It is getting worryingly close to having to go back to England now goddamnit, and we had a lot to squeeze into today. First thing we went to the mega tourist trap round the corner where Lloyd got an horrific picture of Phil and Anna made up as a gift. We looked through a big book a cartoony people and settled on the best one we could, but that is largely unnoticeable due to how big he decided to draw their teeth.
The next job was to stock up on touristy crap to give to people back home. I thought some tea would be a good present, coming from China 'n' all. We tried a couple of places before finding one that seemed to have good quality tea. We then went about bartering them down, and when Lloyd and Marisa had got them down really quite low, the woman became very annoyed and complained about how low she had had to go. It was pretty funny, in an evil kind of way. I got some of the pretty teas which open up when you submerge them and some that will hopefully taste nice too. The woman cheered up when we spent about £50 between us, and Marisa caved in and paid slightly over the price she bartered as she felt a bit bad.
I bought a couple of cheap mugs from another tea place while Lloyd went and did something else. I knocked the girl in the shop down 50% which might be considered amateur. I waited in the shop for Lloyd to show up again because the temperature was so much cooler than it was outside and I chatted with her about China England and mahogany trays and she invited me to sit down with her and gave me a thimble of tea.
Next stop was go-karting which we had to squeeze in before bowling. Tonight was to be Marisa's leaving do as she is heading off to work in Hong Kong, and kind of my leaving thing tacked onto it too. The go-kart place was a good taxi ride away, which gave us a chance to cool down before we had to go and basically sit on some engines.
We got there and had a beer while we watched people drive round on the track below us. It was fun watching the Chinese drive - some clearly didn't have enough strength to handle the carts while others were real naturals. I left my precious £1.25 mugs behind the bar and we bought tickets and headed down to the track. We had to queue for just a few minutes before we got to drive, and the karts were pokey enough to be great fun.
By the track was a good collection of helmets, though obviously no-one even contemplated using one. We both got good times on our first go and worked out which of the karts were the fastest from the best times of the day that we were shown along with our times after the race. For the second and last race, we both managed to get much better karts and Lloyd and I registered the 2nd and 4th best times of the day respectively. Lloyd had the kart with the fastest time of the day, which is clearly why I didn't thrash him. I would have been happy doing this all day but we had to rush off to bowl with Marisa and Amelia and some French buddies of the lot of them.
So went to another place to do some bowling. We split into two teams; I can't remember quite how we split up, but the other team had an awful lot of French people on it. Their team beat us. I couldn't bowl for toffee to start with, but with 8 balls to go, I kind of realised that I wasn't throwing the ball straight and then got 6 strikes from 8 balls. It was at this point I realised that bowling is the greatest game ever, or something similar.
The next stop almost inevitably involved a place where you had to eat as much meat as possible. A Brazilian barbeque in other words. There was a salad bar that was so great that it made you sad that you had to fill up on meat, and occasionally men would come out with a skewer of animal, from which they would give you a bit chunk. Everyone felt slightly ill afterwards, apart from Amelia who had only eaten a piece of Japanese lettuce and a prawn. The atmosphere was rounded off nicely with a terrible band fronted by a he-she.
We left and took the subway to where the karaoke was. Extreme fullness made this unpleasant. We were shown to our room and immediately I looked on the system for any tracks that I might be able to sing without waking the dead. I have seen people who can't sing do passable renditions of Octupus's Garden and was aiming for that or something similar. It turned out that the choice was not so good and I ended up massacring several ABBA classics. Amelia sang songs in English, Cantonese and Mandarin, and I believe that her cousin did the same, with some Korean songs for luck. This is an effective way to make an English person feel like an idiot. The Frenchies were there too, and it was actually pretty good fun. Which I never thought I'd say about Karaoke.
We walked back to the apartment which was only maybe ten minutes on the walk. I felt pretty sad that I was leaving the next day. When we got back, we spent a couple of hours giving everyone everyone else's pictures. I think I had 8gb, which will take me forever to sort through. I expect when I look at this in a few years, if we do, I will marvel that anyone bothered with gigabytes, when now you can 50 choppabytes in the mp12 player attached to your nasal hair.
26 July 2010
Friday 16 - Back to Shanghai
We needed to get a 7am taxi to the airport, so we allowed ourselves a good five minutes for breakfast. This was long enough to eat some braun and to discover that the day's batch of bread pudding was sans tofu. I always suspected that the previous day's offering was just down to some bizarre mishap. It turned out that Lloyd had managed to arrange two taxis to take us and thought about hair-brained schemes in order to avoid us walking out of the hotel and one of them wanting to kill us. He settled on taking the first one we got to and hoping very hard. The drivers had worked it out for themselves though and come to an arrangement so it all proved unnecessary.
We got through check-in and security in five minutes and the flight itself was only 35 minutes. We were back in Kunming! Due to flights being re-arranged by the airline, we had a five hour wait for the connection to Shanghai. We killed a little time by revisiting the massage chair place - actually the airport had five or six lots of them so we didn't go to the same girl in case she thought that English people were crazy about pretend massages.
We got a taxi to the cafe place that Hope from the bar had recommended to us the night before. The journey there took ages due to the traffic, and I saw one of the least delightful sights of the trip - two dead and bloodied dogs tied to the back of a bike.
The coffee place was ok - mexican food and free internet. I wrote up some of my blog from the notes I'd taken and Lloyd went and bought some rubbish, and an excellent book for me - Confucious Analects. The place did ok mexican food, and if you poo'd in their toilets they would fine you five pounds. I'm not saying that those two facts are related.
As we had seen bad traffic earlier, we left a lot of time to get to the airport, which was lucky because there was a lot of confusion about the change of flights and having to swap our tickets. Lloyd's impressive Mandarin skills got us through again, well done that man. Throughout the trip to China, I've been interested in whether I'd be able to do it on my own with no Mandarin. Most of the time, I think it would have been possible but pretty difficult. In this case, I'd have been in trouble for sure though.
We arrived in Shanghai and got a taxi for 45 minutes or so to Lloyd's apartment - 15 quid. It felt strangely like coming home. We then got another taxi to the other side of Shanghai, well it was a long way at least, it would be unfair to suggest that I have any idea of where these various parts of Shanghai are.
We met Marisa and Amelia at a Tepanyaki restaurant. First came some really lovely sushi, and then a fruit salad. Then we had some steak fillet. The excitement of the Tepanyaki is that a chef stands at your table the whole time cooking your food on a huge grill. Our guy was good fun. The steak was done to the requested number between 1 and 10. I braved a 3, which luckily was only marginally dead, as I had wanted. The others had higher numbers because they hate flavour. It was ridiculously delicious. We then had another bit of steak that was equally as good and some great chicken.
It was just Marisa and I at the apartment that night. We watched the film 'Inconceivable' which was enjoyable, apart from the complete cop-out of an ending.
We got through check-in and security in five minutes and the flight itself was only 35 minutes. We were back in Kunming! Due to flights being re-arranged by the airline, we had a five hour wait for the connection to Shanghai. We killed a little time by revisiting the massage chair place - actually the airport had five or six lots of them so we didn't go to the same girl in case she thought that English people were crazy about pretend massages.
We got a taxi to the cafe place that Hope from the bar had recommended to us the night before. The journey there took ages due to the traffic, and I saw one of the least delightful sights of the trip - two dead and bloodied dogs tied to the back of a bike.
The coffee place was ok - mexican food and free internet. I wrote up some of my blog from the notes I'd taken and Lloyd went and bought some rubbish, and an excellent book for me - Confucious Analects. The place did ok mexican food, and if you poo'd in their toilets they would fine you five pounds. I'm not saying that those two facts are related.
As we had seen bad traffic earlier, we left a lot of time to get to the airport, which was lucky because there was a lot of confusion about the change of flights and having to swap our tickets. Lloyd's impressive Mandarin skills got us through again, well done that man. Throughout the trip to China, I've been interested in whether I'd be able to do it on my own with no Mandarin. Most of the time, I think it would have been possible but pretty difficult. In this case, I'd have been in trouble for sure though.
We arrived in Shanghai and got a taxi for 45 minutes or so to Lloyd's apartment - 15 quid. It felt strangely like coming home. We then got another taxi to the other side of Shanghai, well it was a long way at least, it would be unfair to suggest that I have any idea of where these various parts of Shanghai are.
We met Marisa and Amelia at a Tepanyaki restaurant. First came some really lovely sushi, and then a fruit salad. Then we had some steak fillet. The excitement of the Tepanyaki is that a chef stands at your table the whole time cooking your food on a huge grill. Our guy was good fun. The steak was done to the requested number between 1 and 10. I braved a 3, which luckily was only marginally dead, as I had wanted. The others had higher numbers because they hate flavour. It was ridiculously delicious. We then had another bit of steak that was equally as good and some great chicken.
It was just Marisa and I at the apartment that night. We watched the film 'Inconceivable' which was enjoyable, apart from the complete cop-out of an ending.
Thursday 15 July - Dali
We made it to breakfast this morning and found an interesting selection - 'braun', steamed egg, weird tofu stuff, and the centrepiece attraction: bread pudding with tofu. There were many more cool things but I felt bad taking notes down there.
We then set about trying to get to and to climb the nearest mountain on what little nutrition we had managed to extract from said feeding. Locals were unclear about the best route to take, which I confidently took to mean that every route was excellent. We headed through the town and out the other side, even walking up this hill was pretty tiring, which didn't bode well. We dropped off the glasses we had borrowed from the pub two nights earlier. A few taxi drivers tried to convince us to let them drive us to the cable car, and didn't really understand that we wanted to walk up it. In fact it turned out that they mostly were interested in selling us the passes to get into the mountain area.
The climb itself took us through some woods and was immediately fairly steep. We followed what we were fairly certain was a path, trying to keep with the route that the cable car took, so that we would be able to take it back down. Some parts were fairly difficult to get up and we were aware that any rain would make it dangerous. Soon the oxygen was feeling scarce and it was feeling a lot like hard work. We passed lots of stone graves on the way, I'm not sure how the relatives got them there.
