Wednesday, March 27, 2013

My Spring Festival Extravaganza - Part 3


The final stop on our journey was the so-called ‘Paris of the East’: Shànghăi! It certainly did not disappoint! We didn’t have a huge list of sights we wanted to see, unlike Běijīng and to a lesser extent Xī’ān, so we were quite content to just wander around for a few days enjoying a new city. Unfortunately, what with it being Spring Festival and therefore insanely busy, we weren’t able to go via train to Shànghăi so we had to fly. Not all bad of course, quick and easy – despite a little (or a lotta) lighter trouble…

I have to say, I LOVED Shànghăi! It was everything I was expecting: bright lights, cosmopolitan demographic, beautiful (European-looking yay!) architecture in places, incredible skylines – the works! It goes without saying that this is definitely a city worth a visit, and I wish we could have stayed longer than a few days! 

Our first evening was spent wandering the area near our hostel which happened to be East Nanjing Road – where the first shopping centres in China were opened in the 1920s. According to Lonely Planet, Shànghăi’s reputation as the country’s most fashionable city was partly created here, once known as Nanking Road. For some reason there were an excessive amount of people selling detachable rollerblades whenever we walked through. Whatever.

East Nanjing Road at night

We began our first day with a walking tour of the Bund. The Bund was once Shànghăi’s Wall Street being home to the most powerful banks and trading houses in the city (Thanks again Lonely Planet!). Now however, it’s known for its fancy restaurants, bars and boutiques with kick-ass views of the Pŭdōng district of Shànghăi (see below!).

A couple of pictures from the stone carvings
from the Monument for People's Heroes on the Bund
My brother and I in front of the Pŭdōng skyline


Top left: Union Church dating to 1885;
top right: Bank of China building, commissioned in 1936;
bottom left: Bund - fancy shops; bottom right: more Bund

Fresco above the entrance to the former home of
the North China Daily News, which ran from 1864 to 1951.
Spot the mistake? 

I think it was the next day, and again we were just wandering, and we ended up at a VERY crowded area – I can’t remember where it was sorry! Here’s a few pics of Spring Festival decorations for you to enjoy though!



One of the highlights of Shànghăi for me, and one of sights I wanted to see was the World Financial Centre. Like Hong Kong, I really REALLY wanted that night-time skyline photo, and one of the best places to get it is the 100th floor of this building. It was insanely, ear-poppingly high but what a view! Like my HK experience, it was foggy in Shànghăi too, but luckily not too bad as to mean it was a wasted journey.
Nifty little model of the city!
 
From top left to bottom right: shows the various
stages of the city being lit up


The last place I fo sho wanted to visit while in Shànghăi was the French Concession. It once housed the bulk of the city’s revolutionaries, gangsters, writers and prostitutes, but now is known for its architecture and many-a restaurant and cute little shop – great for souvenirs! Quite maze-like and deceptively large, the area we visited was Tiánzĭfáng and had loads of little boutiques selling everything under the sun. I loved walking around the area! So cute and felt like I wasn’t even in China anymore! Bliss.
The French Concession
I'll leave you with this:
one of the freakiest things I've ever seen.
Why? Just why?


 So... there you have it! My whole Chinese New Year holiday. I can’t tell you how happy I am I got the chance to leave Fúzhōu, experience more of China, be a tourist for a while and see my brother. It’s a trip I’ll never forget and just made me want to see more of this crazy world we live in! You only live once after all right? 


I bid you adieu!
xoxo

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

My Spring Festival Extravaganza - Part 2

After our week in Běijīng, we boarded a 19-hour sleeper train to Xī’ān! I was incredibly curious about a Chinese train, especially one I would be on for so long, but it turned out to be not that bad at all! Now we went for ‘soft sleeper’ tickets for that little bit of luxury as the ‘hard sleeper’ areas sort of looked like hell. Luckily, due to a mix-up with tickets and a man not wanting to be near the token foreigners, we ended up getting a cabin to ourselves! Sort of felt like we were going to Hogwarts (I wish). 
Left: our cute little cabin.
Right: the toilet... Actually better than I was expecting.

So we arrived in Xī’ān around 8am, made our way to the hostel then headed out to explore – we only had a couple of days after all. I personally thought Xī’ān was such a beautiful city! At least inside the old city wall area – and we didn’t really explore much outside of it to be honest. We did visit the Muslim Quarter which was heaving! Full of souvenir shops and food stalls, it was a very interesting area for sure. Great meat kebab thingys too. 

