes, as some sections can be slippery if it is damp (we saw one girl in high heels, definitely a bad idea!).

4. Bring food with you as there isn't much to choose from and it is very expensive.

5. Don't go with a tour group because it is heaps more expensive and you will not be able to take your time as we did, also you will probably end up going to Badaling.

The Lonely Planet directions are a bit wrong, so if you ever want to go to Juyong Pass the directions are as follows: 

1. Get to Jishuitan subway station.

2. Take exit A (North West). Upon exiting, follow the road to the East. You will come across a set of bus stands (this is Deshengmen transport terminal). Look for bus 919 Deshengmen - Nankou. There are a lot of buses numbered 919, so just keep going along until you find the stand with 919 Deshengmen - Nankou written on it (It has it written in pinyin). 

3. Take the 919 bus no to Nankou Dongjie bus stop (it takes between 1 hour and 1 hour and 30 minutes depending on the traffic). It will cost 6 Yuan. Try to sit at the front of the bus near the TV screen as it flashes up in pinyin what the next stop is.

4. Once off the 919, go across to the bus stand on the other side of the road and catch the no. 68 bus that goes to Juyongguan pass (make sure that you cross to the other side of the road, because if you get on the no. 68 on the same side that you got off the 919, you will be going in the wrong direction!). It will cost you 1 yuan. The bus will pull right into the car park at Juyongguan pass and terminate there.

(It costs 45 yuan to get into Juyongguan pass to see the wall)

To get back to Beijing, go to the same carpark that the no. 68 dropped you off in and catch the no 68 back to Nankou Dongjie bus stop. I couldn't see an actual bus stop anywhere there, but there was a couple of no. 68s just waiting there in the car park when we made the journey. The no 68 doesn't actually say what stop is next so make sure you either keep and eye out for the bus stop or say to either the driver or the person selling tickets on the bus that you want to go to Nankou Dongjie and hopefully they will let you know when to get off as they did for us. Once at Nankou Dongjie, cross back to the other side of the road and take the no. 919 back to Deshengmen.

Easy!

You Want To Serve THAT For Dinner!?!

On Friday we had planned to make a trip to go and see the Great Wall. We had picked out a particular spot that we would like to see it at (Juyongguan pass) as we had heard that the most popular spot, Badaling, was always badly overrun with tourists and hawkers. There is a tourist bus depot that makes trips to the Great Wall near Tian'anmen Square so we headed there in the morning, hoping to jump on tour bus no. B at the tourist bus depot.

Upon arrival we were disappointed to discover that there is now only tour buses A and C (I have no idea what happened to B), both of which did not go to Juyongguan. Jenni and I would normally be happy to just re-direct our interest to go and see Badaling, but due to the amount of people pestering us around the depot to go with them to Badaling, we were determined not to go on principal.

We decided that when we were able to get back on the internet, we would find an alternative way to get Juyongguan, so we cut our losses and ventured into the shopping district, south of Tian'anmen square and thus began the day of visiting markets in Beijing.

I am not sure what the markets are called that lie among the alleyways behind the open mall that is to the south of Tian'anmen Square, I assume they are called Tian'anmen Markets or something like that. They seemed to be mostly filled with jewelery that the sellers claimed was authentic jade and various other souvenir type items such as hanging scrolls and little wooden statues. We managed to get one of the girls in the proper jewelery shops within the main mall to let us in on the secret to what the 'jade' bracelets in all of the markets are made out of. It turns out that they are made out of agate, not jade, which is very cheap in comparison.

We moved on from Tian'anmen Square to Yong'anli where the 'Silk Markets' are. These markets are in a multi-storey building that is connected to the Yong'anli subway station. It is full of fake designer brand clothes like Nike, Adidas, Colorado, Calvin Klein, Guess, D&G and many more. Some of the most impressive knock offs where the '100% Gortex' North Face jackets and Harley Davidson leather jackets. One girl got rather annoyed when she caught me taking a photo of all of her knock off North Face jackets and cried 'No photos, no photos!' Surely she wouldn't be worried that I might send a photo of her 'authentic' jackets to their manufacturers!