We passed a group of Chinese people with a guide at around half way which gave us some confidence, and I was very glad that I had insisted that we take a litre of water each rather than half as much. The correct amount to take was probably more like three litres though! It was very hot work despite there being good shade.
We reached the cable car stop after about 90 minutes; I hope I wasn't playing up the "climbing a mountain bit" too much. Yes, we only climbed for an hour and half, but it was certainly enough for me. At the top was a pretend temple where some monks tried to rip us off using incense and palm reading. We were aware of this sort of thing, and an unbelievably soft-spoken American was on hand to warn us. Monks are the keenest conmen in China, it seems. We were also able to buy some water, which was good because I was pretty certain several of my internal organs were about to pack up, and some crisps, which were without doubt the best I have ever tasted. The views from here were pretty great though the usual Chinese cloud/fug stopped them being exceptional.
This cable car area, it turned out, was a very mini town with an 'inn', market stalls, the temple and so on. Much earlier on I had removed my shirt, and as we walked past the temple area we encountered a local woman who can't have been any younger than eighty five. You should have seen the smile she gave when she saw this shirtless, bearded white devil coming towards her. She gave a big thumbs up at me and held it there along with her grin as we went past, and it was good to be appreciated for once (sob). Talking to some locals later, it emerged that she might have though I was Karl Marx. That was a joke.
From the top, we wandered in several directions. It was possible to climb further up, but it was only recommended with the full safety gear. We walked for a few kilometres along this mountain path, which was pretty memorable (I hope). We took photos of us sitting on some fairly precarious ledges. At one point it rained massively heavily and we were grateful for the £1.50 umbrellas we were forced to get the previous day back in civilization.
We took the cable car down and had a great view of the Three Pagodas and the lake, which is named after the part of the body that it is meant to be shaped like. This would be the ear, but to be honest my bread pudding with tofu breakfast was far more like an ear than this perfectly normally shaped lake. Sorry, ancient Chinese culture and history.
Back in the old town, we chose somewhere to eat from the guidebook, and settled on a place offering yak goulash. It was delicious actually, the yak was tasty and there were some nice vegetables for a change, but it was nothing like a goulash. For dessert, I had some yoghurt, being that kind of exciting guy. Lloyd had a pancake which was pretty crappy, but the first pancake you make always is, right?
We walked back to the hotel and on the way Lloyd bought some marble, which is one of the local industries. An English started talking to me, and it turned out it was the same guy who unreasonably had accused me of theft the previous day. I told him that we had returned the glasses, and to my surprise I found that I was his new best friend. He then told me about his pub, his new micro-brewery in the mountains and the amazing band who were playing his pub that night. He also saw fit to use his full range of favourite swear words. It was just like being in London.
At the hotel, Lloyd realised he'd left his camera at the restaurant, and had to taxi it there and back. I met him downstairs where our taxi was waiting for the night's extravaganza of entertainment.
We had already bought ticket's to a performance called Butterfly's Dream. Lloyd suggested it and for some reason I didn't have the heart to object, probably because he's been very kindly escorting me around China. The concierge had a taxi waiting for us when we got downstairs (I could get used to this). We turned up and there was a large group of people participating in organised fun. There was a big circle of people doing a dance so basic that I suspect even I could have excelled. Obviously, being a miserable bugger, I chose not to, despite the protests of some people dressed like idiots. A man with an extremely low voice led loudspeakered everyone instructions. There is a small chance that I feigned injury in order to get out of this crap. Everyone did seem to be loving it though.
We went into the theatre and found we were in the front row. What unfolded over the next 90 minutes was a big bunch of.... shrimps, lobsters, seaweed, yak, birds, butterflies, 3 pagodas, fire breathing somethings. I have no idea what those firebreathing people were supposed to be, but it was very cool and very warm. The firebreathers managed to petrol over our legs, which redefines the term 'audience participation'.
This was occasionally interrupted by video about the local area, with subtitles projected on a net in order to render them illegible. It was kind of entertaining whilst also being cripplingly boring. There were a few good bits - some impressive Indian dancing for instance. Anyway, half way through we legged it out into the entrance. The doors were all padlocked with heavy chains and I realised at that point that the communists had trapped us and we were almost certainly going to be..... nope, the middle door was open. Bye then! And thanks!
The early exit meant that we had time to check out the band that the maliciously accusing man had recommended to us earlier, at his pub. I'll describe it here for you: it was shit. We had a quick chat with the girl who had beat us at pool a couple of nights before and headed off in search of better.
We went past a few bars that didn't entice us so much, but wandered into the next one as it looked fairly nice. We ordered some home-made plum wine, which was really delicious despite coming from the sort of container I'd associate with paint stripper. I thought, I've had something like this before, and it took a while to realise that it was plum schnapps in Germany. What a surprise. The barman seemed pretty friendly and was talking to an Australian in Chinese, which I was kind of impressed by. The stereo was playing Australian rap, something about "pills in the surrey hills". Disappointingly that quote returns nothing on Google so we must have imagined it. We had a chat with the barman about the usual stuff, complimented him on the plum wine, and then left.
The next bar was a bit dingier but Lloyd was tempted by the offer of vodka tasters, despite the fact that vodka had made him stay up all night vomiting. We went in after I declared that I was not touching a drop of vodka. We sat at the bar and ordered so beer made in Laos, which was good stuff. The hippy had somehow overtaken us and was chatting with the bargirl who was essentially lovely. She was called Kiki, or Xixi in Japanese I think, or in English ..... Hope. There was another girl in there who was trying to play poker with the hippy and an excellent dog.
We had a couple of beers while the hippy talked at us about politics - how the UK's system didn;t really give any more choice than the chinese one because of how the media works - I wonder what book he's been reading this week, and we talked with the girl about star signs and languages. Lloyd then played with the dog for a while and we looked through their range of bizarre vodkas, the details of which escape me now.
We left, using the excellent public stone toilets on the way. Perhaps this might be a way to deter vandals in the UK - carve all public facilities from stone. Starting with bus shelters. We saw a guy in a bar being taught to play an instrument which I'm reliably informed is called an er hu. It's like a two stringed violin except the bow isn't tensed and runs between the two strings. The bow plays one string and then you tense it if you want it to play another. The teacher gave me a brief lesson and I managed to not sound to bad. I wish I'd asked him to give me a demo too.
We then set about trying to get to and to climb the nearest mountain on what little nutrition we had managed to extract from said feeding. Locals were unclear about the best route to take, which I confidently took to mean that every route was excellent. We headed through the town and out the other side, even walking up this hill was pretty tiring, which didn't bode well. We dropped off the glasses we had borrowed from the pub two nights earlier. A few taxi drivers tried to convince us to let them drive us to the cable car, and didn't really understand that we wanted to walk up it. In fact it turned out that they mostly were interested in selling us the passes to get into the mountain area.
The climb itself took us through some woods and was immediately fairly steep. We followed what we were fairly certain was a path, trying to keep with the route that the cable car took, so that we would be able to take it back down. Some parts were fairly difficult to get up and we were aware that any rain would make it dangerous. Soon the oxygen was feeling scarce and it was feeling a lot like hard work. We passed lots of stone graves on the way, I'm not sure how the relatives got them there.
We passed a group of Chinese people with a guide at around half way which gave us some confidence, and I was very glad that I had insisted that we take a litre of water each rather than half as much. The correct amount to take was probably more like three litres though! It was very hot work despite there being good shade.
We reached the cable car stop after about 90 minutes; I hope I wasn't playing up the "climbing a mountain bit" too much. Yes, we only climbed for an hour and half, but it was certainly enough for me. At the top was a pretend temple where some monks tried to rip us off using incense and palm reading. We were aware of this sort of thing, and an unbelievably soft-spoken American was on hand to warn us. Monks are the keenest conmen in China, it seems. We were also able to buy some water, which was good because I was pretty certain several of my internal organs were about to pack up, and some crisps, which were without doubt the best I have ever tasted. The views from here were pretty great though the usual Chinese cloud/fug stopped them being exceptional.
This cable car area, it turned out, was a very mini town with an 'inn', market stalls, the temple and so on. Much earlier on I had removed my shirt, and as we walked past the temple area we encountered a local woman who can't have been any younger than eighty five. You should have seen the smile she gave when she saw this shirtless, bearded white devil coming towards her. She gave a big thumbs up at me and held it there along with her grin as we went past, and it was good to be appreciated for once (sob). Talking to some locals later, it emerged that she might have though I was Karl Marx. That was a joke.
From the top, we wandered in several directions. It was possible to climb further up, but it was only recommended with the full safety gear. We walked for a few kilometres along this mountain path, which was pretty memorable (I hope). We took photos of us sitting on some fairly precarious ledges. At one point it rained massively heavily and we were grateful for the £1.50 umbrellas we were forced to get the previous day back in civilization.
We took the cable car down and had a great view of the Three Pagodas and the lake, which is named after the part of the body that it is meant to be shaped like. This would be the ear, but to be honest my bread pudding with tofu breakfast was far more like an ear than this perfectly normally shaped lake. Sorry, ancient Chinese culture and history.
Back in the old town, we chose somewhere to eat from the guidebook, and settled on a place offering yak goulash. It was delicious actually, the yak was tasty and there were some nice vegetables for a change, but it was nothing like a goulash. For dessert, I had some yoghurt, being that kind of exciting guy. Lloyd had a pancake which was pretty crappy, but the first pancake you make always is, right?
We walked back to the hotel and on the way Lloyd bought some marble, which is one of the local industries. An English started talking to me, and it turned out it was the same guy who unreasonably had accused me of theft the previous day. I told him that we had returned the glasses, and to my surprise I found that I was his new best friend. He then told me about his pub, his new micro-brewery in the mountains and the amazing band who were playing his pub that night. He also saw fit to use his full range of favourite swear words. It was just like being in London.
At the hotel, Lloyd realised he'd left his camera at the restaurant, and had to taxi it there and back. I met him downstairs where our taxi was waiting for the night's extravaganza of entertainment.
