Changchun & Harbin tour

Located north of BJ, Changchun and Harbin are relatively new cities and thus looks more modern than BJ.
We spent 2 days in Changchun. As soon as we arrived, we were taken to the hotel for a buffet breakfast, and then to a very small ski field where I had a go at skiing. It was fun! Some people didn't ski and tried the dog sleigh. Apparently, it's all just for show - a person pushes the sleigh from behind!

After lunch, we visited the Puppet Emperor's Palace Museum which was home to Puyi, the last Emperor of the Qing Dynasty who later became a puppet emperor of Manchukuo during the Anti-Japanese War. There was a bomb shelter which was also open to visitors - it was huge! For dinner that night, we had jiaozi (gyoza). The tour guide ordered 2 plates of jiaozi per person. There was no way we could finish it all, even with more guys than girls on our table. Looking across to the other table, they had stacked up all their empty plates of jiaozi and were taking photos - they'd finished every single one. Amazing!
On the second day, we visited the Changchun Film City and some old building that used to be a hospital but now a medical science research centre. It was a total waste of time. We still had about 2 hours to kill even after a hearty lunch at a nice hotel where we sat for at least 2 hours, so we were taken to Wenhua Park. There, we walked around taking photos and watched the many people flying kites. In the late afternoon, we head off to the train station and left for Harbin.

We had a late dinner on arrival at Harbin after which we went straight to our rooms for a shower and went to bed. The final day was long and tiring, but much more enjoyable than Changchun. The tour guide was much better than the one at Changchun, which made all the difference.
We first went to the tiger park which was more like a prison, and it smelled really bad. The tigers were cute though, especially the white tiger - big and fluffy.^^

Next stop was "Sun Island" where we walked around admiring the snow sculptures. It was amazing. I liked it more than the ice sculptures we saw later in the day which were pretty impressive. I was one of 4 people who had a go on the huge slide. It was so much fun!




We also visited the majestic St. Sofia Orthodox Church and the Russian-built Zhongyang Dajie shopping street.

Dinner was jiaozi again, at the head shop of the same jiaozi chain we went to in Changchun. The tour guide told us that in north-east China, it is a custom to eat jiaozi when you're seeing guests off, and noodles when welcoming guests.
All in all, it was a fun trip. Although the company was made up of several nationalities, everyone got along well and exchanged contact details on the train trip back to BJ. I hope we will get the chance to meet again. :)

More photos here!^^

Back in BJ

The weekend trip to Xi’an was quite an adventure. Here’s an overview of what we (Aa, Ed, Xy, S & myself) did… Friday night – After last-minute packing and a cold shower (water still not hot by 4pm…), we made our way through peak hour traffic arriving at Beijing West station just in time to catch the 5:30 train. There were hundreds of people just sitting on the ground (or on their luggage) at the station, and yet the platforms were deserted. Strange…

We all brought instant cup noodles to have for dinner. After several hours of small talk, S decided to buy a pack of playing cards and so we played card games until lights-out. I slept on the middle bunk. The beds were about half a metre wide, and very close together (vertically); with the exception of the bottom bunk, there was not enough space for anyone taller than a small child to sit up. It wasn’t too uncomfortable, but I didn’t sleep well. I woke up each time the train jolted, stopping to let some other train to pass us by.



As we crossed over the Shaanxi Province border, I received a strange SMS. “Welcome to Shaanxi, the origin of Chinese civilization!”…and then provided the mobile provider’s hotline for tourist information, and one for customer service. Everyone got the same message. Pretty advanced, eh.

After about 14 hours, we finally arrived in Xi’an. We got off the train and I got my camera ready to snap a photo of the train at Xi’an station. My camera made an odd clicking sound and then the display blacked out, showing only 3 small characters in the bottom left hand corner: E18. I tried switching it on and off a couple of times, took out the battery, the memory card…but nothing worked. When the power was switched off, the lens not only made a strange clicking sound but stubbornly refused to retract. Grrr…

Walking out of the station was kind of like walking out of customs and into the arrivals hall of an airport. We scanned the crowd for the person holding up the sign with S’s name on it – our tour guide. We were first taken to the hotel to pick up 2 other travellers and to drop off our luggage then headed east to Huaqing Hotspring. It was quite pretty and kinda looked like a set from a movie, but actually has quite a long history.