As we walked down each isle, all of the girls would be lined up waiting with t-shirts, hand bags, jeans, jackets and all sorts of things and pester us to come into their little stall to buy something. The amount of times we heard "You want Nike t-shirt? Adidas?" or "Sir, sir / pretty lady" or "Come in, just take a look" was unbelievable. They even got rather inventive by saying things to try and grab your attention like "Hey, I know you!". We would walk down an isle full of stalls selling purses and about 20 girls, one after another would ask you "You want to buy a purse?", even though you clearly said "Do not want" (in Mandarin) to the 10 girls before them. You would like to think that they would have got the message, but they just keep trying! By the end of it, we could hardly contain our laughter as we didn't intend to spend a dime, yet everyone was trying SO HARD to sell us something.

The one authentic thing in there that would probably worth buying is the cashmere jumpers and tailor made suits and dresses. I would have loved to get a suit made and Jenni would have loved to get a dress made, but we simply don't have enough room in our backpacks to be able to lug it around Asia with us. Another thing that had put us off buying anything was the fact that we had heard from multiple sources that you have to bargain VERY aggressively in these markets to avoid getting ripped off.

That evening we made sure to have an early dinner to allow it to settle before taking a venture through the infamous Beijing 'Night Market'. The Night Market is on Donganmen Street, just off the huge outdoor shopping mall on Wangfujing Street. It is filled with stalls of people selling all sorts of 'things' that are cooked on skewers. Along with what appeared to be standard pork, chicken and beef satay skewers, available for your culinary pleasure were scorpions, starfish, sea-horse, grasshoppers, bugs, snakes and lizards. The creepiest thing at the stalls is by far the scorpions as you can see that they are still very alive with their legs still moving, even while they have been skewered!  I only saw one Chinese bloke who was game enough to try a skewer of cooked scorpions and he was only doing it for the camera.

We tried the most popular type of skewer, the sweet skewer 'tanghulu', which consists of fruit, covered in a hardened sugar coating. We had the most common tanghulu fruit, the hawthorn fruit, but other fruit combinations including strawberries, pineapple, kiwi fruit and bananas were available. Even though I didn't try one of those very appetizing looking grasshopper skewers, I am pretty sure our sugar coated haws on a skewer tasted much better!

The Peking Duck Extravaganza

If you have read at least one of Jenni's articles on this blog, you would already know that she is obsessed with food. So it was no surprise that when we arrived in Beijing, along with seeing the Great Wall and visiting the Forbidden City, Jenni's top 3 things she wanted to do in Beijing included going to a lavish Peking duck restaurant.

We had read in the Lonely Planet guide and on many places on the internet about the best places to go, but we found that every place that we looked at, there was always mixed reviews. We eventually settled on the most famous Peking Duck restaurant chain - Quanjude. We had read a few reviews that claimed that the waiters here were really pushy in trying to get you to buy extras, always recommending the more expensive dishes on the menu and delivered extremely poor service if you didn't comply with their wishes. Our strategy was to just go with the flow and at the start of the meal and order a couple of the extras to keep them off our backs, in the hope that this would allow us to enjoy the meal. We figured that being in China, the extras for us would be relatively cheap in comparison to what we are used to paying at a standard restaurant back in Australia and we would be prepared to sacrifice an extra $20 AUD to be able to actually enjoy our meal.

We had heard that you really do need to make a booking for Quanjude, but we were not confident enough to make the phone call and make a reservation using our limited knowledge of Mandarin, so we made sure that we arrived at the restaurant quite early for dinner (about 5:45pm) to ensure that we would get a table. Upon arrival we were immediately escorted up to the 2nd level of the restaurant (the restaurant has about 5 levels to it) and given a table. This was the first good sign as we heard that they would typically escort foreigners to the top floor where it costs more money. The second good sign was the fact that when we entered the room where our table was, we noticed that we were the only foreigners in the room.

However, as soon as we sat down at the table, a very pushy, English speaking waiter placed a set menu under our noses, before even giving us the standard menu. He claimed that this was the best value menu and included all of the chef's specialities. Upon giving us the normal menu (only after we had to specifically ask him for it) he then proceeded to 'ask' us what we would like to drink. He was determined to get us to buy a beer each, so I let him have his way and get me the beer that he recommended (as it turned out, it was the most expensive one they had on offer - surprise, surprise) and Jenni managed to convince him that she didn't actually want a glass of wine (a VERY expensive glass of wine I might add) and only wanted the coconut juice.

