China (Part 2)

Am a little behind in these entries, so I'll try to summarise the 3 weeks into one post.

From Shanghai, we took the train to Xi'an (pronounced Shean - obviously!). Our hostel had agreed to meet us at the train station (the train arrived in at 5:30am) and we were happy when we emerged from the crowds at the station and saw a guy holding up a sign reading 'John King'. We were at one side of the barrier and he was at the other so he told us to just walk around to where he was (round trip of about 20m). Simple enough, we thought. But when we walked around, the guy had disappeared! After waiting for about 15/20 mins and searching the immediate area for him we accepted that he had left us behind. We took a taxi to the hostel and when we were checking in told them about the guy leaving us behind. "We're very sorry", they said, "please have a free cup of coffee in our resturant". Fair enough, we thought and did so while we waited for our room to be prepared. Then we saw the sign on the wall saying that all guests get a free cup of coffee while waiting for their room - welcome to China, we thought :-)

While in Xi'an, we made a trip to the Terra Cotta warriors - one of the biggest tourist attractions in China. They were quite impressive, but we were hoping to get a little closer to them. Unfortunately, they are set up so that you look down onto them from above and you don't really get that close.

In Xi'an, we also hired bikes and cycles around the city walls - a round trip of 14km.

From Xi'an, we took a 17 hour train journey south to the city of Chengdu. In the sleeping car lottery, we were assigned to a chain smoking chinese man. Thankfully he didn't smoke in our confined compartment, but did spend the entire journey (day and night) coughing up flem into a bin the way only chinese people can. Thankfully he was in a lower bunk, so didn't have to spit past any of us :-)

The hostel we stayed in at Chengdu was the cheapest we had come across so far, with beds for as little as EUR 1.50 per person. We decided to splurge and spent a whopping EUR 7 on a room to ourselves. About 10km outside Chengdu, is a Giant Panda breeding centre, complete with Giant Pandas (both big and small) and embarassing videos showing all aspects of how the scientists carry out the breeding. Autumn is the time when the baby pandas are born so we were lucky to see some new borns about the size of a kitten. They were all in incubators and we expect that the pandas get better health care than most Chinese people!

We booked ourselves onto a 4-day cruise along the Yangtze river, and ended up meeting up with a nice bunch of Europeans on an otherwise chinese boat. We were even blessed by being assigned 2 germans in the sleeping compartment lottery! Most of the Yangtze river is polluted and covered in a layer of smog, but part of our tour included a trip up into 3 little gourges which were really quite spectacular (although not as good as I'd seen in Norway).

By the time we arrived at our destination we decided we had spent enough time in China and so made a bee-line for Hong Kong.

Shanghai

We arrived in Shanghai (again) on October 1st. We had been travelling for just over 2 months, been through 10 countries and about 15 cities, but I have never seen so many people in one place as we saw when we arrived in Shanghai!

You see, in China almost the entire population (1.3 billion people) are given their holidays at the same time. One of these holidays is some time in May, but unfortunately for us, the other time is on National Day which is actually a week long holiday, beginning on Oct 1st. It's bascially the Chinese equivalent of St. Patricks Day except without the drunk school children :-) After 3 days, we decided we'd had enough of the crowds so booked a train to Xi'an (home of the terra cotta warriors).

Unfortunately for me, my strongest memory of Shanghai will not be the crowds...

I had really grown to like the Chinese food and given that it's so cheap there's no reason at all not to eat out all the time. On one particular evening, I decided to head out to a resturant I spotted nearby to our hostel (luckily for her, Kate wasn't hungry). When I walked in to the very well decorated resturant, I was quite surprised to see that the whole place was empty - in fact, even the staff even seemed shocked that they had a customer and not only that, but a western customer!

Immediately, I was ushered in and seated at their best table. It seemed that the staff couldn't do enough for me. I had no less than 4 people fussing over me, all smiling and delighted to have a 'celebrity' in their resturant. One was removing the extra place settings, another was straightning out my own place setting. Somebody put a napkin on my lap and someone else poured me a cup of chinese tea. A few of the kitchen staff even ran out to have a look and giggled at the spectacle of a non-empty resturant.

Then I was presented with the menu - no english, no pictures.

I didn't want to offend them by just getting up and walking out (they had genuinely done their best to make me comfortable) so I just asked for 'chicken?'. One of the staff - the only one with English - pointed at something and told me in his best pigeon-english that this was chicken. I said ok and also asked for rice.

