It's been a bit longer than I hoped since my last post, but nowhere near as long as the last gap so at least I'm getting better as I come into the final stretch. It feels strange to still be writing at this stage - my ticket back to the UK is booked and I'm making more plans for when I return than for the month or so I've got left out here. On the other hand, that means I've (semi-successfully) kept a blog going for the whole of my year abroad! That has to count as some kind of achievement, even if my plan to share illuminating insights into China backfired slightly when I didn't actually have any illuminating insights and the whole thing degenerated into a plain old account of what's been going on in my life.

So, a plain old account of what's been going on in my life it is! I mentioned at the end of my last blog post that I was going on a long trip to several different cities, and now that the administrative nightmare that is splitting a water bill between 11 people who've lived in 5 rooms in all manner of combinations has been resolved, (1) I can tell the story. If it gets boring, then feel free to just skip to the photos, because some of them are actually quite good.

Stop one on my tour around North China was Pingyao, a minor city in Shanxi province that would be completely unremarkable had the old city not been preserved essentially intact, or at least restored to a point where it looks close enough. It's all lovely courtyard houses and temples, the sort of thing that got demolished to make way for ugly, squat, white-tile buildings in all but a few places in China over the last few decades. Needless to say, I was pretty excited to see something 'authentic', to use a word I usually avoid like the plague because it makes me sound like I'm on a Gap Yah. I left Beijing at ten to midnight, armed with nothing but a rucksack, a guitar and a tenuous plan to meet friends who'd already spent a few days travelling elsewhere in the province and told me they had a room booked.

The train was due to arrive in Pingyao at nine the next morning, and everyone was pretty anxious to get to sleep. After a few quick chapters of Maugham's On A Chinese Screen I settled in for the night, spooning my guitar out of paranoia that it would get stolen before realising two things. Firstly, that it was a stupid idea; secondly, that I'd left my (arguably more important) rucksack completely undefended; third, that having the guitar on my bunk meant the strip of bunk left to me was only about a foot wide, and so I was never going to get to sleep. So, I put it on the floor of our compartment and surprise surprise, it was there in the morning.

My first impressions of Shanxi: grey, oh so grey. A lot like Henan, in fact. Pingyao just looked like Beijing probably did twenty years ago as I walked through it (i.e. not nice), that is until I actually got to the old city. Huge, intact rammed-earth walls with guard towers ran all the way around it, and the lack of any taller modern buildings nearby meant the first sight I caught of it was amazing, even on such a cloudy day. Inside, it looked exactly like you might imagine an old Chinese city would, except there were a few more t-shirt stalls and the women's feet hadn't been mutilated. The room we were in was great too, and I finally felt like I was on holiday.

However, the weather was terrible (it actually rained!) and I was tired, so not much happened on day one even after the others arrived. We wandered around the city, tried the local cuisine and then just spent the evening watching Family Guy online with some beers from the supermarket and the carrier bag full of peanut brittle that Ollie, who couldn't speak Chinese, had bought earlier because as he put it "I didn't know how to say 'no' to him and it just seemed easier to give him the money." Why Christoph didn't step in I don't know - maybe he's a huge fan of peanut brittle?

After that, we had a full day to look around the city, and the rain that had fallen yesterday meant the sky was essentially washed clear of whatever had been in it before. One 'Pingyao ticket' got you into all the attractions, so we ended up going round an old martial arts school, a rich family's house, a Daoist temple, a Confucian temple, the Catholic church (which was closed and in massive disuse, so clearly not an attraction, but had the most hilarious no parking signs I've ever seen), the city god's temple (basically another Daoist temple) and a newspaper museum, as well as wandering along the city wall. We went to our hotel's bar that night, and ended up making friends with a group of easily wowed Chinese students for whom meeting foreigners seemed to be the highlight of their trip. One of them in particular was convinced that Christoph looked like Brad Pitt, Ollie looked like Sheldon Cooper and I looked like Vinnie Jones. It turned out they were film students from a nearby university who'd come to do a shoot for their course, and were incredibly eager for us to meet them the next morning to do some filming with them. In our drunk, sort-of-heavily-complimented state, we agreed.