We had already bought ticket's to a performance called Butterfly's Dream. Lloyd suggested it and for some reason I didn't have the heart to object, probably because he's been very kindly escorting me around China. The concierge had a taxi waiting for us when we got downstairs (I could get used to this). We turned up and there was a large group of people participating in organised fun. There was a big circle of people doing a dance so basic that I suspect even I could have excelled. Obviously, being a miserable bugger, I chose not to, despite the protests of some people dressed like idiots. A man with an extremely low voice led loudspeakered everyone instructions. There is a small chance that I feigned injury in order to get out of this crap. Everyone did seem to be loving it though.
We went into the theatre and found we were in the front row. What unfolded over the next 90 minutes was a big bunch of.... shrimps, lobsters, seaweed, yak, birds, butterflies, 3 pagodas, fire breathing somethings. I have no idea what those firebreathing people were supposed to be, but it was very cool and very warm. The firebreathers managed to petrol over our legs, which redefines the term 'audience participation'.
This was occasionally interrupted by video about the local area, with subtitles projected on a net in order to render them illegible. It was kind of entertaining whilst also being cripplingly boring. There were a few good bits - some impressive Indian dancing for instance. Anyway, half way through we legged it out into the entrance. The doors were all padlocked with heavy chains and I realised at that point that the communists had trapped us and we were almost certainly going to be..... nope, the middle door was open. Bye then! And thanks!
The early exit meant that we had time to check out the band that the maliciously accusing man had recommended to us earlier, at his pub. I'll describe it here for you: it was shit. We had a quick chat with the girl who had beat us at pool a couple of nights before and headed off in search of better.
We went past a few bars that didn't entice us so much, but wandered into the next one as it looked fairly nice. We ordered some home-made plum wine, which was really delicious despite coming from the sort of container I'd associate with paint stripper. I thought, I've had something like this before, and it took a while to realise that it was plum schnapps in Germany. What a surprise. The barman seemed pretty friendly and was talking to an Australian in Chinese, which I was kind of impressed by. The stereo was playing Australian rap, something about "pills in the surrey hills". Disappointingly that quote returns nothing on Google so we must have imagined it. We had a chat with the barman about the usual stuff, complimented him on the plum wine, and then left.
The next bar was a bit dingier but Lloyd was tempted by the offer of vodka tasters, despite the fact that vodka had made him stay up all night vomiting. We went in after I declared that I was not touching a drop of vodka. We sat at the bar and ordered so beer made in Laos, which was good stuff. The hippy had somehow overtaken us and was chatting with the bargirl who was essentially lovely. She was called Kiki, or Xixi in Japanese I think, or in English ..... Hope. There was another girl in there who was trying to play poker with the hippy and an excellent dog.
We had a couple of beers while the hippy talked at us about politics - how the UK's system didn;t really give any more choice than the chinese one because of how the media works - I wonder what book he's been reading this week, and we talked with the girl about star signs and languages. Lloyd then played with the dog for a while and we looked through their range of bizarre vodkas, the details of which escape me now.
We left, using the excellent public stone toilets on the way. Perhaps this might be a way to deter vandals in the UK - carve all public facilities from stone. Starting with bus shelters. We saw a guy in a bar being taught to play an instrument which I'm reliably informed is called an er hu. It's like a two stringed violin except the bow isn't tensed and runs between the two strings. The bow plays one string and then you tense it if you want it to play another. The teacher gave me a brief lesson and I managed to not sound to bad. I wish I'd asked him to give me a demo too.
Wednesday 14th July - Dali
I woke up this morning feeling like crap, and very sensibly skipped breakfast to try to avoid violating the inside of a taxi. We spoke to the concierge about how to organise watching fishing with cormorants, which is one of the things that the local area is famous for, and he said to come back in ten minutes when a driver would be ready to take us there.
We were driven to the lake where the fishing is done, which was in the middle of nowhere and the driver had some trouble finding. We bought tickets - clearly we were well and truly still on the tourist trail - and walked round towards the lake. As we got there a band started playing some music, including a token mentally deficient on the tambourine. There were also some girls dressed in local costume who were singing - I don't think I have seen a more bored bunch of people in my life.
We got into a boat - Lloyd and I were in one boat with a guy who did the rowing and a girl who was there, I think, to look authentic. Authentically something or other. These people seemed to be enjoying their day unlike their colleagues we'd seen earlier. There were a couple of other boats with tourists and another with a couple of guys and maybe a dozen birds.
We rowed to the middle of the lake and the guys grabbed each bird in turn by the neck and released it from some string that it was attached to. The birds then swam around looking for fish. When a bird found a fish all of the birds would gather round it and fight for it. One of the guys would then grab the bird that had the fish in its mouth with a net on a long pole. They would again grab the bird by its neck and wait for it to release the fish, which took a few minutes. Apparently the birds have clips round their necks to stop them following the fish; I couldn't say whether this was the case but the sheer size of the fish should have been enough to preclude this. The whole thing was a very impressive sight.
On the way back to land all the workers were singing and encouraging the tourists to sing too. Somehow we found ourselves teaching the (very friendly) girl in our boat the words to 'Row, row, row the boat.....'. We stopped at an island and took photos with the birds on our arms, which was 10/10 tourist-tastic but it was fun to be so close to such cool creatures.
We had a quick lunch (no eruptions so far) and a kip, before walking into town and hiring some bikes. Some very shoddy bikes built for midgets who don't need the ability to change gear. So Lloyd was fine at least. It was £2 for the day's rental, and we headed along the (very) main straight to the lake. There some great views there and tried to take some good photos with moderate success. There wasn't much going otherwise but it was fun to just ride around exploring. Locals were swimming in the lake, and we found a marijuana plant. Actually it seemed a bit massive to be marijuana but it looked like I thought it should so that will be the party line.
We then cycled away from the lake and towards the mountains to look at Dali's Three Pagodas, some of the oldest buildings in this corner of China. For some reason I was disgusted that they wanted to charge us £15 or so to get in, despite having spent the same at other times looking at utter crap like ethnic minority villages, but for that reason we didn't get so close. We could get good views from outside the immediate area though - they are splendid buildings but once you've seen one Chinese temple/pagoda thing you've seen them all, it turns out.
The heavens then opened. I bought some crap just to get a plastic bag to cover my camera, though amusingly this was the time when the guy tried to give us a thin cloth bag instead of some trusty plastic. We also got some umbrellas and decided to take our bikes back.
Dinner consisted of yak and some yak - yak burger which could be described equally well as "burger", and some yak butter tea which was excellent. Creamy and sour.
On the way back some very young local Chinese kids waved sticks threateningly at us white devils and ran away, which was kind of surreal. And we saw the guy from whose pub we took some glasses last night because we wanted to go home but to still simultaneously drink. He told us not to deny it, so I feigned drunken memory less. We said we'd take them back and he didn't want to kill us anymore.
Another early night, actually.
We were driven to the lake where the fishing is done, which was in the middle of nowhere and the driver had some trouble finding. We bought tickets - clearly we were well and truly still on the tourist trail - and walked round towards the lake. As we got there a band started playing some music, including a token mentally deficient on the tambourine. There were also some girls dressed in local costume who were singing - I don't think I have seen a more bored bunch of people in my life.
We got into a boat - Lloyd and I were in one boat with a guy who did the rowing and a girl who was there, I think, to look authentic. Authentically something or other. These people seemed to be enjoying their day unlike their colleagues we'd seen earlier. There were a couple of other boats with tourists and another with a couple of guys and maybe a dozen birds.
We rowed to the middle of the lake and the guys grabbed each bird in turn by the neck and released it from some string that it was attached to. The birds then swam around looking for fish. When a bird found a fish all of the birds would gather round it and fight for it. One of the guys would then grab the bird that had the fish in its mouth with a net on a long pole. They would again grab the bird by its neck and wait for it to release the fish, which took a few minutes. Apparently the birds have clips round their necks to stop them following the fish; I couldn't say whether this was the case but the sheer size of the fish should have been enough to preclude this. The whole thing was a very impressive sight.
On the way back to land all the workers were singing and encouraging the tourists to sing too. Somehow we found ourselves teaching the (very friendly) girl in our boat the words to 'Row, row, row the boat.....'. We stopped at an island and took photos with the birds on our arms, which was 10/10 tourist-tastic but it was fun to be so close to such cool creatures.
We had a quick lunch (no eruptions so far) and a kip, before walking into town and hiring some bikes. Some very shoddy bikes built for midgets who don't need the ability to change gear. So Lloyd was fine at least. It was £2 for the day's rental, and we headed along the (very) main straight to the lake. There some great views there and tried to take some good photos with moderate success. There wasn't much going otherwise but it was fun to just ride around exploring. Locals were swimming in the lake, and we found a marijuana plant. Actually it seemed a bit massive to be marijuana but it looked like I thought it should so that will be the party line.
We then cycled away from the lake and towards the mountains to look at Dali's Three Pagodas, some of the oldest buildings in this corner of China. For some reason I was disgusted that they wanted to charge us £15 or so to get in, despite having spent the same at other times looking at utter crap like ethnic minority villages, but for that reason we didn't get so close. We could get good views from outside the immediate area though - they are splendid buildings but once you've seen one Chinese temple/pagoda thing you've seen them all, it turns out.
The heavens then opened. I bought some crap just to get a plastic bag to cover my camera, though amusingly this was the time when the guy tried to give us a thin cloth bag instead of some trusty plastic. We also got some umbrellas and decided to take our bikes back.
Dinner consisted of yak and some yak - yak burger which could be described equally well as "burger", and some yak butter tea which was excellent. Creamy and sour.
On the way back some very young local Chinese kids waved sticks threateningly at us white devils and ran away, which was kind of surreal. And we saw the guy from whose pub we took some glasses last night because we wanted to go home but to still simultaneously drink. He told us not to deny it, so I feigned drunken memory less. We said we'd take them back and he didn't want to kill us anymore.
Another early night, actually.