Upper left: Bell Tower. Upper Right: Drum Tower
Lower two: parts of a fresco we saw
Muslim Quarter

The obvious highlight of this portion of our trip – the sole reason we went to Xī’ān really – was the Terracotta Warriors. There was a bit of a hiccup in that the first day we tried to find the Warriors we got lost (and ever so frustrated) so didn’t actually end up seeing them. But Take 2 worked out perfectly and we found our way fine! Only problem being tickets. For some crazy, only-in-China reason the ticket office was nowhere near the entrance so we were forced to buy two tickets off of scalpers. Initially sceptical, but following the lead of other stupid foreigners who didn’t get tickets beforehand, it all worked out fine in the end as they were legitimate tickets and we got in without any trouble. Now I don’t know how much y’all know about the Terracotta Warriors, but they depict the warriors (and horses!) of Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of China, in order to protect him in the afterlife. The site is divided into three pits (still being excavated). My Lonely Planet guidebook recommended starting with the third one, and finishing with the first as this is the most impressive one. Having not led us a bum steer thus far, we followed its advice – and it did not disappoint!

Pit 3 contains 72 warriors and horses and is thought to be the command headquarters considering the amount of high-ranking officers unearthed there (Thanks Lonely Planet!). I enjoyed the horses, the broken warriors did make me sad though. Poor guys.


Pit 3

Pit 2 was the least impressive – bit boring really. It was significantly larger than Pit 3 though, and apparently contains around 1300 warriors! Within this pit, they had a few of them on display in glass cases, allowing an up-close and personal look at some of the warriors. The close-up guy in the photo below is a cavalryman with his horse. Beautiful craftsmanship! The horse looks so amazing, don’t ya think?

Pit 2

Now for the pièce de résistance: Pit 1! In a building the size of an aircraft hanger (it really was huuuuuuge), this pit contains around 6000 warriors and horses! Only 2000 of these are on display though. It certainly was an impressive and intimidating sight with the 2000 stone figures all facing the entrance ready and poised for battle. The first three rows of soldiers featured archers, and these were followed by the main force of the infantry. Just incredible. I think the fact that gets most people about this site is that no two faces are alike. How this feat was accomplished I have no idea. I am hella impressed though.

Pushed our way to the front and got this bad boy
Pit 1

I thoroughly enjoyed seeing the Terracotta Warriors and would recommend them to anyone who was to visit China wanting to see the best bits. Xī’ān is more of a passing-through city I felt though, not an awful lot to do beyond visiting the Warriors.


One more part: Shànghăi!

xoxo


Wednesday, March 6, 2013

My Spring Festival Extravaganza - Part 1

So the looooooong awaited post about my Spring Festival fun is here. I think considering the length of my trip and amount of photos, I’ll be splitting it into a few posts. Enjoy!


Firstly, I want to kick off the post with some New Year inspired nail art! Now those who know me know I thoroughly enjoy painting my nails, so with the arrival of my nail art pens in the post from my lovely parents I decided to do something to celebrate the holiday!

Year of the Snake!

Anyway… I left a sunny Fúzhōu on 4th September around midday with an overwhelming sense of both excitement and anxiety. Excitement for obvious reasons (holiday, no work, travelling, finally leaving Fúzhōu etc.) but anxious because in Běijīng I was meant to meet my brother and I’m a natural worrier so assumed something would go wrong.. As I feared, our rendezvous didn’t go smoothly what with my flight being significantly delayed and a lack of communication between us. But! Eventually in one of my frantic sweeps of the surrounding area I spied a laowai I knew! We weren’t particularly exciting our first night I’m afraid, just arrived at our hostel and went to bed.

Day 1: Like most people coming to China, you have the classic checklist of the Forbidden City, the Great Wall and the Terracotta Warriors. We weren’t any different, so began our trip with a visit to the Forbidden City/Palace! Approaching it, I really felt a sense of awe. Inside however, no offence intended, but I was quite underwhelmed. Don’t get me wrong, its size is incredibly impressive, but the buildings themselves are pretty repetitive and having been in China a while and seen my fair share of temples, it didn’t really stand out. Maybe it was more the freezing temperatures making the walk around less than pleasant, not sure, but my verdict is: not necessarily a must-see (unless you’re interested in the history of course). Had some nifty gift shops though – where we snuck in whenever we could to escape the cold. Post-Forbidden City we wandered Běijīng in a daze, very impressed by the bright lights of shopping centres before heading back to the hostel.