They'd mentioned that they'd rented a house to film in, and that their project was going to be a music video for a Linkin Park song. So, we were expecting utter weirdness, but when we emerged bleary-eyed from our hotel it turned out that all they wanted us to do was wander through the streets with them for a bit, making the usual polite conversation and pointing at things in shops. It must be how CCP officials feel all the time, except none of us had to make a speech afterwards. Shame really, because I always carry a few notes on how adherence to the foundational principles of Marxism-Leninism as applied to the socialist market economy is the only way to ensure the construction of both economic development and spiritual civilisation in the context of China's concrete national conditions in my back pocket just in case of just such an eventuality

Overall our filming experience was strange but very enjoyable, not least because one of the group was a beautiful girl who thought we were all incredibly handsome and kept reminding us of the fact, and had left her boyfriend hungover in bed because she wanted to meet us. A copy of the film that was produced, entitled 'Christoph's trip to Pingyao' (wtf? C'mon guys, just 'cause he's the Brad Pitt lookalike he gets to be the leading man?) was sent to Christoph, but he's adamant that no-one else will ever see it, so I can't comment on the finished product. Yet.

Then we were on the train to Xi'an, in Shaanxi province (we were going from Shanxi. Yes there's a difference. Keep up). My friends both had berths and I had a seat, so I moved into their carriage and sat with them. There was no problem until an arsy train attendant told me I had to go to the other end of the train and pay to upgrade my ticket if I wanted to breathe the refined air of the sleeper carriages (this was an entirely daytime train, and the carriage was almost empty). Once I got to the counter I had to wait two more stops before the feng shui was right, but in the end it was all fine and only cost me 5 pounds. Chinese trains are actually brilliant. The conductor did check the visa page of my passport, which was a little unnerving, but once he heard me speak Chinese he was all smiles, joking that I spoke better Mandarin than the Sichuanese guy standing nearby!

Oh, and earlier on the train as I was walking towards said counter, I saw the scariest-looking convict ever to be publicly transported. Shaved head, huge guy, literal manacles on both his hands and feet and more than one policeman as an escort. Guess that's just how they transport prisoners sometimes. To be honest, I reckon they only risked bringing him on that train because through some hilarious misunderstanding they'd heard that Vinnie Jones would be available in case they needed backup. He was definitely more scared of me than I was of him. Plus Christoph and Ollie are both from Fulham, which is really close to Millwall (probably), so he never stood a chance.

Anyway, it was probably around this time that we crossed over into Shaanxi province. I know that because shortly after I returned to the bunk, the flat plain we'd been riding past was suddenly replaced by an up-close view of the Huashan mountain area. I'm not normally one for hyperbole, but it was probably as close to transcendentally beautiful as anything I've seen. It's definitely a close-run thing between Huashan and the Great Wall in the late morning mist We were driving around the side of the park, so the windows on the right of the train had nothing special to show, but on the left was an impossibly dramatic cluster of lush green mountains, towering abruptly out of gently sloping fields. Every minute or so we'd go past the mouth of a valley and be treated to a brief glimpse of the sort of landscape that gave inspiration to the ancient masters of dynasties long past. Or something like that.

A few hours later we arrived in Xi'an, or rather we thought we did. Our tickets were for Xi'an south station, but we assumed it couldn't be that far out of town. It was already evening as we got out, taxis mobbed us right out of the door, we found one who agreed to use the meter, but who then refused, got petulant and kicked us out. As we were walking back to the station, another taxi pulled up with a minivan alongside it. A guy got out of the minivan, handed Christoph a mobile phone and told him to listen. By this stage, at this time of night, we were pretty sure that we'd be getting off lightly if all they did was mug us. Apparently it was these guys' friend on the other end of the phone, saying in very halting English: "He say very far, two hundred." Assuming this was some kind of devious taxi driver trick, we refused. Fortunately, I'd mentioned to the father of one of the children I tutor that I was going to Xi'an, and had learned he had a friend in the city who would show us around. We gave him a call, he said he'd send someone, and then we walked back to the station and sat inside.