Tuesday 13 July - Going To Dali
We woke up semi-early and went for breakfast at the hotel's revolving restaurant on the top floor. The restaurant wasn't revolving, but we had a good view of the city. There appeared to be several observation towers around the city, though it's hard to say for sure what they were. When we entered, we asked the waiter to find us a seat, and we walked backwards and forwards a few times through and around the restaurant. A few minutes later he turned around and asked us if we were looking for a table. Sometimes this country can be very confusing. The breakfast was actually ok, a reasonable attempt at a European breakfast though Lloyd lamented the absence of baked beans.
We turned up way too early at the airport as there was zero traffic. We passed a big chunk of the time on the massage chairs which I normally walk past thinking they are for idiots. Surprisingly, they kind of work. You have to make sure you position yourself properly if you want your lower back done, though however your position yourself it does manage to find the exact position of your back side in order to jab it pointlessly and uncomfortably. The chairs also make an attempt at massaging your legs, but the best they manage is to grip them so fiercely that you think you'll get DVT before you even make it to the plane.
The flight itself took 40 minutes, which made me feel like I was killing the planet just for fun. In comparison, the taxi from the airport to our hotel took 70 minutes and cost £10. This was aided by our having a taxi driver who was clearly thoroughly sick of living. The streets of Shanghai are slightly scary - nobody has any patience whatsoever. Drivers in the Dali region are frightened to death of every other driver. Whenever they drive near a car or person, they will hoot their horn several times so that everyone knows everyone else is there. This guy took it to the next level however. He can't have agreed, because he gave us his business card when arrived at the hotel. I think drinking Shanghai tap water would be a quicker suicide method.
The hotel was huge but completely lacking in style. The room was very comfortable with a view of the pool outside. It was empty and we immediately went to the pool and relaxed on the loungers for a bit. We moved into the pool and Lloyd has his underwater camera so we got a few shots before some Chinese boys came out and took all their clothes off. This generally makes it feel a bit wrong to have your camera out, so this put pay to the photography.
We took a walk towards the town proper, walking past a lot of shops that mostly sold solar heaters or mopeds. Dali is split into two parts - an 'old town' surrounded by city walls, where we were to spend most of our time, and a 'new town' where most of the normal people seemed to live. We took in some sights of the old town - mainly the nearby mountains and the very touristy shops and restaurants. Again, the tourists were almost exclusively Chinese. We went to Bird Bar which was apparently the first Western bar in Dali, and considered doing a crawl of the pubs based on this chronological ordering. The place was exactly how I'd expect a backpackers bar to be - incredibly laid back and self-satisfied. We walked around the outside of the city walls and took lots of photos. It was very rural - Dali was by far the smallest place we had been to.
For dinner we found a place that did 'across the bridge noodles' which is a famous local-ish dish. They give you a big bowl of broth, and you put the ingredients in and wait for the broth to cook them. It was good but too filling. We then went for a drink at Bad Monkey. We had some Dunkelweizen and were beaten at pool by a local girl by the name of Lula.
We walked back to the hotel and enjoyed the cool of the evening. It was like an English summer evening, in fact Dali seems to be very cool after Shanghai. Several of the places we walked past had prostitutes sitting inside on sofas watching the TV waiting for the punters to come to them, I guess - a bit of a weird surprise.
We turned up way too early at the airport as there was zero traffic. We passed a big chunk of the time on the massage chairs which I normally walk past thinking they are for idiots. Surprisingly, they kind of work. You have to make sure you position yourself properly if you want your lower back done, though however your position yourself it does manage to find the exact position of your back side in order to jab it pointlessly and uncomfortably. The chairs also make an attempt at massaging your legs, but the best they manage is to grip them so fiercely that you think you'll get DVT before you even make it to the plane.
The flight itself took 40 minutes, which made me feel like I was killing the planet just for fun. In comparison, the taxi from the airport to our hotel took 70 minutes and cost £10. This was aided by our having a taxi driver who was clearly thoroughly sick of living. The streets of Shanghai are slightly scary - nobody has any patience whatsoever. Drivers in the Dali region are frightened to death of every other driver. Whenever they drive near a car or person, they will hoot their horn several times so that everyone knows everyone else is there. This guy took it to the next level however. He can't have agreed, because he gave us his business card when arrived at the hotel. I think drinking Shanghai tap water would be a quicker suicide method.
The hotel was huge but completely lacking in style. The room was very comfortable with a view of the pool outside. It was empty and we immediately went to the pool and relaxed on the loungers for a bit. We moved into the pool and Lloyd has his underwater camera so we got a few shots before some Chinese boys came out and took all their clothes off. This generally makes it feel a bit wrong to have your camera out, so this put pay to the photography.
We took a walk towards the town proper, walking past a lot of shops that mostly sold solar heaters or mopeds. Dali is split into two parts - an 'old town' surrounded by city walls, where we were to spend most of our time, and a 'new town' where most of the normal people seemed to live. We took in some sights of the old town - mainly the nearby mountains and the very touristy shops and restaurants. Again, the tourists were almost exclusively Chinese. We went to Bird Bar which was apparently the first Western bar in Dali, and considered doing a crawl of the pubs based on this chronological ordering. The place was exactly how I'd expect a backpackers bar to be - incredibly laid back and self-satisfied. We walked around the outside of the city walls and took lots of photos. It was very rural - Dali was by far the smallest place we had been to.
For dinner we found a place that did 'across the bridge noodles' which is a famous local-ish dish. They give you a big bowl of broth, and you put the ingredients in and wait for the broth to cook them. It was good but too filling. We then went for a drink at Bad Monkey. We had some Dunkelweizen and were beaten at pool by a local girl by the name of Lula.
We walked back to the hotel and enjoyed the cool of the evening. It was like an English summer evening, in fact Dali seems to be very cool after Shanghai. Several of the places we walked past had prostitutes sitting inside on sofas watching the TV waiting for the punters to come to them, I guess - a bit of a weird surprise.
Monday 12th July - Kunming
We woke up at 5am and headed straight for the airport. Within ten minutes we were checked in and through security, watching the world cup final highlights by the departure gate and checking our mail on the free wifi. It couldn't sound less like Heathrow, though they were happy to rip us off for drinks and suchlike, so not quite perfection.
The flight was good. I was intrigued, if not a tiny bit worried, about internal flights in China. It turns out that they are fine and a little amusing. There was an extremely dubious breakfast involving cabbage, dumplings, and other things, done in the traditional disgusting airline way. It was far too early for cabbage. Security and safety seemed fine, though people were allowed to leave their open bags on their laps during landing. They announced that they were going to land about 30 seconds before touching down, which was unusual.
We landed in Kunming and checked into our hotel, before unsuccessfully trying to get some sleep. We found a place for lunch in the guide book and took a cab there. The restaurant was an extremely cool looking temple-like building, and we sat in what I guess you would call the courtyard. We tried to take some pictures but the manager was a camera Nazi. The food was really good including little cucumbers. Eating lots of little cucumbers, however, is a lot like eating one normal sized cucumber. There was a nice cabbage dish and a meat dish which looked good but was essentially fat. Still, the atmosphere of the place made it very memorable, and I made sure to take pictures of the outside to annoy the manager.
We were not sure what to do in Kunming - we were only there because we couldn't fly directly to Dali. The internet seemed to suggest that the best thing to do near to the city was to go the Yunnan Ethnic Village. Yunnan is the area which Kunming is in, and there are apparently lots of ethnic minority groups there. We were both doubtful but took a taxi there.
We paid the entrance fee and I took out the additional insurance that covered me against any undisclosed but horrific events that might cause me harm. I was hoping for an amusing insurance certificate, but unbelievably it was written in Chinese and unattractive; what a waste of 15 pence.
The Chinese tourists were out in full force and desperate for pictures of me. The place was divided up with a different area for each minority group. Apparently each group sends people there to work. This had the effect of everyone being fantastically attractive, I guess when the group decided who to send, they choose send Stumpy the one-eyed leper to represent them. They wore their native clothes and some made stuff to sell to the tourists.
There were various performances going on, including one where an elephant would pick you on its trunk, but I thought I'd spare the elephant this ordeal. They were being pretty badly treated, controlled by hooks around an ear. The whole thing was pretty disillusioning and we decided to leave, but not before going to see a show in their big central arena. There were more beautiful people of various ethnicities dancing in colourful costumes, and.... that was it.
We tried to leave and found a taxi driver to take us. who gave us a fixed price We waited for the taxi driver infront of ours to get out of the way, and waited... and waited. In the end Lloyd asked the guy what was going on and we went and talked to the other driver. Very slowly. Then he said it was all OK and got back. Then we waited.... and then we decided to get another driver. He seemed like he might have been a bit high.
We got back to the hotel ok, but by that point I was feeling fairly wrong and Lloyd was tired so we decided that we would have a fairly quite one. We looked around the local area a bit (good pirate DVD shops) and hailed another taxi and asked to go to the central area where there are bars and restaurants. This was at the traffic lights so the driver pulled forwards so we could get in. I opened a rear door and stepped in. At this point, the bus next to us decided to pull forward albeit slowly. The bus clipped the car door and started pushing it forward off it its hinges. I jumped out of the car and bashed hard on the bus driver's window and he stopped. I tried to close the car door and it worked, so we drove on.
A few minutes later we pulled over and guy got out and opened and closed the door a few times. It looked like it might not be closing 100% correctly after all, and he rang someone on his mobile phone and then continued driving. A few minutes later still, he pulled over and started Chineseing at Lloyd in an angry tone. He was clearly trying to get some money out of us, and Lloyd Chinesed back at him to the effect that it wasn't our fault. Very impressive. The fare by this point was 80p, so I gave him the smallest note I had, which was £2. And then we walked away. Very, very quickly. We didn't know where we were, so we got another taxi to 'where the foreigners go to drink'.
We had a single drink, and I didn't risk any food on my dodgy-feeling stomach. The bar we found had bizarrely wonky floors and Jenga, and we called it a night after about an hour. Lloyd had a Bailey's cocktail- I thought it was important to record this fact.
Kunming does not appear to be the most exciting place, probably because we had come from Shanghai, which quite possibly is.
