Early morning (17 July) we arrived at Gimhae Airport to check in for our flight to Beijing. We planned on staying a few days in Beijing then flying to Chengdu to visit Salome's friend, Werner for a few days and then to do the final leg of the trip and party it up in Shanghai.
The only things we sorted out before departing were our international flights and accommodation in Beijing. The rest we had to do as soon as we got to Beijing. Fun, fun, fun! We were a little nervous, cause we were so chilled about the vacation and didn't do much about it. We decided to just be spontaneous and go and if worst comes to worst, we have two weeks to get to Shanghai to catch our flight back to Busan. Back packs locked and loaded, passports in hand and off we went.
17 July, very early morning we arrived at Gimhae Airport to check in for our International flight and about 2 hours later we were in China! We were a little babbelas from the night before as we partied with friends till 3 am.
Beijing:
First of all, Beijing was not what we expected! When I think about Beijing, I think lights and electronics.. What we got was dirt, ugly rude people and everything else third world. At first it was a little bit of a shock, but turned out to be a lot of fun!
We took the airport shuttle bus from the airport for an hour and then a taxi to the hostel. Luckily Marie hooked us up with a really nice hostel right out side of the Forbidden City. We got a really nice ground floor private twin room right in the courtyard of the hostel. The courtyard is the common area for everyone in the hostel and the best place for beers, card games and the beginning of great friendships.
Day 1:
HOT HOT HOT! China is probably the hottest place I have ever been! Polution, heat and humidity makes it hard to breath. We started our first day with a lovely English breakfast at the hostel. We left straight after and went to Tian'anmen square and headed to the Forbidden City. All along the way the chinese would stop us to take pictures with us. It got weird after a while cause it just didn't want to stop.
At the Forbidden City we had to wait in line for nearly an hour in the heat to get our tickets. The Forbidden City is big and overwhelming. There were so many people and sight seeing isn't really our thing, but we did it anyways. We walked around for a bit and turned around at the Imperial Garden. After a quick tan we decided for lunch!
The Chinese eat weird stuff. We saw dog, donkey and bull frog on the menu. We settled for Vegetarian noodles :)
The rest of the afternoon we spent napping and searching for a place to stay in Shanghai.
We met two really cool French guys, Antoine and Florent, and went for dinner with them in a Hutong area (Old traditional Chinese neighbourhood). We had great fun and a lot of beers! x
Day 2:
After another lovely breakfast at the hostel we booked our Great Wall expedition for the next day. We headed off to the subway station for our first subway mission to go to the Silk Market for some Beijing Shopping. Each subway station has a security check which isn't really practical or very strict. Silk Street/market is a five story building full of little stalls and people who harass you and try to force you to buy stuff. They sell everything from pirated dvd's, clothes, bags, belts and jewelry. We bought some silk scarfs and tried on lots of beautiful jewelry.
For lunch we went to a nice little chinese place with the best noodle soup you can possibly imagine. Again we opted for the vegetarian option. As soon as we arrived at the hostel it started pouring with rain. Good timing, don't you think. We found 'vetkoeke' and 'koeksusters' at one of the nearby shops and chilled at the hostel with our new found goodies to sort out our cash and accommodation for Shanghai.
The fun shopping day was ended off with a few beers in the courtyard with a few card games. We met 3 really cool American girls; Jess, Liz and Laura. Laura just spent 2 years in Mongolia and Liz and Jess joined her in China for the big 'come out' vacation.
Day 3: The Great Wall of China
We decided to do a tour with the hostel to the Great wall and went with the less touristy one. We didn't have the energy to run all over the wall with a million other people. First stop was a Jade factory. It was interesting to look at the Jade, but the actual tour was boring. Salome, Antoine and I just quickly walked through and waited outside. I did learn one thing - How do you know if the Jade is real? If you look at it in the light you can see how murky it is and if you bang something else against it you can hear whether or not it's glass, plastic or jade. Interesting..
Next stop: Ming Tombs. What a lot of ..... The gardens are beautiful, but the actual tombs are the biggest load of fake boxes and a lot of stairs. We walked down 5 flights of stairs to find absolutely nothing. What a waste. We also had a very annoying american family in our bus. The mom of their group couldn't walk properly as she had trouble with her legs and all of them were constantly complaining about everything. Why would you go to the Great Wall if you can't walk???
