8 hours of public transport for 1 hour of walking....

Friday Vikki and I had planned another day trip to a place called Qidu that claimed to be 100km’s away from Beijing…last weeks bus trip was that distance and it took us 1 hour…this week it took us three! So we took a taxi to the bus station after getting lost in Beijing and a man motioned us to wait for the right bus number 917. After well over 20 917’s had passed us one eventually stopped and we got on. After a while I got up to look where we had to get off and our stop wasn’t on the route…..we’d already been driving for about half an hour so just thought who cares we’ll see where it takes us. This enthusiasm wore off after about 2 hours! So we showed the ticket lady the Chinese version of where we were headed. She said we were on the right bus! And she would tell us where to get off. The tour book described this place as having beautiful waterfalls, a long suspension bridge and a 10km loop around the mountains and valley.

We got pushed off the bus to this! And told we were here.


It took off and we were left standing in the middle of no where with a few dingy looking houses, dogs and people washing socks. One lady came over telling us to come and eat or we think asking if we wanted a hotel. We tried to explain about our hike and showed her in the book. She’d obviously just been cleaning fish or something disgusting because she had this gross black and white goo stuff all over her hands, and instead of just looking at the paper she grabbed it and was pointing to things. It was gross but I found it hilarious because it was Vikki’s not mine.

She started walking off down the road so we followed her, we walked for about 10 minutes thinking she was taking us to a hotel or something and a car came along the opposite direction. She pulled it over, said something to the guy who nodded, waved good bye to us and turned around and left. The car did a u turn and waited for us to get in…she obviously knew the guy so we decided to give it a whirl. He only drove probably a k up the road and we saw a big sign saying Qidu National park.

Don't know if you can read this by clicking and making it bigger but it cracked me up!





Once again it was deserted I don’t think anyone does anything out doors-y in the winter, and fair enough because it’s not what you’d call beautiful scenery. We walked for probably half an hour and saw an awesome crack in a rock called “the thin line in the sky” (I think) walked up and down some massively steep steps and saw a monk’s attempt at building something to some sort of Buddha on the hill.

Following the map, we headed up the next part of the path, only to be told no by one of the check point dudes with a walkie talkie. We asked why but he spoke absolutely no English and we showed him on the map that we’d only walked about ¼ of the track, all he could say was no and seeing there weren’t any signs saying no admittance and clearly a path, we just started walking. He got all huffy and followed us down the path for a while till we hit the dried river bed. The path kept going but he was standing in the way so we jumped down onto the river bed and had a look around. Meanwhile a group of Asians walked up the path and he started saying something to them. So while he was pre occupied we took off up the river bead and went out of sight. It was a pretty cool walk as there were overhanging rocks and sections of ice everywhere.
We got to a dead end in the river bank where there was a cement bridge that the path met up with. We looked up and saw our friend with the walkie talkie sitting on the bridge looking so smug that he’d beat us here!


The path clearly kept going and we could see foot prints in the dirt so we got pretty annoyed that he kept saying go back. He was talking to somebody on his walkie talkie, so I motioned to the map and said we're just going round the corner to take some photos and see whats there, then we'll come back!

We started walking and we're laughing about it thinking for once it was good to be unable to speak or understand the language and we wondered if he was following us because we couldn't hear anything. Vikki didn't want to turn around because we'd get told to come back again so I had a quick look thinking he'd be waiting on the bridge for us and he was about 20cm behind Vikki! haha he was like a full on stealth soldier! so after another probably 10 minutes walk we came to a big fence with a sign no admittance, even though we were annoyed our walk had been cut short we were happy not to go in there. Vikki however just went to have a look through the fence and the guy thought she was going through and started yelling and screaming for us to turn around...they're obviously hiding some weapons of mass destruction or something in there the way he was carrying on.