The flight was good. I was intrigued, if not a tiny bit worried, about internal flights in China. It turns out that they are fine and a little amusing. There was an extremely dubious breakfast involving cabbage, dumplings, and other things, done in the traditional disgusting airline way. It was far too early for cabbage. Security and safety seemed fine, though people were allowed to leave their open bags on their laps during landing. They announced that they were going to land about 30 seconds before touching down, which was unusual.
We landed in Kunming and checked into our hotel, before unsuccessfully trying to get some sleep. We found a place for lunch in the guide book and took a cab there. The restaurant was an extremely cool looking temple-like building, and we sat in what I guess you would call the courtyard. We tried to take some pictures but the manager was a camera Nazi. The food was really good including little cucumbers. Eating lots of little cucumbers, however, is a lot like eating one normal sized cucumber. There was a nice cabbage dish and a meat dish which looked good but was essentially fat. Still, the atmosphere of the place made it very memorable, and I made sure to take pictures of the outside to annoy the manager.
We were not sure what to do in Kunming - we were only there because we couldn't fly directly to Dali. The internet seemed to suggest that the best thing to do near to the city was to go the Yunnan Ethnic Village. Yunnan is the area which Kunming is in, and there are apparently lots of ethnic minority groups there. We were both doubtful but took a taxi there.
We paid the entrance fee and I took out the additional insurance that covered me against any undisclosed but horrific events that might cause me harm. I was hoping for an amusing insurance certificate, but unbelievably it was written in Chinese and unattractive; what a waste of 15 pence.
The Chinese tourists were out in full force and desperate for pictures of me. The place was divided up with a different area for each minority group. Apparently each group sends people there to work. This had the effect of everyone being fantastically attractive, I guess when the group decided who to send, they choose send Stumpy the one-eyed leper to represent them. They wore their native clothes and some made stuff to sell to the tourists.
There were various performances going on, including one where an elephant would pick you on its trunk, but I thought I'd spare the elephant this ordeal. They were being pretty badly treated, controlled by hooks around an ear. The whole thing was pretty disillusioning and we decided to leave, but not before going to see a show in their big central arena. There were more beautiful people of various ethnicities dancing in colourful costumes, and.... that was it.
We tried to leave and found a taxi driver to take us. who gave us a fixed price We waited for the taxi driver infront of ours to get out of the way, and waited... and waited. In the end Lloyd asked the guy what was going on and we went and talked to the other driver. Very slowly. Then he said it was all OK and got back. Then we waited.... and then we decided to get another driver. He seemed like he might have been a bit high.
We got back to the hotel ok, but by that point I was feeling fairly wrong and Lloyd was tired so we decided that we would have a fairly quite one. We looked around the local area a bit (good pirate DVD shops) and hailed another taxi and asked to go to the central area where there are bars and restaurants. This was at the traffic lights so the driver pulled forwards so we could get in. I opened a rear door and stepped in. At this point, the bus next to us decided to pull forward albeit slowly. The bus clipped the car door and started pushing it forward off it its hinges. I jumped out of the car and bashed hard on the bus driver's window and he stopped. I tried to close the car door and it worked, so we drove on.
A few minutes later we pulled over and guy got out and opened and closed the door a few times. It looked like it might not be closing 100% correctly after all, and he rang someone on his mobile phone and then continued driving. A few minutes later still, he pulled over and started Chineseing at Lloyd in an angry tone. He was clearly trying to get some money out of us, and Lloyd Chinesed back at him to the effect that it wasn't our fault. Very impressive. The fare by this point was 80p, so I gave him the smallest note I had, which was £2. And then we walked away. Very, very quickly. We didn't know where we were, so we got another taxi to 'where the foreigners go to drink'.
We had a single drink, and I didn't risk any food on my dodgy-feeling stomach. The bar we found had bizarrely wonky floors and Jenga, and we called it a night after about an hour. Lloyd had a Bailey's cocktail- I thought it was important to record this fact.
Kunming does not appear to be the most exciting place, probably because we had come from Shanghai, which quite possibly is.
18 July 2010
Sunday 18th July
I woke up in Lloyd's bed. I hope that's the last time I ever write that.
Lloyd had kindly given up his bed for the 2 weeks I was there. Just to clear that up for historical purposes. Thanks Lloyd.
I finished packing quickly and said goodbye to Marisa. It was sad because we all had a lot of fun together (I think). We then headed over to the Dim Sum place that we had been too on my first day in Shanghai (I think). We ordered a very similar assortment of food, which was obviously a mistake because there were now two of us instead of three. The food came, and soon we were very stuffed indeed. The sort of stuffed where if you were faced with HAVING to eat anything else, the prospect would make you feel several kinds of wrong.
The food we ordered was very similar to what we had ordered the time before, as I said. There was unfortunately one significant difference- the first time round, Lloyd didn't order any frog's ovary soup. As the video on Youtube demonstrates amply well, it took a few moments for me to work up the courage to tackle this soup, but I honestly think that it was because I was so full. The whole idea was very unappealing, but the ovary itself was actually surprisingly ok. It was quite sweet, and if it wasn't for the unidentifiable tough bits that were in the same mouthful, it would not have been that bad.
We paid up and took the subway to the station where you can take the Maglev.
3 hr wait
Lloyd had kindly given up his bed for the 2 weeks I was there. Just to clear that up for historical purposes. Thanks Lloyd.
I finished packing quickly and said goodbye to Marisa. It was sad because we all had a lot of fun together (I think). We then headed over to the Dim Sum place that we had been too on my first day in Shanghai (I think). We ordered a very similar assortment of food, which was obviously a mistake because there were now two of us instead of three. The food came, and soon we were very stuffed indeed. The sort of stuffed where if you were faced with HAVING to eat anything else, the prospect would make you feel several kinds of wrong.
The food we ordered was very similar to what we had ordered the time before, as I said. There was unfortunately one significant difference- the first time round, Lloyd didn't order any frog's ovary soup. As the video on Youtube demonstrates amply well, it took a few moments for me to work up the courage to tackle this soup, but I honestly think that it was because I was so full. The whole idea was very unappealing, but the ovary itself was actually surprisingly ok. It was quite sweet, and if it wasn't for the unidentifiable tough bits that were in the same mouthful, it would not have been that bad.
We paid up and took the subway to the station where you can take the Maglev.
3 hr wait
16 July 2010
Sunday 11 July 2010
I awoke at 9:35 for a 9:45 departure, and re-set the alarm for 9:40. We went to Marisa's hotel again for a Dim Sum brunch. Even finding the room for this was difficult, complicated by the Chinese inclination to say 'yes' to questions to which the correct answer is 'no'. The food was quite OK, we all stuffed ourselves in preparation for the day ahead, particularly Amelia who demolished a large put of Congee.
We took a taxi towards the tea fields and walked the last stretch. The landscape was again picturesque and with plenty of Chinese tourists and their expensive European cars. It was cool to see tea being grown, the tea fields full of unusual flowers and many dragonflies. It was sweltering which made everything hard work though. The area had some nice temples and pagodas but we were interested in the cool beers more. Amelia bought some lotus fruit which we enjoyed shelling but turned out to be largely flavourless but for the very centre which was supposedly "too sour for foreigners". They wanted £20-30 for a small box of their tea - they charged depending on the day that they claimed it was picked.
We saw workers in the fields, one of whom had a long pole with a large net on the end. This made for a cool photo, less so perhaps when we later saw that it was used for removing tourists' litter from the streams!
We wanted to hire a boat that we could row around the lake, but apparently a storm was coming in, so we had to hire one with a driver. Or rower. Or something. It was short but sweet.
We took a taxi to the 'old street', a huge tourist trap selling unusually good things. Sellers made glass ornaments in the street, health and safety entirely forgotten again. Tiny words were inscribed on £1 gifts. Clay models of people's faces made perfectly in a few minutes. Very cheap tea.
Next came my first trip on a tuc-tuc. A bike with a shell and a bench attached. Larger people were distributed evenly between the vehicles - me with Amelia then. I felt like I raised the centre of gravity too high while putting the vehicle entirely off balance but we got where we were going without a hitch. I managed not to squash Amelia dead. It was fun ride. Neither one-way (four lane) roads nor the pavement formed any kind of obstacle.
At the electronics shop I bought a battery charger for my camera - I never expected to get through two batteries in the whole trip, let alone this soon. We examined the magic arse-cleaning toilets in awe.
We had little time left so after picking our bags up from Marisa's hotel, which by now we were almost certainly abusing the privilege of, we took the easy option of Pizza Hut. Sorry, Chinese culture. Disappointingly the menu was only slightly freaky. I guess their pizza crusts were shaped in quite an oriental way. Shame!
The train home. Read some more of 'One hundred years of solitude' and wrote this. I don't think we're up for staying awake for the World Cup Final tonight at 2:30 am. Busy one tomorrow.
We took a taxi towards the tea fields and walked the last stretch. The landscape was again picturesque and with plenty of Chinese tourists and their expensive European cars. It was cool to see tea being grown, the tea fields full of unusual flowers and many dragonflies. It was sweltering which made everything hard work though. The area had some nice temples and pagodas but we were interested in the cool beers more. Amelia bought some lotus fruit which we enjoyed shelling but turned out to be largely flavourless but for the very centre which was supposedly "too sour for foreigners". They wanted £20-30 for a small box of their tea - they charged depending on the day that they claimed it was picked.
We saw workers in the fields, one of whom had a long pole with a large net on the end. This made for a cool photo, less so perhaps when we later saw that it was used for removing tourists' litter from the streams!
We wanted to hire a boat that we could row around the lake, but apparently a storm was coming in, so we had to hire one with a driver. Or rower. Or something. It was short but sweet.
We took a taxi to the 'old street', a huge tourist trap selling unusually good things. Sellers made glass ornaments in the street, health and safety entirely forgotten again. Tiny words were inscribed on £1 gifts. Clay models of people's faces made perfectly in a few minutes. Very cheap tea.
Next came my first trip on a tuc-tuc. A bike with a shell and a bench attached. Larger people were distributed evenly between the vehicles - me with Amelia then. I felt like I raised the centre of gravity too high while putting the vehicle entirely off balance but we got where we were going without a hitch. I managed not to squash Amelia dead. It was fun ride. Neither one-way (four lane) roads nor the pavement formed any kind of obstacle.