Upon his return with his drinks, we decided that to get him (and the rest of his pushy wait staff) off our backs we would just order the recommended set menu. It was a good deal more pricey than ordering just the duck and a couple of the cheaper dishes, but we figured that if we order the set menu, they wouldn't pester us any further in terms of dishes to eat and it included what we were after anyway; the Peking Duck.

This was the best decision we made all night and it worked like a charm!

As soon as we ordered the set menu they stopped being pushy and treated us to some of the most excellent service that we have ever experienced at a restaurant. Service of course did not come with a smile; we are in China after all, but it was service none the less.

The food was being served within minutes of us ordering. Every 5 minutes a waiter would come around to top up our tea cups, top up our pot of tea and top up my beer. We were not asked once more if we wanted any more dishes or dessert and they gave us plenty of opportunities to order more drinks when we wanted them.

The meal started off with some cooled fried cabbage with shredded meat throughout, accompanied by a plate of sliced pickle. After our cold starter, a chef brought the duck to our table and carved it in front of us. The waitress showed us how to prepare the duck to eat by taking the sliced duck meat, dip it in hoi-sin sauce and wrapping it along with a thin slice of spring onion in a paper thin pancake. Following the duck, we were presented with a plate filled with fried prawns, covered in a delicious Schezuan sauce. We were also given a plate of mustard cabbage covered in oyster sauce (the same dish you get when you ask for Chinese vegetables when you go to a Dim Sum lunch). We were also given two bowls of soup, one being shark fin soup and the other one we think was duck soup. To finish the meal, we were presented with a plate of fresh fruit, accompanied by a plate each of small cakes.

All up it cost just over $100 AUD, but considering that we had just eaten in one of the most prestigious roast duck restaurants in Beijing, had been given a total of 9 dishes which included some of the most delicious things we had ever eaten and we were so full that a wide panoramic photograph probably couldn't fit the two of us in it, we think it was definitely worth it.

If you are new to Peking duck like Jenni and I and would like to go to a Peking Duck restaurant in Beijing, these would our top tips for finding one that you will enjoy:

- Don't go to the Tian'anmen branch of Quanjude, or any of the really exclusive other restaurants. Choose one from the same chain, but that is one suburb over from one of the fancy ones as every man and his dog will go to those ones first, booking them out.

- If you don't have a reservation, go there on a week night and get there nice and early (before 6pm). There was plenty of seats available at this time when we did this, but it appeared completely full by about 7pm.

- Try not to be be a penny pincher and expect to pay a reasonable amount for your dinner, it is worth it.

- If the waiter is pushy at the start of the dinner, order a couple of the extra things that they recommend, unless you are happy to put up with the pestering. This will probably keep them off your back and allow you to actually enjoy your meal with some reasonable service.

The Temple of Heaven

On Thursday, we set out to visit the 'Underground City', an over the top bomb shelter built in the 1970s, during the height of Soviet-Chinese tensions under the instruction of Chairman Mao. It was built in fear of a nuclear strike and comes complete with rooms intended for hospitals, weapon arsenals and even a cinema. Unfortunately that is all I can really tell you about it, because we never made it there.

As we were wandering around the streets trying the find the place (I later checked what the entrance looks like on Wikipedia and it is no wonder that we didn't find it, it is just a plain old unlabeled door in the side of a random building), we bumped into a fellow tourist also wandering around looking for something. While standing at the corner of the street at a set of traffic lights, the gentlemen explained that he had spent an hour that morning looking for the place we were looking for and when he did eventually find it, he discovered that it is closed to the public for the next year or so for renovations. He had instead went to go and see the Temple of Heaven, which is where he had just come from and gave us directions to it, informing us that it was only a short walk away. We in return directed him to the train station that he was looking for.

After sharing a couple of more stories and having a few laughs about how rude we all thought everyone is, how everyone tries to rip you off or scam you and how all the taxi / rickshaw drivers bug you all of the time (during which, about 4 of them drove up to the 3 of us and started pestering us all to take a ride), we parted ways and Jenni and I set off for the Temple of Heaven. 

The visit to this sight in Beijing was a very different experience to the one we had while visiting the Forbidden City during the previous day. The park in which the temple is in is enormous and filled with trees. There was minimal crowds, so we were able to actually enjoy the sights and able to concentrate enough while reading the English plaques to actually learn about the temple.