We made our way back but still it looked as if he was going to follow us the whole way, so once we had gotten back to "legal" territory we decided to sit in the river bed and eat some of our snacks. Not because we were hungry but to shake this guy off us so we were on our own. We absolutely cracked up when we looked back and he'd sat down on the path behind some grass and lit a smoke!!! we spent the time just eating and chatting and trying to get him in a Where's Wally photo we got up to leave. In that time 2 other guards had come up to have a laugh at us and keep him company but none of them were laughing after we'd sat there for over 40 minutes! We walked out of the park and back to the bus stop where we had to basically run onto the road to wave the bus down or it wouldn't have stopped. Clearly not many people get off here...

Where's Wally? Hint he's near the dead tree!



I was feeling sick so lay down with my head on my bag and slept most of the way home. Vikki woke me up to say everyone was getting off but we had absolutely no idea where we were and no map. We walked down a food market street to buy some noodles for dinner and I went to take a photo of the street.......NO CAMERA..... so there goes that $400...

A guy sat next to me on the bus for like half an hour so unless it was sitting near the top and fell out when I was moving my bag, he must of nabbed it while I was sleeping...Luckily I didn't loose any photo's apart from the mountain but I got Vikki's. I'm not too worried about it but I would love the money back to travel with!

Vikki slept over that night and we had to get up at 6am to make our way to our first Mandarin class. 2 hours of peak hour public transport (saturdays are never quieter) we got to the school. It's just the four of us and two chinese teachers. It was a good class but a long day and freezing with no heating.

I met up with Jessica and Doris and Wangfujing street for dinner before they took me to a concert at the forbidden city concert hall. I had no idea what I was going to see, Wade bought the tickets last week but since Doris was oging and there were stacks of kids I assumed it was a kids concert. No, it was a Danish Girls Chior...... with a few classical piano and organ solo's. Fortunatly I sat down next to an english speaking Dane guy who told me all about it and could tell me what the songs were about. there were a few in English and the last one was in Chinese. Not my favourite form of entertainment but it was a nice theatre and an OK experience. Still not sure why so many kids...

Sunday we all woke up sick so no swimming, just a lazy day of Uni work and lots of planning for the scary open week for parents this friday.

Monday was a nightmare for me, I had the sorest throat and seeing it was the start of a new topic "animals" all the content for the kids was new.

Tuesday - Woke up with completely no voice! but felt ok apart form a sore throat. So I happily went along to school knowing it wasn't possible toteach. The principal wanted me to go home and come and teach on friday to make up a day. I refused saying I have to see if my planning is OK with the kids for open day so I made Sally teach and I just took notes on what was going OK and what was clearly not. After lunch we came to an agreement that I would go home and have wednesday off to get my voice back, teach on Thursday as a final practise for open day and then just come in for the morning classes on Friday with the Parents.

It's now Wednesday afternoon and I still have a shocking sore throat but my voice is a bit better. I'm sure I'll let you know how the dreaded parents day if, and wont be surprised if I'm telling you they've kicked me out, which wouldn't be half bad.

I do not reccomend hiking in boots, stockings and a dress!

Friday after lunch I met up with Rosie and Vikki at a subway station and walked to the Drum and Bell Towers which were towers for telling the time....with drums and bells but staying true to Chinese tradition the Drum tower was undergoing construction so only the bell tower was open. Walked back to Hou Hai where we knew a great bakery was and got conned into buying some DVD's on the way.
I slept at Vikki's and during the night we decided on Saturday to do a day trip from a Beijing book we have. However only deciding this at Vikki’s I had only what I wore that day. (A dress, stockings, and boots that I was to find were in no way shape or form hiking boots or appropriate attire!!!!)We chose Sky Pool Mountain which is near Huairou about 60km's from Beijing and it had a paragraph describing it as a 1km pool inside a mountain with a round walk with little waterfalls and a cave along the way. All the directions we were given was a train station, change to a bus number that goes to Huairou then get on a mini bus to and get off at the mountain....So we left at 7 in the morning and knew how to get to the train station but after that we were walking blind. There ended up being a huge bus depot at the station and we jumped on our bus straight away with nice comfy seats for a change. the bus trip took just over an hour and we hoped off into what seemed like a scene out of Slumdog Millionaire.