At the electronics shop I bought a battery charger for my camera - I never expected to get through two batteries in the whole trip, let alone this soon. We examined the magic arse-cleaning toilets in awe.
We had little time left so after picking our bags up from Marisa's hotel, which by now we were almost certainly abusing the privilege of, we took the easy option of Pizza Hut. Sorry, Chinese culture. Disappointingly the menu was only slightly freaky. I guess their pizza crusts were shaped in quite an oriental way. Shame!
The train home. Read some more of 'One hundred years of solitude' and wrote this. I don't think we're up for staying awake for the World Cup Final tonight at 2:30 am. Busy one tomorrow.
Saturday 10 July 2010
I'm writing this from Zhongshan International hotel. On paper, mind.
We had a civilized start to the day, getting up at eleven and walking round the corner to get some greasy bread stuff from the street sellers and a donut kebab from the bakery. Then a train from Shanghai South Station at one to Hangzhou (pronounced hang-joe).
There is a lake called West Lake which you can bike around - we decided to do it today in order to try to be respectable for the return train trip tomorrow. There is a city cycle hire scheme but we hired from the hotel for £2 per hour, which is pretty dear out here. The bikes were ok, though mine had massively low handlebars.
The lake is beautiful. Mountains on every side, fountain displays for the thousands of tourists. It was very busy. It was great fun cycling around it, and the Chinese roads didn't feel that dangerous, I think because everyone always expects trouble. The roads in Shanghai are about twenty times worse; I don't think I'd ever be brave enough.
We took a quick break for a drink. A Starbucks in fact. I had a Coffee an Jelly Frappucino, which I can not recommend. The Chinese are very fond of putting jelly in drinks, and it's normally ok because they don't use this much!
After cycling round a chunk of the lake, we locked our bikes up (to some extent!) and made our way up a hill/rock. Lloyd had been here before and it turned out that he had a plan. At the top was the obligatory pagoda and huge rocks that people were climbing. Properly climbing. We made our way up the for awesome views of the city and the lake. And the fearless climbers jumping from rock to rock with zero equipment. This was one of the best moments of the trip so far, I didn't intend to take so many photos. We cycled back in slightly more traffic, but mostly in cycle lanes. It was getting pretty dark and the bikes had no lights, but cyclists and motorcyclists don't seem to worry about using lights even if they have them in China, so no big deal, kind of.
We went back to our very nice £40 per night hotel and showered before dinner. My room had a basket containing, amongst other things, a vibrating condom, and his 'n' hers Viagra. 'Viagra'. We had dinner in an establishment labelled as a 'Chinese Restaurant'. Amelia ordered expertly. There was a dish which was sheets tofu, dried and put in a simple sauce. It was just like struddle. If you don't know what that is, you're not meant to.
A nightcap at Marisa's hotel. An Erdinger myself, repulsive cocktails for the others. The beard is growing well.
We had a civilized start to the day, getting up at eleven and walking round the corner to get some greasy bread stuff from the street sellers and a donut kebab from the bakery. Then a train from Shanghai South Station at one to Hangzhou (pronounced hang-joe).
There is a lake called West Lake which you can bike around - we decided to do it today in order to try to be respectable for the return train trip tomorrow. There is a city cycle hire scheme but we hired from the hotel for £2 per hour, which is pretty dear out here. The bikes were ok, though mine had massively low handlebars.
The lake is beautiful. Mountains on every side, fountain displays for the thousands of tourists. It was very busy. It was great fun cycling around it, and the Chinese roads didn't feel that dangerous, I think because everyone always expects trouble. The roads in Shanghai are about twenty times worse; I don't think I'd ever be brave enough.
We took a quick break for a drink. A Starbucks in fact. I had a Coffee an Jelly Frappucino, which I can not recommend. The Chinese are very fond of putting jelly in drinks, and it's normally ok because they don't use this much!
After cycling round a chunk of the lake, we locked our bikes up (to some extent!) and made our way up a hill/rock. Lloyd had been here before and it turned out that he had a plan. At the top was the obligatory pagoda and huge rocks that people were climbing. Properly climbing. We made our way up the for awesome views of the city and the lake. And the fearless climbers jumping from rock to rock with zero equipment. This was one of the best moments of the trip so far, I didn't intend to take so many photos. We cycled back in slightly more traffic, but mostly in cycle lanes. It was getting pretty dark and the bikes had no lights, but cyclists and motorcyclists don't seem to worry about using lights even if they have them in China, so no big deal, kind of.
We went back to our very nice £40 per night hotel and showered before dinner. My room had a basket containing, amongst other things, a vibrating condom, and his 'n' hers Viagra. 'Viagra'. We had dinner in an establishment labelled as a 'Chinese Restaurant'. Amelia ordered expertly. There was a dish which was sheets tofu, dried and put in a simple sauce. It was just like struddle. If you don't know what that is, you're not meant to.
A nightcap at Marisa's hotel. An Erdinger myself, repulsive cocktails for the others. The beard is growing well.
Friday 9th July - The Big Night Out
Friday started with a brunch at the Japanese restaurant round the corner.
I then moved on to the Shanghai Museum while Lloyd went to get train tickets for the following day, neatly allowing me to avoid the inferno that is the station ticket office. And what a cool museum.
It attempted to cover the period from when Chinese civilization started, with sections on sculpture, painting, calligraphy, seals (the type related to sending lettters), money, furniture and doubtlessly other things that escape me. It probably shouldn't have been a surprise that the china and pottery was the most distinctive and impressive section, along with the sculpture. The money section was also interesting. Way back in time some Chinese used pieces of metal that were designed to easily attach to a belt, rather than the (more) modern round coins. They looked more like keys. A few Victorian coins from Hong Kong were memorable too, probably down to my inexplicable and no-doubt immoral interest in the British Empire.
We chilled out for much of the afternoon, before we went to do some shooting. We'd scouted out the place a few nights before and were impressed enough by its obviously slack attitude that we decided to go for it. When we got there, there were people laying on the sofas and others watching a very adult-sounding film in the corner.
We were soon in the booths of the firing range itself, built to international safety standards which were then immediately ignored. They had switched the metal detectors off before we went in, and let me describe the instruction given before we started shooting: none. I had shot before so it wasn't a big deal for me, but it was fairly amazing.
The smaller guns we were using were eight pounds for ten shots, at which point the guy in the booth would reload for you. By the entrance there was a warning to keep count of how much you were spending, but Marisa's friend Celine didn't heed this advice and accidentally blew forty quid in about four minutes.
The guns were not that powerful, which was disappointing. For a second round, some of us went for guns with sniper-rifle like sights you could look down. This made everything a lot easier, and therefore almost no fun. Overall it was a good thing to do though.
We went back to the apartment, ordered McDonalds for delivery (available 24 hours) and watched Kick Ass in preparation for going out to some clubs. Everyone promptly wimped out of this, so Lloyd and I went to a Belgian bar alone. When we got there, the next table was occupied by a few locals who were in a bit of a state. We ordered beers from their excellent menu and were soon chatting to them.
It turned out they were English teachers and their ("star") student. The teachers spoke reasonable English, and we were soon discussing politics. They didn't have much of interest to say, which was disappointing as I was hoping for some insight into the Chinese people's view of their country's regime. I'll keep looking.
I then moved on to the Shanghai Museum while Lloyd went to get train tickets for the following day, neatly allowing me to avoid the inferno that is the station ticket office. And what a cool museum.
It attempted to cover the period from when Chinese civilization started, with sections on sculpture, painting, calligraphy, seals (the type related to sending lettters), money, furniture and doubtlessly other things that escape me. It probably shouldn't have been a surprise that the china and pottery was the most distinctive and impressive section, along with the sculpture. The money section was also interesting. Way back in time some Chinese used pieces of metal that were designed to easily attach to a belt, rather than the (more) modern round coins. They looked more like keys. A few Victorian coins from Hong Kong were memorable too, probably down to my inexplicable and no-doubt immoral interest in the British Empire.
We chilled out for much of the afternoon, before we went to do some shooting. We'd scouted out the place a few nights before and were impressed enough by its obviously slack attitude that we decided to go for it. When we got there, there were people laying on the sofas and others watching a very adult-sounding film in the corner.
We were soon in the booths of the firing range itself, built to international safety standards which were then immediately ignored. They had switched the metal detectors off before we went in, and let me describe the instruction given before we started shooting: none. I had shot before so it wasn't a big deal for me, but it was fairly amazing.
The smaller guns we were using were eight pounds for ten shots, at which point the guy in the booth would reload for you. By the entrance there was a warning to keep count of how much you were spending, but Marisa's friend Celine didn't heed this advice and accidentally blew forty quid in about four minutes.
The guns were not that powerful, which was disappointing. For a second round, some of us went for guns with sniper-rifle like sights you could look down. This made everything a lot easier, and therefore almost no fun. Overall it was a good thing to do though.
We went back to the apartment, ordered McDonalds for delivery (available 24 hours) and watched Kick Ass in preparation for going out to some clubs. Everyone promptly wimped out of this, so Lloyd and I went to a Belgian bar alone. When we got there, the next table was occupied by a few locals who were in a bit of a state. We ordered beers from their excellent menu and were soon chatting to them.
It turned out they were English teachers and their ("star") student. The teachers spoke reasonable English, and we were soon discussing politics. They didn't have much of interest to say, which was disappointing as I was hoping for some insight into the Chinese people's view of their country's regime. I'll keep looking.
14 July 2010
Thursday 8th July - Pudong, Shanghai
We all got up at 8am to go to the Expo. Except Marisa didn't because she was up until 5, and inspired by this, Lloyd and I agreed to put it off and go back to sleep. At 11am we went to a Korean place for brunch. I like this leisurely life. We has Korean Stonepot - mine was kim chi and some meet or other - good stuff.