Next, we stopped by Qinling Underground Palace for a quick tour. The reproduction of Emperor Qi’s tomb was rather impressive (though the mangled dead bodies - fake, of course - kinda freaked me out). After lunch, we visited the Qin Shi Huang Mausoleum which resembled a considerably large garden with exhibits of ancient artifacts scattered throughout.

The final stop for the day, and the place I found most interesting, was the Museum of Terracotta Warriors. Apparently, there has only ever been one person who has successfully (though illegally) climbed over the shoulder-high fence and into the excavation pit without being spotted. It was an overseas student who was said to love the terracotta warriors so much that he made himself a costume, dressed himself up and climbed into the pit pretending to be one of them. Even the museum staff couldn’t pick him out. Hehe! :D

For dinner, we were on our own. We went out to the city centre to one of the most famous dumplings restaurant in town: De Fa Chang. I only tried their steamed vegetable-filled buns, but the others commented that the dumplings didn’t taste much better than the ones at the school cafeteria.

Day 2 (Sunday) – We were originally told by our tour guide to go for breakfast at 7:30am. Just after 7am, the tour guide called and told us that we would be picked up earlier that said by another tour guide who showed up like 20 minutes after the call. And so we rushed through breakfast (congee, steamed buns and small cold dishes) and followed tour guide #2 to the bus. Just outside the city wall, the bus stopped and we were told to get out and change buses. What the…?!

After a 2-hour nap (^^;), we arrived in the vicinity of Huashan. However, where we first stopped was some run down building (supposedly a pharmacy) in which we were subjected to a lecture by a doctor selling Chinese health products made from plants found only on Mt. Huashan. Needless to say, no one bought any. We had lunch at a nearby restaurant (we got to order our own food this time) before actually heading up the mountain.

We took the cable car up about halfway and hiked to the north peak (1614m). And maybe two-thirds up the east peak (2038m). The hike itself was not tough – just thousands and thousands of steps. Though there were one or two sections where the steps were almost vertical. We held on to the heavy iron chains on both sides and climbed up the rockface, much like you would climb up a ladder. The weather was more or less perfect: sunshine, little wind. It was cold at first, but I quickly warmed up from the exercise (I’m so unfit!) The higher we climbed, the more snow there was. The view was absolutely amazing. Too bad my stoopid camera was broken. But still, I don’t think my photography skills are good enough to have captured the picturesque landscape on film. Mid-afternoon, we started to make our way slowly down the mountain and back on the bus for Xi’an.

Our hotel was the last stop, so it was almost 8pm by the time we got back. We wandered the streets around the hotel and decided to have dinner at a Moslem restaurant where the owner was very entertaining. Even though we were all tired from the day’s adventure, we wanted to make the most of our time in Xi’an and went for an evening stroll. We stumbled upon Moslem Street and wandered around there for an hour or two. It was almost 10pm when we hit the markets at the end of the street (or perhaps the start of the street?) and most of the stalls were closed. However, we still had enough time to grab some local goodies for the train ride back to BJ the following day. No one was paying much attention to where we were going and we got a little lost on our way back to the hotel, but a kind local pointed us in the right direction.

Day 3 (Monday) – Our tour guide was more than half an hour late. Actually, she didn’t actually turn up. The driver came to pick us up. He tells us that the tour guide was at the train station waiting for arriving 3 travellers. And so the bus driver took us to the station to pick them up. We ended up waiting 1.5 hours. No comment. But I learned one thing: don’t touch a Chinaman’s keys. (Some people use it as an ear-picker thingy.)

Once the others arrived, we went to check out the East City Wall. We were passed on to a City Wall tour guide, who spoke about feng shui, before being given free time to wander around. Second stop: Da Ci’en Temple. We didn’t go inside the 7 storey pagoda as we had little time, but walked around the garden and took a quick look at the exhibit of old Buddhism scripture translations. After a hearty lunch, we were taken to the Bell & Drum Tower area and given free time to explore. To our surprise, we discovered that on the other side of the Drum Tower was the Moslem street we had walked down the night before. We made our way through the narrow back alley, checking out the tiny souvenir shops on either side. We tried a steamed-pudding-on-a-stick with haw-flavoured sauce (tasted better than it looked), a steaming hot persimmon-flavoured glutinous rice cake (oily but yum) and glutinous rice cake with rose-flavoured caramel topping (so-so).