There were no sign of any mini buses and not a single touristy looking sign to any mountain so we started walking out but were stopped by a lady offering something we didn't want. We showed her our book and the Chinese word and by this time about 12 other men had come around to have a geez at what was going on. She said she could take us there and back for 150 Yuan we said no way and started walking as though we had another option (it was clearly obvious we didn't... so she followed us) we said 100yuan return and she said no way and drew on her bit of paper that it was 45k's away. So I agreed to this for 120 Yuan if we could pay half and pay the rest if she was still around when we wanted to go back. Thinking we were heading to a minibus full of other tourists wanting to go we followed her to what ended up being what seemed like her tiny blue car. By this time we were pretty sure it wasn't as touristy as we'd first thought.With no idea where she was taking us we put our trust in this strange lady and took off. It ended up being about a half hour drive and after coming very close to having a massive head on because of everybody thinking taking over is ok at ANY time we arrived at a sign that said Pool and Valley. We paid a girl at the gate 20 RMB each (about $4), our lady parked the car took her 60, pointed us up a cement road and walked away.

After a bit of poking around we found some stairs but all they led to was a run down bomb shelter looking thing...until we looked inside to what became the scariest tunnel that would have been perfect for a horror movie! I was pretty roomy but pitch black with sensor lights that were not very sensitive and kept flicking on anf off. After scaring ourselves and running out we waited for an old Chinese couple to come up behind us before venturing in again. It was pretty long and was full of pitch black rooms of to the side which photo's showed were full of vines and things, we were settling down until the lights went out and when they came back on there was a poster of what looked like torture utensils but I'm guessing were just tools.....We think with all the red doors and propaganda paintings on the walls it must of been a communist hideout during the civil war but we have no idea.

We took off up a little cement path into no mans land of trees and mountains to what we thought was going to be a massive pool in a cave and a nice stroll. I turned out to be a 3 hour full on hike up and down the steepest stairs and rocky walkways and trekking across frozen but melting rivers!!! After only a short while we came to an awesome waterfall that was fully frozen solid and looked amazing but continued on looking for this pool in a cave. 3 hours of looking later and going down every goat path available we still hadn't found it so disappointed we found ourselves back at the start where we saw a Chinese couple we'd passed on the way. We asked them to show us where it was on the map and they said it was the waterfall we'd passed in the first 5 minutes!!! And the ‘cave’ was the communist tunnel! haha so we we're pretty happy we hadn't missed it but if we had known we probably wouldn't have done all the exercise so I guess it was a good thing in hindsight.

This is during a massive steep climb of crumbling rocks and steps when we realised it wasn't just a walk in the park!


This is at the top when we realised how unfit we were and were about ready to collapse...


My very innapropriate clothing!

A few times the path dissappeared and we just had to walk down the river that felt like it was very close to melting and you could hear it running under the snow..


All day I looked absolutely ridiculous in my clothes, my feet were killing me and more then once I almost came a gutsa, and everyone that passed us with their hiking boots and climbing equipment couldn’t help a few stares, comments and down turned thumbs! HahaAmazingly the lady was waiting patiently in her car for us! So we hopped back in, thanked her and took the bus back to Beijing with worn out feet and bodies and starving bellies. All in all it was a great day and awesome views and mountain ranges so we’ll definitely give it another go somewhere else!Tomorrow is swimming again I think so if I don’t come back to Australia fitter then before I’ll be a monkeys uncle!


You weren't allowed on this becasue it was extremely wobbly and had a cable above you were meant to harness yourself into but I figured it'd be a good photo!

Dumplings

I was deeply engrosed in a movie on Sunday afternoon and the maid Young Ye that lives here came and beckoned me downstairs.

She'd set up the kitchen table with paper and chopping boards to show me how she makes the dumplings. Unfortunately they were only the thin skinned ones but still pretty yum.