We then headed into Pudong, which is basically the other side of the river. This is the financial area which is home to Shanghai's skyscrpapers. Lots of them. There is a park called Central Park which is surrounded by them and there are no normal sized buildings in sight. Why bother, hey?
We went up Shanghai Financial Centre, for 150 RMB or about £15. This has the highest viewing gallery of any building in the world. It's a nice looking building, much like a massive bottle opener. Interestingly the first few floors appear to made from brick in a Chinese style, before obviously reverting to steel. Much of the building seems to be there for the purpose of getting to the floors above. There are a huge number of escalators and staircases, seemingly leaving room for little else.
We went to around floor 90 in the first lift. There were some cool flashing light effects in the lift; they were really trying to put on a show. You can pay less and only be allowed this far up, but we thought "in for a penny...". The view from here is superb, and you can look up to see the higher platform, above the hole which make the building look like a bottle opener. There was a display on the history of expositions, starting with the first one at Crystal Palace. This was unusually informative for the Chinese who are surprisingly uninclined to provide any information that you might be intersested in at this sort of thing. We went to the 100th floor using the stairs because we were told this would be the quickest way. Kind of unimpressive, but it was cool that the stairs were individually numbered.
The view from the very top was a little better and it was great to get an overall view of the city. Different areas have buildings with different coloured roofs which made a cool effect and the river looked stunning, much like the view from The Peak at Hong Kong.
Later we went to Tian Zi Fang which is a very trendy area with alleys full of boutiquey shops and art galleries. And expensive bars, one of which we went to for a quick beer before dinner. We got fairly shocking service to Amelia had to get slightly arsey and click her fingers at them. Which amused me.
Round the corner was the place that was the reason for us being there. The 100 RMB burger challenge. Eat a kilogram of burger in ten minutes and get it free, and get a photo on their wall too. They had a model of the burger outside to get people in; it was fairly intimidating.
When the burgers came, a man came with a stopwatch and Lloyd and I started eating. We had done some thinking about strategies, and mine was to get stuck in early to make up some headway before the inevitable lethargy. Unfortunately I decided the spend the first minute arsing about by slowly dipping the chips in the ketchup before exaggeratedly savouring them. Note that nobody mentioned chips before we got the burger. But then I got down to business.
After five minutes I was more than half done, but it started to get more difficult. My jaw was getting very tired from the chewing and the food seemed to be backing up in my body. This was clearly an interesting spectacle for Amelia and Marisa. Marisa declared that she was full after eating a third of her tiny burger, to our amusement. Amelia had an anaemic-looking salad. I finished the burger just as the 10 minutes were up. Lloyd finished maybe 85% of his. The bill came and both burgers were listed on there, as I hadn't managed the chips, but we couldn't be bothered to argue. I think the two of us were mainly concerned with trying to breathe.
We paid and left, but when we saw that there were no chips on the model we felt a bit aggrieved. Merisa used her best Mandarin to start complaining but the manager came and they switched to English. The argument was seemingly lost until Marisa used the magic word "cheated" and the manager gave us the 100 RMB note which I said we would put towards the next round. He took my photo with a polaroid camera and put it on the wall, but I'm convinced they've put it on the dartboard or fashioned a voodoo doll in my image, or something similar.
We had the promised round of drinks in a bar. Some really crappy cocktails for the others though I stuck to the safety of Erdinger. A fun night overall.
We then headed into Pudong, which is basically the other side of the river. This is the financial area which is home to Shanghai's skyscrpapers. Lots of them. There is a park called Central Park which is surrounded by them and there are no normal sized buildings in sight. Why bother, hey?
We went up Shanghai Financial Centre, for 150 RMB or about £15. This has the highest viewing gallery of any building in the world. It's a nice looking building, much like a massive bottle opener. Interestingly the first few floors appear to made from brick in a Chinese style, before obviously reverting to steel. Much of the building seems to be there for the purpose of getting to the floors above. There are a huge number of escalators and staircases, seemingly leaving room for little else.
We went to around floor 90 in the first lift. There were some cool flashing light effects in the lift; they were really trying to put on a show. You can pay less and only be allowed this far up, but we thought "in for a penny...". The view from here is superb, and you can look up to see the higher platform, above the hole which make the building look like a bottle opener. There was a display on the history of expositions, starting with the first one at Crystal Palace. This was unusually informative for the Chinese who are surprisingly uninclined to provide any information that you might be intersested in at this sort of thing. We went to the 100th floor using the stairs because we were told this would be the quickest way. Kind of unimpressive, but it was cool that the stairs were individually numbered.
The view from the very top was a little better and it was great to get an overall view of the city. Different areas have buildings with different coloured roofs which made a cool effect and the river looked stunning, much like the view from The Peak at Hong Kong.
Later we went to Tian Zi Fang which is a very trendy area with alleys full of boutiquey shops and art galleries. And expensive bars, one of which we went to for a quick beer before dinner. We got fairly shocking service to Amelia had to get slightly arsey and click her fingers at them. Which amused me.
Round the corner was the place that was the reason for us being there. The 100 RMB burger challenge. Eat a kilogram of burger in ten minutes and get it free, and get a photo on their wall too. They had a model of the burger outside to get people in; it was fairly intimidating.
When the burgers came, a man came with a stopwatch and Lloyd and I started eating. We had done some thinking about strategies, and mine was to get stuck in early to make up some headway before the inevitable lethargy. Unfortunately I decided the spend the first minute arsing about by slowly dipping the chips in the ketchup before exaggeratedly savouring them. Note that nobody mentioned chips before we got the burger. But then I got down to business.
After five minutes I was more than half done, but it started to get more difficult. My jaw was getting very tired from the chewing and the food seemed to be backing up in my body. This was clearly an interesting spectacle for Amelia and Marisa. Marisa declared that she was full after eating a third of her tiny burger, to our amusement. Amelia had an anaemic-looking salad. I finished the burger just as the 10 minutes were up. Lloyd finished maybe 85% of his. The bill came and both burgers were listed on there, as I hadn't managed the chips, but we couldn't be bothered to argue. I think the two of us were mainly concerned with trying to breathe.
We paid and left, but when we saw that there were no chips on the model we felt a bit aggrieved. Merisa used her best Mandarin to start complaining but the manager came and they switched to English. The argument was seemingly lost until Marisa used the magic word "cheated" and the manager gave us the 100 RMB note which I said we would put towards the next round. He took my photo with a polaroid camera and put it on the wall, but I'm convinced they've put it on the dartboard or fashioned a voodoo doll in my image, or something similar.
We had the promised round of drinks in a bar. Some really crappy cocktails for the others though I stuck to the safety of Erdinger. A fun night overall.
Wednesday 7th July - woke up in Nanjing
Woke up in Nanjing and somehow ended up in McDonalds. And then somehow ended up having just a bean pie for breakfast. Think of their apple pies and replace the sugary apple with sugary purple bean. It tastes good but doesn't really set you up for walking around mountains in scorching heat.
We took a cable car up the mountain. I was made to go on my own as I think the cable car guy was a bit frightened by my size. This fear of his was always going to be somewhat contagious. Up the mountain there were several things to look at, though unfortunately the view was very cloudy. There was "the number one buddha south of the Yangtze" which we defiled by sitting on its head for photos. What cultural artifact should we defile next. They also had a well, a cave with a buddha (I think), and a the life a man of doubtless significance carved into stone. It was fun walking round the mountain mainly.
It was totally sweltering, and we were drinking a bottle of water every 20 minutes or so. Going shirtless alleviated the discomfort to some extent, and did surprisingly little to stop the Chinese tourists wanting photos with us. A man by the lift was sitting in the large but barren restaurant, eating his lunch with occasionally firing arrows at the targets on the other side of the footpath that tourists walked down. Marisa swears that she was nearly taken out by him.
Lloyd and I then went alone to the Mausoleum of Sun Yat-Sen, seen by the Chinese as the father of their nation, according to Amelia. Marisa was put off by the hundred or so steps to get to the top, and it was a little effort to get to the top. This is a very impressive memorial in an unspoiled area and was very busy; clearly he means a lot to the Chinese. It didn't stop them hawking every type of shit by the entrance of course.
Back to the station for the return train to Shanghai, we got some bao zi and dumplings from the massively cheap food place. £4 including a couple of beers set us up well. Back in Shanghai we went to a restaurant with north-west Chinese food. This is "muslim" food and started badly with a massively greasy meat pie, though what followed was good. They have an ingredient which numbs the mouth which I tried to overdose on. I'd never had it before and will remember the sensation, but it's hard to describe, so bad luck then.
We took a cable car up the mountain. I was made to go on my own as I think the cable car guy was a bit frightened by my size. This fear of his was always going to be somewhat contagious. Up the mountain there were several things to look at, though unfortunately the view was very cloudy. There was "the number one buddha south of the Yangtze" which we defiled by sitting on its head for photos. What cultural artifact should we defile next. They also had a well, a cave with a buddha (I think), and a the life a man of doubtless significance carved into stone. It was fun walking round the mountain mainly.
It was totally sweltering, and we were drinking a bottle of water every 20 minutes or so. Going shirtless alleviated the discomfort to some extent, and did surprisingly little to stop the Chinese tourists wanting photos with us. A man by the lift was sitting in the large but barren restaurant, eating his lunch with occasionally firing arrows at the targets on the other side of the footpath that tourists walked down. Marisa swears that she was nearly taken out by him.
Lloyd and I then went alone to the Mausoleum of Sun Yat-Sen, seen by the Chinese as the father of their nation, according to Amelia. Marisa was put off by the hundred or so steps to get to the top, and it was a little effort to get to the top. This is a very impressive memorial in an unspoiled area and was very busy; clearly he means a lot to the Chinese. It didn't stop them hawking every type of shit by the entrance of course.
Back to the station for the return train to Shanghai, we got some bao zi and dumplings from the massively cheap food place. £4 including a couple of beers set us up well. Back in Shanghai we went to a restaurant with north-west Chinese food. This is "muslim" food and started badly with a massively greasy meat pie, though what followed was good. They have an ingredient which numbs the mouth which I tried to overdose on. I'd never had it before and will remember the sensation, but it's hard to describe, so bad luck then.
