China - Sept 2010

Well, we've just come back from an amazing trip in China. Unlike other blog posts, we weren't able to do regular updtaes as we were moving so quickly and often had no access to Internet (or when we did Blogger was blocked by Chinese gatekeepers). So this is an overview - our impressions of our first experience in Mainland China.

We had a rather different approach to China than most and didn’t see Beijing which a lot of people from Australia (and those we met in China too) thought was sacrilegious! We just couldn’t everyone! We had only 11 days on the ground, flying into & out of Shanghai and it was simply too far without losing too many other elements. This gives us an opportunity to go back though – to see Beijing and the Great Wall (amongst other locales). The trip in a nutshell included:

Shangahi (The Bund and M50 artisits community)

Datong - Yungang Grottos

Datong - Hanging Temples

Pingyao (3000 year old walled village)

Xian - City Wall

Xian - Terracotta Warriors

 

Mt Huangshan (one of the hardest jobs in the world - ask us about it) 

Tongli - water village

I have to give a BIG THANK YOU to Mark, who did all of the research and eventually found http://www.chinaodysseytours.com/ who we selected to help us with the tour planning. They were really great and we were able to craft the limited time to match into our key goals of viewing both ancient and contemporary China with an emphasis on Art, Architecture and local Food. They were also able to make recommendations for places based on our excellent advice from Nina, Kaarin, Roger and Catherine who had each spent between 2-3 yrs working & living in China.

So this is the Good, the Bad and the Strange of China

Food

The good - Vegetarian Spring Rolls, Old Street Café, Huangshan

The Bad – food at river café vendor in Tong Li (water village outside Shanghai), uncooked chicken (although they insisted that we could still eat it!) & potatoes, vegetables so spicy even the guide couldn’t eat them ++ Did have one of the best views in town though!

The strange – Rabbit stew with a lovely sauce on the road to Hongcun in a rainstorm. This was also a stand-out meal for the whole trip.

Various street food we tried:

PANCAKEY THINGS COOKING IN HOT STONES

ROASTED PEANUTS

MINCED BEEF WRAPPED IN TOFU

Art

The Good – M50 contemporary art community, Shanghai - a cool ceramic Coke bottle was purchased here http://www.artzinechina.com/display.php?a=81

The Bad – generic contemporary art at the M50 contemporary art community.

The Strange – Ceramic paintings of extremely intricate detail at the Shanghai Art Museum

Architecture

The Good – Starting to get some interesting modern buildings and the husband of one of our Artists for Kids Culture volunteers (http://www.akc.org.au/html/s01_home/home.asp?dsb=49) is relocating to China in a few months to continue with further exciting new architecture designs from Australia.

The Bad – thousands of generic apartment buildings going up everywhere.

PINGYAO

The Strange – should read ‘The Amazing’ – outside Taiyuan, they are building a brand new city of Taiyuan which will hold 1M of the current 4M population about 20 mins from the city centre and this will all be created within 3.5yrs since first concrete slab cast.

Travel

The Good - The private minivan used to take us around in Xi’An for the Terracotta Warriors

MT HUANGSHAN

 

MT HUANGSHAN

 

The Bad – Air traffic congestion for all China Eastern flights from Australia to & from China as well as internal. We were typically held up between 1 hr to 3.5hrs at each section.

The Strange – The Chinese inability to form a queue when checking in at the airport domestically. There would often be three families all standing at the counter waving their ID cards in the face of the airline rep.

Miscellaneous Observations

Construction – everywhere from cities, towns, miniscule villages. A phenomenal amount of building is going on and improvements all about. Many of the tour guides were openly enthusiastic about all of the Government commitments in various areas. The Chinese people also seem extremely stoic dealing with the implications of so much building going on – delays, noise, upset – as they know the results, likely to be achieved in about 25% of the time it would take all other countries – will be worth it.

Shopping – started out poor but picked up speed. We were quite particular that we didn’t want the typical tourist experience (which we’d been forced into a bit on Intrepid Travel’s Vietnam and India trips in recent years. Therefore we paid a bit extra to only do shopping that we wanted to do (barring the first day’s Jade shopping fiasco). Managed to pick up some cool t-shirts, ceramic Coke bottle, weird light globe from an antique market and an original artwork from Taikang Lu Art district (http://www.chinatravelsavvy.com/destinations/shanghai/attractions/taikang-lu-art-center/ )

As it rained on our last couple of days, I also managed to take advantage of Shanghai Tourist Day on Sunday and bought 2 pairs of shoes (discounted between 30-50%)!

Drinks – The Chinese don’t seem to drink fruit drinks at breakfast (or any other meal for that matter) but sugary fruit flavoured drinks which was quite frustrating.

Lukewarm water – It was stinking hot and very humid, neither of my favourite temperatures based on my extremely pale skin! We always drink lots of cold water in summer and I have cold water every night irrespective of the season. The Chinese don’t have bottled water in the fridge even in the height of summer (it’s all lukewarm or worse). We eventually discovered from one of our guides that this is because the Chinese Medical Practitioners teach them to drink hot or warm water for digestion and never WITH a meal!

Walking – we walked a lot and even though most parts of China are fairly flat (at least the cities, towns and villages we saw), but there are constant steps and trip hazards. Each premise has a high step in the doorjamb to ward off evil spirits. The richer / more important you are, the higher it is! This became quite a workout and I found it hard to understand how people with prams or wheelchairs coped (not that I saw many at all the whole time!

ONE OF THE STEPS WITHIN THE DOORWAY

 

Sweating – It was embarrassing how much we sweated in Mt Huangshan climbing up a ridiculously tall mountain (even from the Cable car to the top). Most Chinese, a lot of Japanese and many other tourists actually climb the full 2 hrs from the bottom of the mountain to the top and then spend a further 2-3 hrs exploring the top! I was red and saturated within about 15-mins (but that did include humidity of 95% and altitude 1860 m above sea level). Our tour guide on this leg was amazing – she didn’t sweat at all even wearing a tracksuit top!

Chinese massage – after walking around for days up and down stairs in all manner of relatively flat cities, we spent a day and a half on Mt Huangshan. There were so many stairs and my knees (which had been damaged in a skiing accident years ago), completely gave way and I hobbled down the mountain in agony. Secretly many Chinese tourists and some more obviously, were laughing at how useless the foreigners were at climbing the mountain. We decided I should try a massage so that I could actually explore the following morning, before we left for Huangshan city. I was pummeled within an inch of crying and the dastardly masseur seemed to be enjoying inflicting a lot of pain. I did, however, feel better once he stopped and though it wasn’t completely healed by any means, I could manage an hour walking in the morning before stopping for good.

Umbrella Wars – on our last day we were in Shanghai and meant to visit the Yu Gardens including the famous Bridge of 9 Turns http://www.regenttour.com/chinaplanner/sha/sha-sights-yugarden.htm . There were so many people there and so many dueling umbrellas, many at eye level (as several Chinese grandmas were battling through the throng that we had to ‘beat a retreat’ to the shopping centres (and score the aforementioned bargain shoes).

Unexpected – on the few days trip between Datong, Taiyuan and Pingyao, our guide suggested a side trip off the beaten track to visit a very ancient farming area and see a 90-year old lady who had been on the land at barely above subsistence levels for many decades. She was so generous and shared a new watermelon with us and wanted photos for her wall. We then drove off to see part of the Great Wall and go to the border of China and Inner Mongolia which was completely unexpected.

90 YEARS OLD AND STILL GOING STRONG