Last stop: train station. We were dropped off at the train station 2 hours before our train was due to depart. And so we decided to walk around the station area and have afternoon tea. We chose a little coffee shop that looked pretty decent from the outside. The interior looked ok as well. S wanted a cold beer – “Sorry, no cold beer, but we can give you ice.” Xy & I ordered bubble milk tea – “Sorry, we don’t have bubble milk tea, but we have milk tea.” Plain milk tea wasn’t actually on the menu at all but we ordered it anyway. Hot milk tea. It was served in a tall glass with a plastic straw. Aa ordered hot Chinese tea – it was also served in a glass, with the loose tea leaves still in it and no strainer!! Ed ordered a mocha – it was served black, but came with a small dish of sugar cubes and a small dish of powdered milk. What the…..?!?! Interesting experience.

As soon as we got on the train, we started played “Big 2.” S & Ed had tried to teach Aa & Xy how to play it on the train ride to Xi’an but they were not too successful, so wanted to give Aa & Xy more practice. After 2 hours, Xy had pretty much gotten the hang of it, but Aa was still confused. Let me just leave it at that. After a light dinner of mantou (steamed buns) left over from lunch, Xy and I got ready for bed. I was on the top bunk opposite Xy this time. It was only 9pm but I was so tired after 3 long days that I fell into a deep sleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. When I woke up in the morning, we were in BJ. Looking out the window, to the left was the full moon glowing in the blue-grey sky; to the right were the vast fields beneath a backdrop of warm colours painted by the rising sun. A beautiful start to the day.^^

Then reality hits and we’re crammed in a taxi stuck in peak hour BJ traffic. Luckily the traffic wasn’t too bad, and we arrived at uni with enough time for me to unpack my stuff, have a shower, eat brunch and finish off my homework due that afternoon.

Inner Mongolia

Keep thinking it’s a weekday today. Coz we had a week of holiday, the school decided that we have classes today despite it being a Sunday. More than half the class turned up which was quite surprising.

Anywayz, apologies for the delay in updates. Here’s an extra long one to make up for it!^0^

For the past 3 days, I was on a bus tour to Inner Mongolia. Boy was it was long journey! We left early Thursday morning and spent a total of about 8 hours on the bus to get from Beijing to the grasslands where we camped overnight. (Though we did stop for lunch on the way, as well as spend 2 hours at a local museum.)

By the time we arrived at our lodging for the night, it was dinner time. The menu was pretty much the same as the lunch menu. I was a tad worried about there being enough veggie dishes as I had this impression that Mongolians eat a lot of meat. I don’t know if it had anything to do with me telling the travel agency that I was vegetarian, but more than half the dishes had little or no meat in it. One of the Chinese ladies complained that there wasn’t enough meat. I hope it wasn’t because of me…^^;

After dinner, there was a short song and dance performance by the fire outside, which was quite interesting.

As there was not much else to do, we turned in early. Well, it was certainly an experience to stay in a Mongolian tent. I banged my forehead several times, coz I kept forgetting how low the doors were. You actually had to step over a metal thing and duck your head at the same time, which was too much for an un-co like me. It was 5-6 people to a tent. Aa & I shared a tent with a middle-aged Australian lady (the only Caucasian in the whole group of 32) and 2 young Korean girls. We had 3 small double-sized thin futon mattresses and 3 doonas between us. I wore my big coat to sleep and was still cold, waking up several times throughout the night.

We got up early the next morning to see the sunrise. It was so cold that we started to head back after 20 minutes, and the sun hadn’t even come up yet. We were almost halfway there when I turned around and saw the first rays of sunlight...beautiful! I wish I could’ve taken better photos, but these will have to do.

Breakfast was congee, some kind of fried dough, and a selection of strange pickled things…it was ok. The Koreans though came well-prepared with their own supply of kimchi and instant noodles.^^

The centre had two 2-hour and one 3-hour horse riding courses available. However, the majority of the group had not been horse-riding before and only wanted to go for one hour. Anyway, after a H U G E debate, they finally agreed to let us to go for a one hour ride. The horses were very well-behaved. We rode out into the vast grassland and turned back after half-an-hour. We were then to a Mongolian friendly wrestling match. It was kinda like “tootsie” but instead of treading on one another’s feet, one had to trip the other person over. One of the young Korean guys had a go and beat the pros!