A few snaps from the Forbidden City

Day 2: Another thing on our list was the Summer Palace. A way out of the city, but still on the metro line, the Summer Palace is fo sho a must-see my friends. Consisting of VERY extensive grounds (2.9 square km, the majority of this being Kūnmíng Lake – according to wiki) dotted with loads of outdoor gazebo-esq. structures; and even in the depths of winter it was stunningly beautiful! Windy as hell but amazing to see! Those emperors sure knew how to spend their summers. The lake was entirely frozen over when we visited and many a tourist took to walking out on it. Within the Summer Palace, was a cute little shopping area, Sūzhōu Street. Mainly for tourists I think, it was totally dead when we were there, on account of it being so cold I imagine. After resting at Starbucks a spell (there were MANY Starbucks visits during my holiday) we headed to the Silk Market! Now I don’t love haggling as much as some people I know, but it was surely a place worth visiting! It’s a feast for your eyes with numerous floors selling everything you could imagine from knock-off clothing and electronics to novelty lighters and mini Terracotta Warriors. Easily the most entertaining part is observing other tourists trying to haggle down with the stall-holders. They are just so darn persistent! It scared me.

Summer Palace shots
Sūzhōu Street

Day 3 (aka BEST DAY EVER): We had decided pre-arrival that the Great Wall needed a whole day devoted to it, and we couldn’t have chosen a better day. Before my trip I hadn’t actually realised that there are quite a few areas to the Great Wall, not all connected what with time and various other factors acting on it. Of course everyone wants to avoid the really touristy areas like Bādálĭng, so we were aiming for Jīnshānlĭng – the most northern part of the wall. Getting up a little later than anticipated, we followed my Lonely Planet guide book (bloody brilliant, like my Bible, recommend to everyone etc.) when it said to take a bus to a small town outside of Běijīng, Mìyún, and hire a car and driver to take us to the wall entrance. I was slightly sceptical about getting there, but I should have known Lonely Planet wouldn’t have given me bad advice, and we made it fine. Like I said, we couldn’t have chosen a better day: the sun was shining, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky and best of all, there wasn’t another living soul on the wall. No one! Not one person! I didn’t think that was possible. But it was very nippy noodles out there. Anyway, (in hindsight) I really enjoyed the walk along Jīnshānlĭng; this bit of the wall isn’t that easy to climb and with the snow/ice we had to be particularly careful (on one occasion we had to slide down a section of steps on our butts as it was safer than walking), but that made it all the more exciting! In hindsight. On the view: breath-taking, just so incredible. But have a gander at the photos below as they’re much better than any description I can give. The Great Wall has easily been my favourite sight in China thus far.

Great Wall!

Day 4: One of the things in Běijīng that I thought sounded interesting, and had been recommended to me by a friend, was the 798 Art District. Unfortunately being so close to Chinese New Year, it was closed down and practically deserted apart from a few fellow tourists who also didn’t think about the holiday. Ah well. In the evening, we decided to watch some crazy Chinese Kung Fu show and we were not disappointed with the stunts those guys were busting out! It was the story of a young boy who reluctantly joins this monastery or something to study the art of Kung Fu; he overcomes various obstacles, fights in a war or something then becomes the head of the monastery.  I think that was it. I was a little too distracted by the topless men jumping around doing flips, bending wooden poles with their torsos and snapping metal board things with their heads to pay real attention to the story.

Day 5: Now that all our Běijīng must-dos were out of the way, we spent our next few days in Běijīng wandering. Today, we went to the Lama Temple and the Confucius Temple (located conveniently closely to each other). Erm, not too much to say really. Both temples, both pretty architecture (standard). It was interesting seeing people actually burning their incense and praying for the New Year though. Post temple hopping, we tried some of China’s weirder street food. I gave crickets a go, and my brother went for baby scorpions. I think the scorpions tasted kinda like chicken personally – still very weird though. The crickets tasted well, just fried, sort of like cheap ready salted crisps. The taste wasn’t the bad thing, it was more the texture and knowing what you were eating that made it a not particularly enjoyable experience. Wasn’t a party in my mouth, that’s for sure. Earlier in our trip we had actually stumbled upon a street lined with stalls selling EVERYTHING on skewers. This included centipedes, larger scorpions, starfish and – my fave – tarantulas. We never made our way back though, maybe next time.

Lama Temple
Confucius Temple
Yum yum for my tum

Day 6: Another pottering around day which was nice. We ended up heading to Běihăi Park. Seemed pretty to stroll around in and like the Summer Palace had a large body of water occupying most of the area. We didn’t stay all that long though as we were cold and uncomfortable. There was a good vantage point in the White Dagoba that was located on Jade Islet though which allowed a good view of the Forbidden City. After Běihăi Park, we headed to the Temple of Earth Park for a New Year’s market. Good Lord it was SO crowded! You could barely move! So again we didn’t stay long.

Běihăi Park
The Temple of Earth Park

And that ends the Běijīng part of my trip! As much as I really enjoyed the individual attractions, Běijīng as a city didn’t really wow me. Everything seems too spread out I thought – though they have a super Metro to take you anywhere at only 2 kuài per journey! Such a good trip though – ate some great food, saw some amazing things (the Great Wall was just SO amazing) and had general bare bantz.


Xī’ān coming up folks!

xoxo