We were waiting for about an hour and a half. Eventually they closed the station and we had to wait outside. Then the lights all went off and everything was pitch-dark. Then, finally, after all the other taxis had left, shaking their heads at the idiot foreigners, the friend of the friend of the friend whom none of us had ever met whom none of us had ever met either(2), came through and saved us all. It turns out that Xi'an south station is in a tiny rural town, about 40 kilometres away from the city itself. Had we known, we could have hopped on another train eight minutes after we arrived and reached the actual Xi'an station, but we didn't check that. It turns out it's important to check that kind of thing. Also important is having rich friends, and from the stylishly small pinstripe blazer to the slightly androgynous haircut to the stone-studded watch worn so loosely it was practically a bracelet, the guy who was looking after us absolutely reeked of money. His house was amazing and the beds unfeasibly comfortable - he actually gave us the run of the house for a few days, moving his family out to the hotel across the street which he also owned.

It was such a shame that we arrived so late, and also that I only had one day in Xi'an before going to Shanghai. After an incredibly restful night's sleep, we had a day to spend in the city. I'd already seen the Terracotta Warriors before in Montreal when some of them were on loan to the Musée des Beaux-Arts (he said, readjusting his monocle), and the museum for them in China is both miles out of town and reputedly not all that impressive, so we gave it a pass (to our host's bemusement) and went to explore the city. We walked through a park where the Tang dynasty palace had once stood before reaching the (largely rebuilt) city walls, where we rented bikes and did a lap. They were much bigger and more impressive than the ones in Pingyao (it took over an hour to get round) but far less characterful given that most of the buildings inside the old city were quite obviously new, and not even built to look old.

After the walls we wandered around the Muslim quarter, saw a nice if slightly decrepit and bee-infested Chinese mosque, ate some dumplings and then headed south to the Dayan Pagoda 大雁塔, built in the seventh century to honour the return of the monk Xuanzang from India with the Buddhist scriptures (3). All the surrounding temples in the park were clearly fake and plastic, but the pagoda itself was amazing. Then, back to the flat in time to pack, shower, get treated to a meal of pig's trotters (which were surprisingly delicious) and rush to the station for a 16-hour overnight hard seat to Shanghai. Even that turned out to be a completely tolerable experience: I had the window seat which meant I could use the table to rest my head, I knew where my towel was (under my head), I had an eye mask and the guy sat next to me got up whenever he wanted a smoke, so I wasn't coughing and spluttering all through the night.

One very relaxing few days and catchup in Shanghai later, I was off again to Qingdao, the other city to which I might have gone this year. The weather's certainly nicer than Beijing, even if my arrival did break the week of golden weather with a sudden downpour. Still, I was hugely excited to be there, because also in the city were three of my Cambridge classmates and even a friend from back in Sleaford! Alex, a friend with whom (we worked out that weekend) I had shockingly few classes together back in the day, had ended up doing Spanish and Chinese at Nottingham and after 6 months in Peru is now out here. We'd been in touch back at the start of the year but it was only recently that I had the opportunity to visit. Alex met me at the station shortly after I arrived and we got the bus to his place. There we bought some beers from the local shop (which weirdly was a SPAR), met his Chinese flatmates who were both lovely, and settled down into a drunken evening watching South Park on Youku. Youku's great.

I woke up the next day after everyone else had gone out - Alex to his classes and his roommates to their jobs - and went out for a quick hike into a small patch of mountains called Fushan that were somehow right slap bang in the middle of the city. Apparently there was a network of tunnels built there by the Germans and then expanded by the Japanese during their respective stints in charge of the area, and I happened to stumble on one. It looked exactly like the sort of thing one might find in Skyrim from the outside and I was hugely enjoying looking around, but using my phone's flash to navigate proved incredibly tiresome after five minutes and I beat a hasty retreat. Once outside I continued scrambling over and around rocks to avoid ever having to actually walk on the paths. It was strange how nervous I got on some of the more exposed sections, but chalk it up to being on my own, in jeans, in a high wind and with a still-dodgy ankle.