As there was still some time left until lunch, some of us walked out to see the highest peak in the area which was used as…um…whatever you call those places used to signal the villagers in an emergency or something. Anyway, just a handful of us climbed to the top. It was rocky and quite steep, but not too difficult a climb. The descent was scary though…got a splinter in my finger from touching one of the prickly bushes on the way down. Nonetheless, the view from the top was well worth the effort. It kinda brought back memories of D of E expeditions.
See the pig in front of the gate? I thought it was going to run towards us, but instead it ran to guard the gate!

The elderly couple living at the foot of the hill was kind and invited us to have a look inside their home. It was interesting to see how they lived. It was a simple brick house with 2 rooms: a small bedroom and a larger room for everything else. In the field in front of their house, they kept chooks and grew vegetables. When we peeked inside the house, the lady was scraping the skin of a pig’s head submerged in a tub of water with a small knife. Dinner, maybe?

After lunch (pretty much the same menu again), we set off for the Resonant Sand Gorge which was about 4.5 hours away. It was past 4:30pm when we arrived at the Resonant Sand Gorge Hotel. Aa and I shared a room. Since we had some time before dinner at 5:30pm (and coz I desperately wanted to wash my hair), I had a quick shower. The dining hall was quite nice. We sat 10 people per table again, and as for the food…well, no surprises regarding the menu, but it was slightly tastier than the other places.

(Ain't she cute?!^^)
I wanted to stay a bit longer and talk with the group of young Koreans and the young Japanese couple, but Aa wanted to go back to the room for a shower, so I went with her and watched TV for the rest of the evening. Well, until Aa told me that our toilet was stuffed. In the information booklet, it said “24 hour service” so we tried the phone except that it didn’t work…no ringing tone whatsoever. So we went to find a hotel staff. There was a counter on the ground floor, but the corridor was dark and there was not a soul in sight. We then wandered outside and saw the full moon. (Happy Mid-Autumn Festival by the way!) While walking back and forth wondering what to do, we caught sight of a staff member walking toward the building. She got someone to come and take a look at our toilet. This lady came up to the room with us, pressed the flush button, told us that it was broken and walked away. Um…we got that part figured out! For a moment, we just stood and looked at her blankly. Once we found our voices, we started firing questions at her. “It cannot be fixed until tomorrow.” “There are no other rooms available.” “There are public toilets outside that you can use.” All we could do was to stay in our room and watch TV or sleep. It wasn’t yet 9pm.

Day 3.
Breakfast at 7am. Menu: congee, pickles and noodle soup.
8:30am: cable car to the other side of the gorge where we went camel-back riding for an hour. Aa and I went together. A guy held our camels on a leash and led us over the sand dunes. It was a nice, quiet ride. Once every so often, the guy would say something to us. He was really nice and took lots of photos for the both of us.

After the camel ride, I went for a slide down the dunes on a wooden sled. It wasn’t as fast as I thought it would be (maybe coz I was leaning backwards...^^;) and was actually quite fun. Aa wasn’t game enough to try, so I got her to snap a few pics for me.

As it was an 800km bus ride back to BJ, we left the dunes at around noon. We stopped for hotpot lunch on the way. Aa and I were the only non-Koreans on our table. There were lots of veggies, but it tasted of meat once everyone put their stuff in so I went and asked the tour guide if I could order something else. He told me yeah, but I’d have to pay for it separately. The bus driver was nice and suggested that I use the half of their pot that they hadn’t cooked meat in. And so I dined with the staff. I didn’t really take to the tour guide, but the bus driver was considerate and quite friendly.

After lunch, we promptly got back onto the bus and set off. They played “Poseidon” twice, some Chinese music VCD twice, and a really really old Jackie Chan movie twice. My bum was so sore from sitting for so long. A few people stood in the aisle. We stopped about three times before arriving in BJ. It was 10:40pm by the time we arrived.