The Temple of Heaven is comprised of a number of structures throughout the park. The temple was used once per year by the Chinese Emperors of the past to come and pray to God for a (and I quote) 'bumper harvest'. Jenni and I found that this description of the type of harvest the emperor was praying was rather unusual. We would have expected that he would be praying for a 'good harvest' or a 'plentiful harvest', but perhaps he was specifically praying for giant tomatoes and pumpkins so he could try and get China a few spots in the Guinness Book of Records' biggest vegetable section.

There are 4 main structures in the park that comprise the Temple. The most impressive structure, the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests, the Imperial Vault of Heaven which resembles the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests but is smaller and surrounded by the 'Echo Wall', the marble Circular Mound Alter and the Hall of Abstinence.

The temple was restored in 2006 in preparation for the Beijing Olympics and although you may quaff at the idea of doing a complete overhaul of the sight, the end result does look very vibrant and beautiful.

The Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests is the main attraction and is a circular wooden structure that stands about 40m tall, is about 30m in diameter at the base and sits atop of a 3 tiered marble stone base. The restoration work has left the hall with beautiful painted colours on both the inside and outside with royal emblems (dragons and phoenixes) painted in gold all around the outside of the building.

To the north of this temple is a store room (that is what they called it, but it was actually a huge big hall - it seems that the emperors went a bit over the top with the size of their buildings back in the day) where they used to keep the equipment that was used each year in the prayer ceremony. Next to the store room, Jenni and I found the most amusing story on a plaque that was next to a stray, locked door, that on the other side lead down to the base of the structure. The plaque claimed that the door was named the 'Seventy Year Old Door' and it was built under the instruction of an emperor that had reached the age of 70. He had complained that in his old age, it was getting increasingly difficult for him to have to traverse the whole distance to get up to the temple to perform his ceremonial duties every year (serves him right for him and his ancestors for being so over the top and building everything bloody enormous over here!). So he ordered that the door be built with a short path up to it for himself as a shortcut up to the building. He realized that if he did this, future emperors would be lazy buggers and use his shortcut, rather than going the proper way around when they were fully capable of doing so while in good health. So he decreed that nobody should be able to use his door and shortcut unless they were over the age of 70 and thus named it the 'Seventy Year Old Door'. As it turns out, he was the only emperor to live to that age and thus was the only person that ever used it!

Japan v China - A Study in Opposites (Part 2)

Tian'anmen Square and the Forbidden City epitomise all of the major sights that we have seen so far in China. They are both enormous, dusty, dirty and full of people spitting on the ground, pushing each other out of the way and trying to rip us off. Suffice to say, we were not too impressed with the Chinese tourists. 

I mean, come on people, we are not a herd of cattle, we are human beings so why don't you act like it?? Even worse are the people who yell out or look indignant when someone pushes past them, when they would have done exactly the same thing! 

I'm sure there is some complex sociological reason for why people over here act the way that they do, but I would be at a complete loss to tell you what it is. I know that it is not just this part of the world, because you never saw that kind of behaviour in Japan. I especially hate the fact that, in order to actually see anything, we had to go down to their level and push them back just as hard to avoid being pushed out of the way (you should see the bruises I have on my arms and shins!).

I thought that the actual Forbidden City was in a bad state of disrepair. Parts of it had been restored, however we got the impression that the air of neglect was caused by the lack of respect shown by the droves of people coming through every day. I'm sure that it would have been a much more pleasant place if it wasn't for people littering, spitting on the ground and generally interfering with anything within reach. You would think that they would have more respect for their historical monuments, based on the amount of fuss that they make trying push their way to the front of the crowd.

Aside from the other tourists and the actual state of the buildings, we did find the Forbidden City very interesting. We had some English audio guides, which were a bit temperamental but still very informative and full of interesting stories and facts. 

The stories about the concubines would give the Young and the Restless a run for its money. There were stories about concubines being drowned in wells, jealous concubines aborting other concubine's babies and stories about concubines of unsurpassed beauty (although we saw a photo of one of these so-called beauties taken in 1914, and Michael reckons that she was a "real minger").

It was unbelievable the lengths that the Chinese were prepared to go to in order to make the palace as opulent as possible. One marble carving was so large (16.7m long, 3m wide, 1.7m thick, weighing 200 tonnes) that in order to transport it they had to wait until winter and then sprinkle water on the road every few 100 metres and wait for it to freeze so that they could slide it along. Another carving, an enormous one made of jade (2.2m high, weighing 5 tonnes), took 10 years to transport from the quarry to the workshop, carve it and then transport it to the palace (according to the guide it took a hundred horses and thousands of men to transport it).