It was around this time that I realised Qingdao is a really nice city; right by the sea, with some really smart-looking bits around the old Olympic harbour and CBD. Despite the several miles of urban sprawl around all that, it gave the impression of just being one enormous small town. The local specialty, clams, are incredible too. The next day was a Saturday, so Alex's flatmate Alice came with us as we wandered around town. Eventually she got tired (probably code for 'bored') and went home, but we kept on exploring. The annoying thing was that pretty much everything in the city was closed! The TV tower, the naval museum, the lighthouse... Oh, and the bus schedules led us on a merry dance in the wrong direction so we didn't get to see the old churches from the colonial period up close either. Despite the relatively disappointing day, we went out for even more seafood that night which was if anything even better than before. As the conversation turned to home I realised we were taking part in that most stereotypically Chinese cultural activity - meeting a friend from one's hometown, like oneself an eminent scholar, getting drunk together and reminiscing. Funny really, a bit of distance and a lot of beer can even make you nostalgic for Sleaford. It's just lucky we weren't really in ancient China, because if we were, one of us would probably have been trying to get the other to betray someone. It's how things were done back then.

Since that journey came to an end, my dad's had yet another trip to Shanghai (it's starting to get a bit creepy) and my sister came out with him this time which was great: the first time she's been to Asia! I'm on the way 'back' from seeing them now. I put 'back' in inverted commas because I'm returning from Shanghai to Beijing via Hong Kong, which of course is a colossal detour. The reason is that I want to make sure everything's alright with my visa and that I won't encounter anything like what happened to a classmate of mine over Christmas (literally stopped at the airport and barred from going home). Shanghai's close - er than Beijing - so it sort of made sense. What it means in practice is a 48-hour journey back of which 6 hours are spent off a train. Well, I suppose I've always enjoyed travelling by rail in China, and still haven't really seen much of the south, so here's my chance. UPDATE: Unsurprisingly, the Chinese government doesn't have the slightest interest in me. Everything's fine. And the south of China looks lovely from inside an air-conditioned train.

I've only got around one month left out here now, and I'm unlikely to have anything else worth talking about between now and then, so this may well be the final post on this blog. I mean, having taken probably exactly the wrong sort of inspiration from that millennia-old Buddhist pagoda I may take a trip to Xinjiang with some carefully-selected miscreants, that combines British lad culture with centuries-old Chinese mythology in a way that few outside our group will ever truly appreciate, but if that comes off there's no way I'll be writing about it on the Internet. I've got to have something in reserve to bore people with as they buy me drinks on my return anyway. So, as they say out here, 拜拜！

(1) It turns out it wasn't even our bill - the landlord pays for most utilities out of our rent, but the slips also included estimates of our water use, for which we pay, and were put in our mailbox, hence the confusion. Oh, and to get one roommate's share I had to make a 4-hour round trip to the other side of the city for lunch with two Brazilian models, one of whom was a friend of the ex-roommate and the other of whom was her friend, hiding from the police. They were all out on tourist visas rather than work visas, and model 2's agency had just been busted. (I feel at this point I should mention that obviously they have names, and obviously I remember them, but police!) We were getting live updates via one of model 2's friends as we ate about the police raiding their flat looking for passports as she hid in the toilet. Whoever said that living in China stops being interesting?

(2) Yes that's a syntactically acceptable phrase - Fish fish fish fish fish fish fish fish, Buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo and all that. Linguistics was such a useful paper to have taken last year.

(3) Actually a massive ripoff - the pagoda was originally built in the early seventh century, but fell down and was rebuilt in the late seventh century. Typically, they don't tell you that until they've sold you the ticket. Talk about disappointing Chinese fakes!