No wonder they need a maid in China when the dinners take so long to prepare! she made the dough hours before and the mixture then made well over 60 of these tiny things that just go in about 15 minutes of eating! anyway here's some photo's and a movie to try to show you how it's done. Apparently she want to open a restaurant which would be good because she cooks some amazing stuff (minus the "fish babies" and dog)

First night out!

Friday was a cruisy day with a bit of uni work and a DVD. I met Rosie and Vik at a subway station near Sanlitun street which is better known and Beijing Bar Street. After walking in the complete wrong direction for about 15 minutes we realised it was right where we got off the train and after asking a few people eventually found it.

workers stand outside all the bars and resturaunts with menu's and specials trying to convince you their food is better then next door, but we ended up just eating at a little cafe style place with hot chips and chocolate muffins!!

First up we went to Bar Blu which we read about in the Lonely Planet we got there about 9:30 but it was still pretty quiet, We all ordered a cocktail not knowing they came with a free shot! but ended up only being a bit less then $10 each and they were huge. Rosie and I got chocolate banana something and Vikki got a coconut one. Sat around there and was entertained by the few asians that were showing off their dance moves then went looking for somewhere we could have a dance to work off all the oily chinese food we're constantly eating.

Not knowing where everything was we latched on to a group of foreigners to see where they were going. Just around from Bar Blu was a whole row of dingy (but packed) little pubs. We got another drink for $2.50 but didn't end up drinking it because it tasted disgusting and started to dance. I think we spent more time cracking up at everyone around and mimiking their dancing then doing much ourselves, it was a very funny night. After spending about half an hour in each of the 3 different places we went outside to get some air and water and started talking to a few French and Americans. They said that Sanlitun used to be where all the foreigners came but then the Chinese heard about it so now the foreigners go to another place! haha so we walked with them a few streets to a massive club but after a few minutes in there we were over it and too hot. Just back a bit from that was a cool little place called the Rickshaw which we went with one American guy working for Apple over here for the same amount of time as us and doesn't know many foreigners either. Chatted for a while and had some awesome guacomoli (can't spell) which they bring out all the ingredients seperately then mix it all up in front of you with a motar and pestle, and also some yum stuff kinda like nachos with mince and cheese but instead of the chips it was backed slices of potato!!

Caught a Taxi back to Rosies mansion!!! and slept there the night.

Saturday we went back to the Silk Street markets to show Rosie and Pip, I wasn't buying anything but out of interest tried to get iphones down to 100yuan ($25) I got it to 200 pretty easily but they are all clearly copies as the images are really dodgy and the settings are heaps older style so I don't think I'd trust them, I also spent some time checking up on the other tourists who you can hear being massively ripped off like two americans dudes who typed 1800 yuan into the calculator for the same iphone as I'd just got down to 200 yuan!! (they didn't buy it) haha but the Chinese worker wasn't very happy with me telling them I didn't know what I was talking about.

Had a yummy street lunch of some crepe thing with egg and green stuff and sauces and so far my stomach has been behaving! Then I left the girls and took a taxi to meet Steve Cox a guy here from England. We went to his place and I met a few of his Chinese friends then we went out for Jaozi (jowzer - dumplings) at a north china style resturant.

Sunday slept in till 8:30 which was great! Then after a nodle breakfast went swimming again with Doris and Wade. Before eating "fish babies" for lunch haha

Shanghai

On Thursday night three of us all made our way to the Beijing Railway and hopped on a sleep train to Shanghai. It's an 11 hour trip but it was great because we had to get the most expensive ticket as the rest were sold out so we had a soft sleeper which cost around $250 return.

After a quick dinner at a Japanese restaurant we found our Harry Potter style platform after asking more than one authoritive looking figure for directions in the huge station. We had a great cabin in the soft sleeper section and the forth bed was left unoccupied which was a nice change from being surrounded by millions of them. Our wake up call was at 6:30 and staying true to the culture, consisted of a no-knocking, door-opening with a screech of a few unrecognisable words.