Looking at the other monuments around Tian'anmen Square you can see that there is definitely a 'bigger is better' thing going on here. It seems a shame when so much money has been spent on ridiculously huge monuments and fancy-pants airports when in other parts of town there are still people living in shanty villages and dilapidated buildings.

In the end I'm glad that we went to Tian'anmen Square and the Forbidden City, because it is just one of those places that has to be seen to be believed. It was definitely an eye-opener!

(You may have noticed that I have purposefully skipped the past few meals, since a number of people have pointed out to me that all of my posts revolve around food)

Japan v China - A Study in Opposites (Part 1)

We spent one more night in Tokyo before our flight to Beijing. We managed to get a room at K's House in Asakusa, which is the same place that we stayed at for our first few days in Japan. 

The next morning we re-visited the markets so that we could both get another one of those yummy fish-shaped pancakes filled with chocolate (they are called taiyaki - definitely try the custard or chocolate unless you are a fan of the bean paste filling, which I am not). Then it was straight to the airport for our flight.

We flew with Air China, which was similar to QANTAS except with better service, better food and better blankets. We were very impressed with the airport at Beijing, which was very modern and fancy, however this description ended as soon as you get outside.

As soon as we stepped off the bus that took us from the airport to Beijing Train Station we were accosted by a crowd of people trying to take us to their hotel/taxi/rickshaw, with people actually grabbing our arms and shouting in our faces. After having spent the previous 3 weeks in Japan, where the entire culture and even the language is dominated by politeness, it was an enormous shock. Our hostel was just across the road, and as soon as we got to our room we realised that the real backpacking was just beginning. We stayed at hostels in Japan which were old and slightly run-down, however they were all spotlessly clean, whereas this hostel (which is one of the more up-market ones, and our room is the best they have) is not so.

After suffering the first bout of culture shock, we craved some normality and found it at the McDonalds which is just downstairs (a cheeseburger seems to taste exactly the same no matter where you go). I was expecting it to have all crazy different things like rice, but the only thing I found was that the apple pie is replaced by sweet yam (still yummy though, and with exactly the same flaky pastry).

The next day we made use of the breakfast buffet at the hostel (less than $3 all you can eat - kaching!$!) and went in search of a shopping centre so that we could find some SIM cards and replenish some supplies. It didn't take long, there are shopping centres everywhere here! We managed to get some SIM cards, I have no idea how since I couldn't understand a word that the girl was saying. However, after giving her our phones and my credit card she managed to sort it out for us. I didn't realise how much I had missed having a mobile phone - it's so good!

That was pretty much the extent of our adventures on that day, but we resolved to kick off the sightseeing the next day with Tian'anmen Square and the Forbidden City.

Hiroshima - Ground Zero

We initially planned on spending two nights in Hiroshima, so that we would have a full day to enjoy the sights. However, on the train down to Hiroshima from Osaka, I happened to glance at our rail pass and realised that it expired the next day! So we unfortunately had to cut down our trip to just one night so that we could get back to Tokyo without having to pay for the Shinkansen, since it normally costs about $300.

 

The first thing that we noticed about Hiroshima is that it is very new compared to the other cities. I didn't see any winding narrow lanes or old dilapidated buildings. The reason behind this is of course that the entire city was reduced to rubble in 1945.

 

The layout of the city and the handy tram service made it very easy for us to reach our accommodation (Hiroshima Central Hotel). The Hotel was fairly cheap and had the best ammenities so far (free buffet breakfast, kettle, trouser press, bar fridge, adult movies etc). It desperately needs a renovation but it did the job for one night.

 

That afternoon was a write-off as we crashed as soon as we got to the room, but we had only really come to see two things (the museum and the Peace Memorial Park) so that was fine.

 

The next day we went to see the sights, and on the way to the park we saw the A-Bomb Dome, which was originally the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall, and is the only building left standing from the bomb. At the museum we saw an aerial photo of the city after the bomb and pretty much everything within a one-mile radius was obliterated, so I am gob-smacked that it managed to survive. Although they said that one of the reasons might be that the bomb exploded only 150m away and 600m in the air, so the impact came from nearly directly above rather than across, or something along those lines. Anyway, it is a sobering site as you enter the park and apparently a fund has been set up to preserve the building in perpetuity, and you can see the frames and struts inside the building holding it up.

