Travel blog.

For the past 2 months all of the China vols have been given time off school and the chance to travel around China. We were given such a long time off due to school exams and Chinese Lunar New Year. Over our travel we spent around 150 hours on trains, travelled over 2000 miles and had an unforgettable experience.
Our first stop was a place in Gan su called Jia yu guan. In Jiayuguan we climbed another section of the Great Wall which was beautiful and not so challenging as the climb in Beijing as it wasn’t so swelteringly hot. We spent around 5 days there, explored the town and did lots of different things. One of my highlights of travelling was in Jiayuguan where we travelled out to the Gobi desert and rode camels. It was such good fun and I want to own a camel now. The second highlight in Jiayuguan was finding baked potatoes, cheese and baked beans which obviously lead to eating this for dinner almost every night I was there. Yum.
We then travelled a further 9 hours north to a place called Turpan in the province of Xin jiang . We arrived and it suddenly felt like we were no longer in China. Turpan has a very large Muslim population and genuinely felt like India or something. There were mosques and temples dotted all around the city and huge bbq areas and bazaars EVERYWHERE which was so cool and different to what we had already experienced in China. We were only there for one full day but we went a beautiful bazaar with amazing colours, silks and food. The best food there were the naan breads mmm..
Urumqi- the capital of the Xin jiang province- was our next destination. We stayed there for almost a week and again was very different to where I had previously visited in China. Urumqi is full of the Uighr and Kazak Chinese minorities which was interesting. We tried out kazak and Uighr dancing in one of the bars near our hostel which is so so different to dancing in bars in the UK (as you can imagine). The hostel in Urumqi was so cosy and homely and all of the walls were covered in messages from previous travellers and foreigners who had stayed there. We also ate turkish food, explored the Southern Mountains, celebrated Lauries birthday, saw mummies at the Silk Road museum which were all such good fun. Then the not so fun part arrived... We spent 36 hours on a train from Urumqi to Xi’An which was incredibly stuffy and quite boring if I’m being totally honest.
We arrived in Xi’An at 2 in the morning very tired and feeling grotty from our long train but as soon as we saw the city we knew it was definitely worth it. Xi’An had the traditional Chinese feeling in my opinion. All the buildings were beautiful and old and the city wall enclosing the city was beautiful. We walked on the city wall and there were loads of decorations such as red lanterns preparing for the Lunar New year which was approaching. The Terraccotta warriors were definitely worth seeing and it was so interesting to learn about how they were recovered and how all the colour was lost. I also bought a minature terraccotta warrior for around 30p which was defnitely money well spent. Xi’an was the first city we visited (minus Beijing last summer) where we could get western food, having a Full English breakfast for the first time in 6 months was wonderful and definitely worth noting in this blog post. Xi An was quite a surreal city in the sense that it was traditional Chinese meets Western. The buildings and city was traditional itself and then in the middle of it was Mcdonalds, Subway, Burger King and loads of high street shops such as H&M. Yes, we did spend a fair amount of time in the clothes shops but thats to be expected after 6 months of no shopping. Right? On the final day we went to the Wild goose pagoda with some Chinese friends we met. Near the Pagoda there were lots of gorgeous water features and statues which felt very Chinesey. That evening we went to the train station for another 30+ hour train journey..Woo!
Our train took us to Shenyang where we stopped off for just over 8 hours. It was pretty boring and pointless to be honest. We arrived, checked in, went to sleep, showered and left for the train station again. We got a bullet train from Shengyang to Harbin which was such a cool and clean experience in comparison to second class train travel on the standard trains. The train was 2 hours quicker than a normal train and was such a comfortable ride. The only downside to the bullet train was we were not notified there is infact a luggage allowance for these specific trains so a few of us ended up having to take our luggage on board. I was genuinely debating just leaving my suitcase behind as it was so heavy but I ended up making the right decision and taking it.
Harbin. So. Cold.
Harbin was the mid point of our travels and by far the coldest city I have ever ever been to. I thought Lanzhou (where we live) got pretty chilly in the winter hitting -15/20 but this was nothing compared to Harbin temperatures. When we were in Harbin there was the Snow and Ice festival so the streets were scattered with ice sculptures which didn’t even melt in the slightest as it was so cold. The cold was bareable in the day time with a substantial amount of thermal clothing but the evening was just so cold. I know I’ve complained about the cold a fair amount but it didn’t stop Harbin being one of my favourite places we visited and it being a beautiful city. One of the evenings we walked down central street and it was all lit up and it felt so magical. That same evening Jess (another vol) and I ate Ice-cream and it was so cold outside you could bite into it and it didn’t even taste cold which was a pretty cool but weird experience. The snow and ice festival was so gorgeous- literally a city built out of ice. We climbed up princess towers made of ice, rode ice horses and went into igloos which aren’t so warm inside atall..
St. Sophias cathedral at night was so pretty and there was a wedding photo shoot which was so cool to watch. We also checked out Harbin night life which was also pretty decent and we found a Russian bar literally filled with foreigners and bottles of vodka for under a pound as Harbin is so close to Russia which is a pretty dangerous move..
Harbin was definitely my favourite city we visited (joint with Shanghai which I will get to soon). We made such lovely friends and one of the girls travelled to Shanghai to see us again which was so nice of her. One of our friends we met on the train from Xi’an to Shenyang also came to Harbin to see us which is pretty nice as people would actually travel across China to spend time with us.
After Harbin we travelled to South to Nanjing which is full of foreigners. It’s pretty bizarre seeing so many foreigners after being the only foreigners for 6 months but it was a nice change being able to eat western food and speak English. Nanjing was a nice city but probably one of my least favourites. We spent a lot of the time exploring the city and one of the days we went to a zoo which was nice but equally heartbreaking and quite horrible. The tigers enclosure was probably no bigger than my living room and kitchen combined which is a distressing thought as they are such larger majestic creatures cooped up in a tiny cage. The rest of the animals seemed a lot better though and we saw pandas in China which was awesome.
Our final stop was Shanghai which was so amazing. Shanghai is the kind of city I thought I would only see on TV or the internet but I actually got to spend 9 days there, and during Chinese New Year. We did so many fab things in Shanghai such as exploring Nanjing Street, burning insence at the Jade Buddha temple and seeing New Year celebrations. We also went to a minion themed party on Chinese New Years eve which was fun. One of the days a few of the China vols got tattoos which was a fun day seeing all the designs and going to a tattoo parlour. Food wise Shanghai was on point. We ate TGI Fridays, Pizza express, Mexican, Indian..
We left Shanghai on the 20th Feb and have been back in our flat since with 10 other vols which was interesting experience considering our place can fit 4 people to sleep maximum. Our entire living room floor was covered in bedding and there was even one volunteer sleeping on the window sill due to lack of floor space. It was really nice having everyone to stay though and showing other volunteers our project. We start teaching again on Monday which I am really excited to get back in to after 2 months of not teaching.
I will update my blog soon with blog posts from my students and what they did for Chinese New Year with their families.
Au revoir x