On the drive to lunch after the Ming tombs, the old american leg lady got sick on the bus and didn't really help my situation. Luckily I survived and forgot all about it by the time we got the the restaurant. We had a delicious traditional lunch.
The Great Wall was all that we expected and more! We took a cable car/ski lift up to the top and walked around for about 2 hours. Most of the time we were the only people on the wall. That was incredible!!! The scenery was breath taking and fortunately we chose the perfect day! We took a toboggan slide all the way down the wall and mountain. It was so much fun!! You could regulate your own speed and everything. It was so hot, it would've been nice if there was water involved!
The next and last stop for the day was a traditional Chinese tea ceremony. It was actually quite nice and interesting.
By the time we got home we basically passed out. Before we fell asleep we found out that Starbucks will be opening in South Africa!!! YEAH!!!!
Day 4: Summer Palace
The summer palace was gorgeous and HUGE!!! Again there were so many people that it was hard to really appreciate everything. We walked around and explored the fragrance temple followed by a boat ride across the lake. After walking over the rainbow bridge we sat down for some ice cream and cool drinks. The summer palace is spread over an area of 290 hectares and absolutely breathtakingly beautiful!
After lunch we decided to explore the Hutong areas around the hostel to see how some of the Beijing people live their lives. The Hutong areas are very traditional and families live very poor and primitive lives. Normally a family of four would live in a single room with one bed. This is where they cook, sleep and do everything else. They might have a separate shower room, but not all of them are that fortunate. A few of these houses would be joined by a court yard and all these houses would share one bathroom. Most of the infants were crotch-less pants so that they can just go anywhere - subway stations, streets, wherever.
We had dinner at the hostel and met up with Jess, Liz, Laura and Florent to plan our excursion for the next day. We planned on going to the Dragon gorge by ourselves and not with a tour.
Day 5: Dragon Gorge
Another early morning. We left the hostel at 6:45 to catch the subway to the bus station where we needed to catch our first bus for the day. At the subway station we met a former biology teacher of the girls, Bandy. She joined us for the day. The first bus was relatively painless and took us 3 hours to the next bus stop. We were so relieved to find out that the bus had air conditioning. It was a little more of a mission to find the next bus as it was a city bus and no one spoke English. Luckily Liz managed to track down the right bus and we were on it in minutes.
According to the Guinness Book of World Records this Dragon Gorge as the longest escalator in the world. It's actually not true, cause it's a few escalators going up the mountain with platforms in between. As we reached the top we took a boat ride through the gorge. It was beautiful! We got off the boat and just chilled to take in the beautiful surroundings. If you've been in Asia, you'll know that it's practically impossible to swim in any public place. Most Asians can't swim so it's forbidden for everyone. Jess, Liz and Laura took the opportunity and snuck in for a quick swim. The guys immediately freaked out and almost dragged them out of the water. I think it was most probably the most action they've seen in months!
When we got the bottom we waited for Jess and Bandy to come down the toboggan slide and we all just spontaneously started dancing round the fountain and getting soaked. Eventually some Chinese joined in and we taught them some dance moves. It was hilarious and so much fun to cool down. We had an hour left before the last bus left for Beijing so we went further down the mountain for another swim. This time we all stripped down for a swim.
By the time we got back to the hostel we were exhausted and hungry. We haven't eaten anything solid the whole day and had to get dinner asap. After dinner I had a quick shower and headed up to the girls' room for some premium mongolian vodka. We also had to drink it Mongolian style. Luckily Laura got some cool drinks to chase it with. In true mongolian style the host has to pour the vodka for each person and hand the glasses to the guests with his right hand and the left hand on the right elbow. You have to accept the glass in this manner as well. The vodka was super strong, but we had a lot of fun taking pictures of each other pulling faces and chasing the shots with cool drink. Eventually Florent also joined us. Florents is such a nice and cute French guy with really bad English. He was just laughing the whole time and that made it all worth while. After Florent changed his sockets (socks) we got into a taxi and headed to Propaganda - a real Beijing club. It felt like an underground type place. It was so cool and seeing that it was ladies night, we all got to drink for free.
At three o' clock Bandy and I took a taxi back home. I had to get up at 5 the next morning to go to the airport. Beijing was awesome! I don't think I'll go back anytime soon, if I do, the Great Wall is definitely on the list!!
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