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Ne-How! Hope everyone is well.
We have just spent 10 days in China. After all the visa problems and all the horror stories of spitting, rats on transport, language problems and food problems, we were pretty apprehensive. However, we had a fantastic time and would loved to have had more time.
We arrived in Beijing feeling pretty nervous, and this wasn't helped when the hostel hadn't come to pick us up. So we had to pay quite a bit for a lift into the city centre, however it ended up being a very posh car, and the driver got us straight to our hostel (Wangfujing). It was fairly late in the evening so we decided to have some dinner in the hostel and a beer, before bed!
The next day we went to the Forbidden City, the Imperial Palaces home to the Emperors of China. The grounds were vast and very impressive. The Chinese did seem to find us a source of amusement and we were asked to be in several photos. Andys hairy legs were also causing a giggle and a stare, which i thought was hilarious! We spent around 3 hours wondering aroud the grounds, but could have spent longer as there were around 6000 exhibits! Unfortunately one of the main buildings was under refurbishment, so we couldn't see the internal exhibits and the outside was covered in scaffolding! But there was plenty more to see. Next we went over the road to Ti'anamen Square a huge public space, a place where thousands of people were killed during protests in the late 80's (remember the image of the guy being run over by a tank?). While we were taking photos of the obelisk, I had a women ask to take a picture, I thought she wanted me to take a picture of her and her child, only to have the child thrust into my arms and pictures taken of us! Very bizzare, and the kid looked a bit posessed to be honest! But quite funny!
The following day we were up really early to go to the Great Wall of China. We had a 3 hour bus journey to the part of the wall we were hiking, but it took 4.5 hours as there was an accident, and torrential rain. Te rain hadn't stopped by the time we got there so we zipped up our coats, put on our hats, pulled over our hoods, and headed up the hill. The "guide" we think gave out some instructions of which way to go but nobody understood him and he promptly disappeared so we all stuck together and made our way. The Wall was amazing, even in the rain and the mist. It was disappointing that we couldn't get a long distance view, but the low thick mist made the scenery very dramatic. The hike was quite tough going especially as the rain made it very slippy. We walked 10km, from Jinhalsing to Simatai, which took 4 hours, including some very steep steps and although some of the wall had been restored in sections, other parts had some interesting obstacles. We were pretty tired by the end of the hike so decided to get the zip wire down the mountian, instead of walking, which was pretty fun. But then had to sit on the bus for 3 hours soaking wet and freezing cold, which wasn't the best. But a nice hot shower, a couple of beers for Andy, and a glass or two of Great Wall wine for Ali, warmed us up nicely!
The next morning, after a nice lie in to rest our legs, we jumped on the subway up to the Olympic Village for the 2008 Beijing Games. We were quite shocked at how far the village was from the subway and the lack of directions and signposts. When we eventually found it the staduims were very impressive, and huge. The athletics staduim is known as the Birds Nest as the exterior construction looks like ... a birds nest! The aquatics centre which is right next door is known as the Ice Cube, a huge cube building which has hundreds of seperate panels joined together which change colour! This will look fantastic at night time, but unfortunately we didn't get to see it. The only worrying thing is that we both feel as though they will struggle to get it finished in time, as there was a lot of construction work still on-going in and around the staduim, to the point that we had to walk down the dual carrige way in order to see it, as there is no path! We will just have to wait and see! That night we went to a market and saw live scorpians on a stick and seahorses ready to be eaten!! We didn't have the stomachs for it though!
This was also the day of the devastating earthquake in Southern China. Despite reports back home that it was felt in Beijing, we did not feel a thing! To our relief! We didn't actually know about the earthquake until the following morning after we had flown to Xian...
Xian is approx. 1200km south of Beijing and is the only City in China to still have a full City Wall in place. We stayed in the sister hostel to the one in Beijing, and so had very similar facilities. Xian is also the home of the Terracotta Warriors which we went to visit on our second day in the city. The story goes that an Emperor had an army built out of clay and placed in battle formation around his tomb, once he had died. The army was placed underground and not discovered until 1974 when farmers digging a well discovered it. Apparently there had been no previous documentation that the site existed. Since then the whole area has been excavated to unearth the warriors, and has become a major tourist attraction. It is pretty sad in a way that despite the warriors being very impressive the whole area has been flattened and covered in concrete. There are 3 different pits, the first containing the majority of the warriors - Officers and some cavalry men. A lot of the warriors had been smashed to pieces and some efforts are being made to piece them back together. The second pit was of a meeting room and the third contained the horses and carriages, as well as more warriors. The whole place was amazing, to see all the warriors in the first pit lined up one after another, and each warrior had a different face therefore making them look even more realistic. We were slighty suspicious of the authenticity of it all as when we asked the guide why they had stopped digging up the remaining few thousand warriors, she replied that it was just too much work! We also could not understand how there had been no documentation and yet our guide told us a lot of stories about the warriors, and when they were built, and about other Emperors discovering them and stealing all the weapons. Also we had stopped off at a factory beforehand where they made replicas of the warriors, which made us even more sceptical! However we're sure they are genuine (!) and it was absolutely amazing, and shows the handicraft of the people all those years ago.
The following day we cycled around Xian city wall which was pretty cool! The wall was much wider than we expected it to be and it was 14km all the way round. The wall was in a really good condition, although the cobble stones made for a bumpy ride! It was great to see the views over the city, and we got nice and sweaty cycling the 14km in the scorching heat! There was also a great craft market in the city and a brilliant underground bar in the hostel where we had to have a few drinks to be polite!
As before, we decided to fly to our next destination - Hong Kong - as we could not face a 24 hour bus after our recent experiences in Vietnam! However, we ended up flying to Shenzhen in the very south of China and jumped on a bus across the border into Hong Kong which saved us a couple of hundred quid compared to flying direct! Hong Kong was excellent as well and rounded off our Chinese experience very nicely. The amount of sky scrapers is unbelievable but makes for some great scenery. However we did stay in a bit of a dodgy hostel/hotel/g'house/dump. The reception was in a 'nice' pink building and up on the 11th floor which took a good 5-10 minutes in the 'nice' lift. But our room was in another building 2 blocks down the road! A very odd set up! This meant that anytime we wanted anything we had to put on our hiking gear to go get it! And our room-mates had a cockroach look to them! Despite this the subway was very close and as with most countries we've been to, was very efficient and easy to use which meant we could go and explore very easily. As with Singapore there were a lot of shopping centres (a lot) and everything was very expensive! Probably the highlight of our long weekend in Hong Kong was the light show on the water front of Hong Kong Island, where we were staying. We got the Star Ferry across to the mainland and the water was very rough to say the least! The light show begins at 8pm every evening and consists of miles of skyscrapers along the island illuminating and putting on quite a show all in time to the music being played! Another highlight in Hong Kong was the Avenue of Stars, their version of the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and we saw stars for such people as Bruce Lee, Jet Li, Jackie Chan and a guy called Andy! We also visited the picturesque Hong Kong Park before getting the historical Peak Tram up to the Victoria Peak. The ride only lasted about 5 minutes but was very enjoyable as the tram almost goes vertical up the hill! And despite a small scattering of cloud the views from the top were amazing.
Well next stop Australia...
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