We had been told Shanghai was much warmer then Beijing at this time so we only had one outfit and no big jacket, which worked ok if you were walking (fast) or inside but it was still pretty freezing.



We arrived with nothing but a subway map and a scribbled address of a Backpackers Hostel but after realising the hostel was miles away from both the French Concession and the Bund (Shanghai’s two main areas) we had to find somewhere else to stay. The subway took us to Huai Hai Road which is a massive shopping road and we were told there were lots of Bars and restaurants around thus thinking there would be tons of foreigners and cheap hostels. After walking for about an hour we had found none of these things and finally went into a ritzy looking Hotel which had an Australian flag out the front. Here we got a proper map of Shanghai and was told the cheapest place in the city was a students Hotel just next door. It wasn’t cheap and after looking at one of the rooms quickly decided against that idea. The map took us to another street claiming fame for it’s bars and eateries and just as we were turning into it I spotted a tourist information booth, we all rushed to signal the taxi driver to stop and went in to ask about cheap accommodation. The lady could hardly speak a word of English and eventually told us that because Shanghai was such a busy and modern city there were no cheap youth Hostels in the city. Back at square one, while we were being obvious tourists standing on the side of the road with our map flailing in the wind, a Frenchy walked past and asked if we could use some help. We all cried “YES!” simultaneously before even looking who was speaking to us and he proceeded to point us to an International Youth Hostel around 4 blocks away from the tourist info booth!! Eventually, after getting some more directions along the way, we saw a green sign pointing us down a dingy alleyway. The Hostel was nice and we paid about $15 for a 4 dorm room which we shared with another Chinese girl. We had a quick breakfast there which was the choice of: plain scrambled eggs, scrambled eggs with bacon and green in it, and hard boiled eggs, on toast.

After talking to some Poms and Sweeds at the hostel we planned a little self guided tour. First up was the site of the first national congress meeting of the communists which has been made into a mini museum showing the founding of the party. It was pretty interesting but not sure how much bias is involved in things like that. I found it funny that they praised all the founding members but when reading the captions next to their names more the two thirds of them were executed or put in prison for treason!
Next up we went to People’s square/park for a few photo’s and got chatting to some Chinese uni students from Xian who asked us to take a picture. Because we had no plans set in stone they offered for us to come with them to see a cultural show. It sounded fine but after asking what the show was about they said “Just some Uni student’s artwork and we can drink some tea.” Immediately we all said No and walked away. Although this sounds like a safe enough offer this was about the 6th time we had been asked this since arriving in China on different occasions. Recently all tourists have been warned to refuse offers to visit Uni Art exhibitions and tea drinking sessions as it is a set up which you end up being accused of either buying something or owing a lot of money and is apparently a very scary and intimidating experience that you come out of a lot poorer. We read it in my lonely planet guide and it was on the hostel notice board as well.

Next we made our way to the Yuyuan gardens which are in the middle of a maze of beautiful old building that have been converted into markets and dumpling shops. They are mostly made of rocks which is great maintenance for the non-gardening type like myself. While we were in there we got sucked into having one of those photo’s taken wearing the traditional Chinese clothing as we didn’t have any souvenirs from Shanghai yet. It was hilarious and we became the laughing stock of every tourist in sight feeling like some distorted photo shoot as stacks of Chinese cameras were flashing in our faces. Turned out to be not a great photo as we were all trying not to laugh but it’s a funny memento.

We grabbed a quick lunch drinking tea that tasted like the Murray River and after being unable to find an empty taxi made our way to the Bund. It’s a strip of river with modern city buildings lining one side and Old buildings built by all different countries business men like banks and hotels on the other as every county back in the day wanted their little piece of culture in Shanghai. It’s quite beautiful in a city sort of way.