 

The actual park is extremely beautiful, especially with the cherry blossoms in full bloom. There are a few poignant memorials: one to the Koreans who were brought to Hiroshima by force and used as slave-labour for the war-effort, one for the children who died (which was erected when a girl died after contracting leukaemia from the nuclear fall-out), and one which houses the names of all known people who died in the blast.

Michael was shocked by the fact that if it was not for the preservation of the A-Bomb Dome, along with all of the other memorials to the victims of the A-Bomb, you would not even know that the city had been completely destroyed 65 years ago. It looks and operates just like any other modern day city.

 

When we got to the museum we got the audio guide, but it wasn't necessary since all of the exhibits had English captions anyway. However it was still useful since it summarised some of the exhibits, as it was so busy that sometimes you couldn't even get close enough to read all of the information. The museum was extremely comprehensive, covering everything you could possibly want to know about atomic bombs, the history of the city, use of nuclear weapons around the world, Japan's involvement in WWII, the reason for Hiroshima being chosen as a target, graphic details on the medical impact of the bomb and how the city was rebuilt. We learnt heaps of interesting details, like the fact that 3 days after the bomb the Japanese had the electricity and even the trams back up and running.

 

After the museum we walked back through the park and headed to the train station to get a train to Tokyo. Unfortunately, all of the trains for that day were fully booked, except for the smoking cars. We had to say yes, so for 2 hours I had to sit next to a guy that I'm sure smoked an entire packet of cigarettes before we got to Osaka. There we transferred to a different train (smoking car again), but Michael figured out that there were some cars with unreserved seating which were non-smoking, so we went on there instead. After all of the second-hand smoke we have inhaled so far on the trip I would not be surprised if we both end up with lung cancer. It really makes me appreciate Perth, we are so lucky to have clean air in our restaurants, bars, hotels and trains!

Osaka - A Night Out In Dotonbori

Our last day in Osaka was rather easy going. We spent the majority of the day at Spa World, trying out the onsen on different floors as they switched the men's and women's floors the day before because the month changed. We also had a go at the indoor water park and went down the 'ZokuZoku Bam!' and 'UzuUzu Bam!' waterslides (You can take a look at the waterslides on this website: http://www.spaworld.co.jp/english/pool.html).

The rest of the afternoon was spent back at the hostel, waiting on a friend of ours to contact us to see if we could organise to meet up for dinner and planning our trip to Hiroshima on the following day. During this time, we meet Shaun, an Aussie bloke who is originally from Perth, who was travelling through Osaka on his way back to Australia from a couple of months working in a snow resort in Japan. When we had determined that our friend was not going to make it to dinner, we agreed with Shaun that the three of us would sample Osaka's nightlife that evening.

We made our way to a place in Namba called Dotonbori. We had been recommended to go there by a couple of other people that we had met in the hostel as well as by the Japan Lonely Planet book. Dotonbori is one of Osaka's busiest nightlife areas, highlighted by stacks of neon signs and filled with bars and restaurants.

After walking up and down the streets for about half an hour, unable to choose a place to eat at, we decided to settle for a place that had nomihodai (all you can drink) written on the front door. The place turned out to be an okonomiyaki restaurant. (Okonomiyaki is the fried Japanese pancake that we have become very fond of while in Osaka).

We cooked our own okonomiyaki on the hot plate at our table (with a few of the locals giving us foreigners some funny looks), but they turned out pretty good and we ended up having a fantastic meal with plenty of drinks. 

After dinner and drinks, we wandered the busy streets while having a beer purchased from one of the local convenience stores to watch the hustle and bustle. After we finished our drinks, it was time for us to head back to the hotel so we wouldn't miss the curfew.

Upon arriving back at our hotel, we indulged in a mid-night picnic which was purchased at the next door 24 hours supermarket. Shaun introduced us to raw beef (we think it was beef anyway) and creamy camembert cheese which tasted delicious. Luckily for the two Aussie girls that arrived after curfew, we were able to hear them from the lobby and unlock the front door for them to let in for the night.

The following day I was feeling a bit worse for wear while we had to travel to Hiroshima. It serves me right for going drink for drink with a bloke who has been backpacking for the past 18 months straight and doing this every other night! It was still a great night out though!