All in all, it was a great experience. However, I think it would’ve been more fun had I gone with, say, my good old travel buddy in Japan. I miss you girl! Are you still coming to visit over Christmas? (^_~)

>> Click here for more photos

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久しぶりです！^^

この３日間、友達のAaと内モンゴルへ行ってきました。長かったよ～！北京から、バスで８時間位かかりました。しかし、途中で昼を食べたり、博物館に入ったりしました。

目的地の大草原に着いたら、夕飯の時間でした。メニューは昼とほぼ同じものでした。ほとんど野菜料理でした。中国人のおばさんは肉が少ないと文句を言っていましたが、私のせいかな？私が食べられる物がないかとちょっと心配していたので、観光会社に聞いてみてて、観光会社はガイドさんに言ってくれたそうです。

食後、伝統的な音楽や踊りの演奏がありました。外で寒かったけど、みんな楽しんで見ました。

一日目の夜は伝統的なモンゴル式のテントに泊まりました。ドアが低くて、頭を何回も当たってしまいました。一軒に５～６人で、うちは５人でした。Aaと私、そして若い韓国人女性が２人、オーストラリアからの女の人が１人いました。５人が布団を３つに寝ました。コートを着たまま寝たにもかかわらず、寒くて何回も目が覚めました。

翌朝、早く起きて、日の出を見に行きました。２０分位待っていて、寒くてテントに戻ることに決めました。中途まで行って、振り向いたらひとすじの陽光が見えてきて、きれいでした。

戻ったら、朝ごはんの時間でした。お粥、揚げパンと不思議な漬物がありました。ミルクティーが美味しかったです。半分以上の韓国人は個人のカップ麺とキムチを持って行きました。そういえば、ツアーの３２人のうちに韓国人が２１人もいました。残りは、中国人が４人、中国・韓国ハーフの子供たちが２人、日本人が２人、オーストラリア人が１人。

午前中の予定は乗馬でした。２時間と３時間のコースがありましたが、みんな１時間だけにしたかったので、長～い討論がありました。結局、従ってくれて、広い草原に出発しました。馬はおとなしくて、気持ちよかったです。乗馬が終わったら、モンゴル式の相撲試合を見せてくれました。若い韓国の男性が入ってみて、２回も勝ちました！

昼を食べる前に、まだ時間があったので、その地域で一番高い所を見に行きました。そんなに高くなかったけど、岩が多くて、斜面がかなり険しかったです。数人しか登らなかったです。その一人は７０歳以上のおじいさん。すごい！登りは大丈夫だったけど、下山したらちょっと怖かったです。でも、山頂から見た景色は素晴らしかったです。なんか、中学校・高校時代のキャンプを思い出しました。

山のふもとに住んでいる優しい老夫婦がいて、家に上がらせてくれました。シンプルな２部屋の家でした。家の前に、畑があって、そこで鶏を飼っていました。家に入ったら、おばあさんがスツールに座っていて、小刀を使って、水いっぱいのたらいに入っていた豚の頭の皮を削り落としていました。晩御飯かな。

昼を食べ終わったら（昨日のメニューとほぼ一緒）、バスで４時間半離れたResonant Sand Gorge （砂漠）へ向かいました。ホテルに着いたら、もう夕方でした。Aaと２人で一部屋でした。シャワーを浴びて、ご飯を食べに行きました。メニューはほとんど変わらなかったけど、ほかのところより美味しかったです。

あまりすることなかったから、部屋に戻って、テレビを見ました。そのとき、Aaはトイレが壊れて、水が流れなかったことを発見して、フロントに電話をかけてみました。しかし、電話も壊れて、使えなかったです。そしたら、２人でホテルのスタッフを探しに行きました。フロントは暗くて、誰もいなかったので、外へ出ました。しばらくして、スタッフが来て、話してみたけど、あまり役に立たなかったです。「トイレが壊れた」「外の公衆便所を使ってください」と言いました。

翌朝、朝ごはんのメニューはお粥、スープ麺と漬物でした。８時半にリフトに乗って、迎え側の砂丘へ行きました。そこで、１時間ラクダに乗りました。乗馬より気持ちよかったです。それから、砂丘の坂を木製のそりで滑り下がりました。思ったよりゆっくりで、楽しかったです。

昼前にバスに乗って、北京へ出発しました。８００ｋｍの距離でした。途中で昼を食べたり、休憩を取ったりしたが、長い時間座ったままでお尻がしびれてしまいそうでした。北京に着いたら、もう１０時半過ぎでした。

全体的にこのツアーは良い経験で、楽しかったです。

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今日は日曜日なのに、朝早く授業がありまして、眠いで～す！
それでは、またね。＾＾
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