One person took the order off to the kitchen and the rest of the staff bascially just stood next to me, staring at me in their big empty fancy resturant, smiling at me and to each other. I didn't know what else to do but smile back and laugh to myself, wondering what I'd gotten myself into.

I was surprised when the food arrived so quickly (less than 2 minutes) and even more surprised when I saw what was presented to me. It was literally half a chicken, cut right down the middle - barely cooked - including half a head, half a beak, half of all the guts inside and one eye! The outside was a pale yellow colour. I didn't know what to do except laugh to myself and start eating the rice. One of the smiling staff had a brainwave and realised that I must not be eating the chicken because I didn't have a knife and fork (only chopsticks). He then brought over a knife and fork, and pointed again at the chicken... I looked around again and saw all the smiling staff standing right behind me. There was nothing else to do except find the leanest bit of chicken and eat. This is when I found out the chicken was cold! No wonder it took 2 minutes to prepare!

This pic (taken elsewhere, afterwards) shows something similar to what I was served.

I poked away at my chicken and ate my rice for about 20 minutes. At this point many of my fans had given me some space and went back to whatever there is to do in an empty resturant. I used the lack of attntion as my escape route and ran out of the resturant, saying "thank you" and "I wasn't very hungry anyway" to whoever I met.

That was the worst EUR 2.60 I ever spent!

Fast trains, typhoons and electric toilets (Japan)

Arrgh! I had just written my account of Japan when a cat from the hostel here jumped on my keyboard and deleted everything! D'oh! Here we go again...

We spent two weeks exploring Japan with the benefit of a Japanese Rail Pass which gave us unlimited travel on most of the trains, including their super fast Shinkansen, or 'bullet' trains!

We also managed to get stuck in a hostel for 2 days while it rained solid because of a typhoon! The typhoon even managed to overturn a train just 50 miles from where we were staying! Thankfully this was not on our train line, so our onward journey to Hiroshima ran as planned :-)

When we arrived in Hiroishima, we were met by Eoin Mallin's brother, Greg, who lives here with his wife. During our few days here, he and his in-laws took great care of us, showing us around the city and the nearby sights and also cooking an absolutely magnificient traditional Japanese home cooked meal. I wasn't sure what to expect when I was asked to break a raw egg into my bowl (to dip the food into) but it was delicious!

Hiroshima is, not surprisingly, quite a modern city but the highlight is the Peace Park which is situated almost directly under where the atomic bomb exploded. As well as nice grassy walkways, etc. it has an extensive museum giving you all the information you need to know (and some things you probably didn't want to know) about the bomb. At the back of this photo on the right, you can see the 'A-Dome', one of the few buildings which withstood the explosion - very errie to witness!

We also spent a bit of time in Tokyo. It was impressive when we first arrived, with all the bright lights and typical Japanese efficiency, but we soon got tired of the sheer number of Tokyo-ites who were so obsessed with their appearance and the numerous designer stores lining the streets. Everywhere we went, we saw people looking in hand held mirrors fixing their hair, or adjusting their cap so that it is just a little crooked, or whatever. Not me! It was not uncommon to see 2 or 3 people (men & women) sitting in a cafe, and rather than talking to each other, they would be 'fixing' their appearance.

Thankfully, we also got to meet down-to-earth Eric, a friend of Kate's brother, who has lived in Japan for the past 25 years. He took us out one evening and introduced us to a nicer side of Tokyo. When he heard that we had not yet sampled sushi, he had a mission! Kate actually loved it, but considering that I don't even eat cooked fish, leaving it uncooked didn't exactly make it more appealing! Anyway, I gave it a try and it was not as bad as I was expecting.

I'll finish up with a quick mention of Japanese toilets (sorry - I have no photo's!). Let me just say that if something can be automated then the japanese will do it! You can now do your business and when you're finished, you just press a button and are - ahem - cleaned. Fancier toilets even blowdry when you're all washed! And if you hate the feeling of sitting on a cold toilet seat, then fear not... you can even set your desired temperature!

Not Back in the USSR

...or so the song doesn't go.

Our original plan was to re-enter Russia from China and then get the ferry to Japan from Vladivostok (the end point of the Trans-Siberian Railway). But after the welcoming we received from the Russians on our trip so far and the added hassle of getting a new russian visa, we decided to skip the re-entry idea and go straight to Japan. The extra time that would be freed up could then be used travelling in more hospitable countries!