We're Back Baby!!!!!!

You may have noticed that we have been a bit quiet over the past few days on the blog. To be perfectly honest, it probably has mostly to do with a combination of us being too lazy to write a post and also having to rush around from place to place on trains and planes, making it difficult to get on the internet for a reasonable amount of time to actually post an article.

We have been stock piling a couple of articles while travelling over the past few days, planning on posting them when we got to China. All was going to plan, HOWEVER, the good ol' Chinese government has thrown a spanner in the works... You may or may not be aware, but the internet is censored over here in China. We already knew this and kind of expected that websites like www.youtube.com would be blocked, but what we didn't expect was for our blog to be blocked!!!

That's right folks, we can't even get access to our own bloody blog in China to post an article!

You may then be wondering.... well how on Earth did this article get up here!?!

I am glad you asked :)

I was fortunate enough to be able to utilize my awesome computer skillzzzz to circumvent the Chinese government's censorship for enough time on come up with a solution where by we are able to post basic articles on a regular basis.

Unfortunately the articles will look rather drab as we cannot place pictures throughout the article (we can only place a couple at the top of it), but we can at least let everyone know what we are up to and that we are safe and sound. I am pretty sure that we can still upload all of our photos to the Flickr stream, so you can check it to see the latest photos (the link is at the top right hand corner of the website if you haven't found it already).

We can't check the comments section while in China, but will try our best to find a way and post replies if possible.

Stay tuned for the last couple of days worth of our stay in Japan!

Nishinomiya – Would You Like Me To Sing For You?

On Thursday we decided to take another day trip from Osaka to the town of Nishinomiya where we were recommended to go and visit Nishiomiya Gardens, a massive 5 storey high shopping mall which includes a 3 storey supermarket, a gallery, a doggie day spa with dog hotel and a cinema (the cinema was for people, not dogs, although I wouldn't put it past the place to have a cinema for dogs too...). We hadn’t checked what the weather would be like and didn’t take our umbrellas, but we were lucky that the rain decided to hold off and let us walk from the main train station about 15 minutes to the shopping mall.


After looking like a couple of idiots trying to put our backpacks in a coin locker meant for cold foods, we set out to browse through the shops.

Shopping in Nishinomiya Gardens was much more enjoyable than Shibuya 109 (the shopping centre that I went to in Tokyo which was packed with teenage girls), mainly because it wasn't so packed, but also because they actually had proper sizes. In Tokyo heaps of the clothes that I saw were one size only, and the girls in the shop would give you a look which clearly said "but it's not your size". Given, the sizes are sometimes a bit off, like Michael's polo shirt which he had to ask for in EXTRA LARGE, however I managed to find a few shops where I didn't have to ask for the largest size in the shop just to be able to try something on.

I was also really impressed with the food court. I had a delicious creamy pasta with potatoes, corn and bacon which would not have been out of place in a good restaurant. However, the entertainment of the day was saved up for later, when we decided to get a sundae from the Cold Stone Creamery. I got a banana, chocolate, whipped cream and sponge cake creation in a choc-dipped waffle basket, and Michael got something similar except with mixed berries. One of the girls asked him if they could sing him a song about his ice-cream, but he shook his head and said "daijobu" (translation - that's ok you don't have to). But they decided that they would anyway, and proceeded to serenade him with a song about the berry ice-cream, accompanied by percussion (ice-cream scoops being banged on the counter). While we sat and ate our ice-cream we could hear them singing to nearly every other customer with every sign of enjoyment.

The prices were pretty much on par with Perth, so I couldn't really go too crazy with the shopping. Especially once we got to the top couple of floors, where I was starting to recognise brands like Nine West, Stussy, Diesel and Lacoste. But I did manage to find a nice hoody and top (LL Bean - my new favourite brand since I was back to being an XS woohoo!) as well as a nice belt and Michael got aforementioned polo shirt. It's a good thing that they did not have his size for the polo shirt that he originally wanted, since it had a nice big American flag on it and I'm not sure how well that would have gone down in Vietnam...

Nara – That Is One Big Fat Guy!

On Wednesday, Jenni and I took a day trip from Osaka to Nara, the capital city of Japan between 710 and 794 A.D.  We had been looking forward to this since Kyoto because we met a couple of American girls who had told us all about it and even provided us with a map with all of the must see spots circled on it. 