Dinner was an attempt to find an Indian style place recommended by the Lonely Planet we’d borrowed from the Hostel but after thinking we found it and not liking the look of all the men smiling and beckoning us in to eat we kept going and found a Nepalese Restaurant. It was in a tiny building but had a tiny staircase that just kept going up. We ate on the fourth floor and it was amazing food with great pictures of Tibet and Nepal decorating the walls. The photo makes it look bright but the only lights were tiny tea candles and dimly lit wall lights so it was nice and relaxing.

The street we were on also had a few Bars recommended by the book and the Sweeds from the hostel. The main one we wanted to find happened to be right next door to the Nepalese place but we would never have found it otherwise. It was just an opening in the wall with a metal staircase and no lights apart from 9 holes of light on the back wall. It is called “The People” and either side of the light is big steel prison doors. The only way to get in is to put your arm into two of the holes in the right order. Twice the wrong door opened which just had a mirror with the word “gotcha” on it but finally we got the right combination. It was a super nifty place with a few levels of darkened restaurants and a massive steel bar. We ordered one cocktail each with no idea what we were getting. Vikki’s was milky and pink, Mine was called the Broken Romance and was bright green and icy and Rosie got a Purple Crystal which was really sweet and…Purple. We went in search for another Bar but ended up walking around getting too cold and after looking at some city lights we got a taxi home.

Saturday morning we were all craving some nice pastries or bakery things and with Shanghai having a lot of French influences we found a great sounding one in the Lonely Planet called Croissantsde France. We got a taxi to where we thought it was then spent the next house and a half getting more and more hungry and frustrated at locals not knowing their streets. We felt like we were in the middle of nowhere and just as I was about to eat my own arm we saw it! The food inside was soooo good with chocolate croissants, cheese and bacon-y things and doughnuts which made it well worth the walk.

Made our way again to the Bund and went on a 1 hour river cruise (in the boat you can see on the water...) It was one big rip off so lucky it was only $12 it went for about 40 minutes tops and only cruised the bit of the river we could see anyway. It started saying some history about the building about 10 minutes before we got off and you could hardly understand the recording anyway.
(China Wouldn't be China without some construction to ruin the beauty!)


Typical German's....No one understands why they do what they do... who pay's for a boat tour just to do exercise?

Lastly we went to the former residence and museum of Dr Sun Yat-Sen who was the President of the republic of China, we didn't really know anything about him but turns out he was the guy to transformed the whole of china from the feudal system by helping overthrow the Qing dynasty in 1911 and turning china into a modern republic. We wondered why he would be still seen as such a hero now that the communist party rules but apparently after he left presidency and was old he sided with the communist members before he died. He was also known for making all the men cut off their long plaits (there was one gross one in the museum) becasue it represented the Feudal idea of peasantry and servitude which I thought was pretty interesting.

After that we were pretty much exhausted and Shanghai has no where near as many things to see as Beijing so we went back to the hostel to relax and watch a movie before we had to get to the train.

Again we had our own cabin and had a good trip back. We got into Beijing around 7 Sunday morning, and we made our way back to our homes all ready for a nice easy day. I had breakfast with Jessica and Doris then found out we were going swimming at 10am with another mother and girl. We went to an indoor pool that was sooo much nicer then the spooky one I went to by myself and swum for about an hour before a massive lunch, on the way home I found out I was going shopping..so we dropped Jessica and the girls off and the just the other Woman took me out, it didn't last long because she couldn't speak barely a word of English so we just wandered around smiling to each other then came back... It was really close to my house though so it's great to know it's there now.

Today I did not want to go back to the Kinder and at 4 o'clock when I usually try to go home I was told (without any warning) that the "new" baby class is waiting to be taught and that this is their very first english lesson...... I was pretty annoyed because of the lack of warning so I had to try even harder to feign absolute excitment and on top of that half the kids cried at the sight of a foreigner anyway. (I'm trying not to take that personally) haha so for 20 long minutes I sat there with nothing prepared and attempted to count to 3 in many different ways and said "hello" about 500 times which about 3 of them replied to. So I have no idea how i'm going to come up with 4 months of lessons for them but we'll see what happens.