It took about 45 minutes to get there travelling on one of the local trains (slower trains that stop at every station) from the train station next to our hotel. Before I take you through our day in Nara, I will digress for a moment to tell you a bit more about the rail system here in Japan. Simply put it is fantastic. The rail system makes it so easy to take day trips to other towns that are miles away. Osaka is an excellent base city for day trips to neighbouring towns and cities because it lies pretty much smack bam in the middle of the most populated island in Japan (Honshu) only hours away by train to some of the popular touristy cities and towns. From Osaka you can get to Kyoto in about 45 minutes, Kobe in about 45 minutes, Nara in about 30 minutes and all the way back to Tokyo on the fastest shinkansen in about 3 hours! There are usually 3 grades of trains that you can take to get from place to place; local trains that stop at every station, rapid trains that stop at all major stations and special rapid trains that only stop at major cities. The rail system makes Japan feel like such a small country because you can get from city to city in less than an hour.

Getting back to Nara... We got there in the late morning and after a quick breakfast; we followed all of the other tourists to get to the Nara’s main attraction, Nara Park.  The two American girls who had told us all about Nara had kindly given us their map of the area and had drawn out a route for us to take. They had mentioned that there was “an unusual amount of domesticated deer” throughout the parkland. Jenni and I had taken this as the odd couple of deer that we might see that were hungry enough to forget that they were afraid of people and be bold enough to approach us to see if they could get some food. This assumption was proven to be very wrong as we approached the main entrance to Nara Park. There were HUNDREDS of deer mingling with all of the people. I would go to say that there are THOUSANDS throughout the parkland. All are very friendly (although the signs around the park claim otherwise) and are happy enough to walk around you, let little kids pet them, let you sit among them and feed them crackers. Some of them would get rather excited when trying to get food of someone. One poor old lady had one deer chasing after her, giving her a few good nips on her backside because she was holding a bunch of crackers. It was hilarious!

Our route through the park first brought us to the Todaiji Temple. This template was built to house the statue of the Vairocana Buddha (“Buddha that shines throughout the world like the sun”). The statue is absolutely enormous. It is made of cast bronze and was originally covered in gold plating which has now faded at the front. The big statue is flanked by two other statues that are about half its height. There are a couple of other guardian statues behind the Buddha statue. Next to one of these guardian statues was a wide wooden pillar with a small tunnel (about the size of a dog door) cut through at the base of it. There was a line of children in front of it and they each tried to squeeze through it (I assume it signifies some act of bravery or faith). One German guy even had a crack at it and to the crowd’s delight he managed to get through.

Some interesting facts that we learnt about the temple and the main statue were that the main Buddha statue was consecrated in 752 A.D. but was damaged and repaired throughout the following centuries. The actual hall that houses the statue has been twice burnt in the fires of war (in 1180 and 1567), so the current structure is the third generation structure which was built during Japan’s Edo period (1615 – 1867). The temple that houses the statue is ENORMOUS and even though it is a third smaller than the 1st generation structure that was burnt in 1180, it is still ranked as the largest wooden building in the world (not to be confused with the Sanjusangen-do Buddhist Temple we saw in Kyoto which is the longest wooden building in the world!).

After the large Buddha temple, our route took us up the side of Wakakusayama Hill which has a few shrines that overlook the city of Nara. We had really good weather that day so we were able to see for miles at the top of one of the shrines.


The next stage of the route walked us through some of the open parklands where people were having picnics, feeding the deer and doing the sort of family things you see people do in Kings Park (except without the barbeques, plastic cricket sets and footies).

The last major stop on our route was the Kasuga Grand Shrine. The entrance to this shrine is lined with stone lanterns. Once inside, there are 3000 bronze lanterns hanging inside and outside of the various structures in the building. The 3000 lanterns are dedicated to the 3000 Kasuga shrines throughout Japan. Some of the lanterns have been restored to their original shiny bronze plating, but just like the many statues that we have seen that were once plated in a metal, they have all faded. The shrine was founded in 768 A.D. when Nara was nominated as the capital city of Japan, in honour to the deity of Taksmikazuchi-no-mikoto.


After the Kasuga shrine, we made the long trek back to the train station to get our train back to Osaka. All up, we walked for about 4 hours worth through-out the park and probably covered over 10kms during the day, so by the time we got back to our room we were exhausted.