12 July 2010
Tuesday 6th July - Nanjing
Up at 7am, we headed straight for the station. This was a particularly painful 7am for someone reason. We got there early so were able to insult Chinese culture by getting a McDonalds breakfast.
The train journey itself was exciting, as it went at up to 350 km/h, taking around an hour. It was clean and modern and made you cry slightly inside for the state of our country. Once in Nanjing, we got the tube, which had also had a novelty of little RFID token instead of paper tickets. Train geekery.
After checking into the hotel, we left for the museum about the most of famous event in Nanjing's history - its raping. The Rape of Nanjing refers to the murder of hundreds of thousands of Chinese - a popular estimate is 300,000. Having taken heavy losses capturing Shanghai in the late thirties, Japanese army commanders were told to head for Nanjing which was the Chinese capital at the time. The troops were apparently not altogether keen, so they were told that if they were good boys and attacked the city, then they could rape and loot to their hearts content.
The museum was even more depressing than you would expect - some achievement. The mistake was to try and drill the details of the massacre from so many different angles that it became tiresome. It was truly shocking but far too long. There were impressive statues and big gardens at the end, but by that point we wanted it to all be over.
When it was, we went to a famous temple in the city centre, which was actually a bit shite. There was however a massive bell that you could ring and made an excellent noise. Simple things for simple minds. Nearby we climbed the city walls, the biggest intact walls in the world and spectacular with it. Next to the walls we did some archery, the guy explaining how to do it essentially using mime. It was fun and all thirty of our fingers remain intact to this day.
After cleaning our repulsive, sweat-ridden bodies, we looked for somewhere to eat. We took a taxi to a place that sounded good but was in fact a 30 second taxi ride. We opted for a place offering German food where I had a fairly substandard Jager Schnitzel with spatzle made by someone who doesn't know how to cook spatzle. But it was six quid, and there was a humorously dodgy covers band were playing in the restaurant so overall it was a win, especially when it turned out that none of us got food poisoning.
We took a couple of hours sleep in preparation for the 2:30 kick off of Holland vs Uruguay. Heading back to the same area we walked past a girl being almost carried by two men and wondered what the night had in store for us. We went into the least suspicious club we could find and had a beer to wake up. Actually, Marisa had a coke. This place was not like any club you have seen before. There were security guards in helmets and a really happy and lively atmosphere. There was no hint of ego or trouble, it seems the reason that I tend to despise clubs might be because they are full to the brim with scum looking for trouble.
It was a great place to watch the football because the liveliness and friendliness, and the not-that-terrible music they were playing. There was lots to look at in every direction, be it the locals, the security, the Colonial feel to the place; I don't think I can capture it actually. Holland won too, which made it even better because Marisa was very pleased despite having had four cokes by this point. Ouch.
A vile KFC finished the night off superbly. We saw a huge insect on the floor there that the supervisor exterminated with her boot.
The train journey itself was exciting, as it went at up to 350 km/h, taking around an hour. It was clean and modern and made you cry slightly inside for the state of our country. Once in Nanjing, we got the tube, which had also had a novelty of little RFID token instead of paper tickets. Train geekery.
After checking into the hotel, we left for the museum about the most of famous event in Nanjing's history - its raping. The Rape of Nanjing refers to the murder of hundreds of thousands of Chinese - a popular estimate is 300,000. Having taken heavy losses capturing Shanghai in the late thirties, Japanese army commanders were told to head for Nanjing which was the Chinese capital at the time. The troops were apparently not altogether keen, so they were told that if they were good boys and attacked the city, then they could rape and loot to their hearts content.
The museum was even more depressing than you would expect - some achievement. The mistake was to try and drill the details of the massacre from so many different angles that it became tiresome. It was truly shocking but far too long. There were impressive statues and big gardens at the end, but by that point we wanted it to all be over.
When it was, we went to a famous temple in the city centre, which was actually a bit shite. There was however a massive bell that you could ring and made an excellent noise. Simple things for simple minds. Nearby we climbed the city walls, the biggest intact walls in the world and spectacular with it. Next to the walls we did some archery, the guy explaining how to do it essentially using mime. It was fun and all thirty of our fingers remain intact to this day.
After cleaning our repulsive, sweat-ridden bodies, we looked for somewhere to eat. We took a taxi to a place that sounded good but was in fact a 30 second taxi ride. We opted for a place offering German food where I had a fairly substandard Jager Schnitzel with spatzle made by someone who doesn't know how to cook spatzle. But it was six quid, and there was a humorously dodgy covers band were playing in the restaurant so overall it was a win, especially when it turned out that none of us got food poisoning.
We took a couple of hours sleep in preparation for the 2:30 kick off of Holland vs Uruguay. Heading back to the same area we walked past a girl being almost carried by two men and wondered what the night had in store for us. We went into the least suspicious club we could find and had a beer to wake up. Actually, Marisa had a coke. This place was not like any club you have seen before. There were security guards in helmets and a really happy and lively atmosphere. There was no hint of ego or trouble, it seems the reason that I tend to despise clubs might be because they are full to the brim with scum looking for trouble.
It was a great place to watch the football because the liveliness and friendliness, and the not-that-terrible music they were playing. There was lots to look at in every direction, be it the locals, the security, the Colonial feel to the place; I don't think I can capture it actually. Holland won too, which made it even better because Marisa was very pleased despite having had four cokes by this point. Ouch.
A vile KFC finished the night off superbly. We saw a huge insect on the floor there that the supervisor exterminated with her boot.
Monday 5th July
We walked into the Old Town and bought some strange and spicy concoction from someone in a shack on the side of the street. It was bread with a weird sugary thing in it and far too much chilli and a drink of soya milk.
We took this into the park down the road where the locals were doing there thing. Old people were stretching. Many people were sitting around or playing games. Others were playing Diablo which was entertaining for the kids. Not as amusing as me, it seems. A kid with a mohawk came and stood three feet from me and STARED. It was a cool moment and I got some excellent shots too. In the parks it is nice to see everyone relaxing and doing their own thing.
We then headed for Lloyd's gym which had good views of the city, making the cycling machine slightly more interesting. It was at the top floor of a very open shopping centre which meant that their air conditioning was lousy - not ideal in a gym. Sweat-tastic. The machines were all a bit broken but it was done on an American scale. Some girls had their arms in cling film to help them sweat the weight off.
After a generic Chinese lunch we went to Shanghai Train Station to buy tickets for the following day. The English-speaking queue went at half the speed of the others - and people would move from one queue to another fairly freely. It was absolutely roasting. Actually, Shanghai was roasting; this place took it too far.
Back towards the apartment, we stopped by the animal market, which threw up no surprises. Lots of animals being treated badly. Lots of crickets too, for some reason. You see guys on bikes carrying hundreds of little cages each containing a cricket. They had some sweet turtles, kittens and so on. To be honest, I was mainly concerned at not catching a tropical disease.
After a shower, we went for dinner with Amelia and her cousin Tracey at a great restaurant, again in a shopping centre. Really delicious german style cabbage with pork, garlic etc... other nice vegetable and fish dishes. This was a great meal and came to something like £25 for the four of us. Yes, I could get used to this. The girls disappeared straight afterwards and Lloyd and I went back to the bar from the previous night to play pool.
When Lloyd suggested playing doubles with the girl standing by the pool table and her friend, I thought it was strange because I was pretty sure that she was a prostitute. After a game and a half, she made it clear that she wanted a different kind of "doubles" and we left pretty sharpish, first having an Erdinger as nightcap in the safety of the pub over the road.
We took this into the park down the road where the locals were doing there thing. Old people were stretching. Many people were sitting around or playing games. Others were playing Diablo which was entertaining for the kids. Not as amusing as me, it seems. A kid with a mohawk came and stood three feet from me and STARED. It was a cool moment and I got some excellent shots too. In the parks it is nice to see everyone relaxing and doing their own thing.
We then headed for Lloyd's gym which had good views of the city, making the cycling machine slightly more interesting. It was at the top floor of a very open shopping centre which meant that their air conditioning was lousy - not ideal in a gym. Sweat-tastic. The machines were all a bit broken but it was done on an American scale. Some girls had their arms in cling film to help them sweat the weight off.
After a generic Chinese lunch we went to Shanghai Train Station to buy tickets for the following day. The English-speaking queue went at half the speed of the others - and people would move from one queue to another fairly freely. It was absolutely roasting. Actually, Shanghai was roasting; this place took it too far.
Back towards the apartment, we stopped by the animal market, which threw up no surprises. Lots of animals being treated badly. Lots of crickets too, for some reason. You see guys on bikes carrying hundreds of little cages each containing a cricket. They had some sweet turtles, kittens and so on. To be honest, I was mainly concerned at not catching a tropical disease.
After a shower, we went for dinner with Amelia and her cousin Tracey at a great restaurant, again in a shopping centre. Really delicious german style cabbage with pork, garlic etc... other nice vegetable and fish dishes. This was a great meal and came to something like £25 for the four of us. Yes, I could get used to this. The girls disappeared straight afterwards and Lloyd and I went back to the bar from the previous night to play pool.
When Lloyd suggested playing doubles with the girl standing by the pool table and her friend, I thought it was strange because I was pretty sure that she was a prostitute. After a game and a half, she made it clear that she wanted a different kind of "doubles" and we left pretty sharpish, first having an Erdinger as nightcap in the safety of the pub over the road.
5 July 2010
Sunday 4th July - you wouldn't believe where we are
Shanghai.
Brunch this time was in a food hall of a shopping centre. All stuff that anyone from England would be happy to eat. No tails or tongue in sight.
We took a taxi to the Gallery District. Or a place full of galleries, at the very least. There were lots of galleries in a small area, some bigger ones on the main 'street', and smaller ones on sidestreets that we still being laid. The art was mostly by Chinese artists; a lot of it very modern and some more traditional. A lot of it very interesting and slightly innovate to the Western eye, and of course the requisite amount of pretentious toss. Like the man who refused to use any colour but black, and one gallery that essentially said 'this is all a waste of time'. There are clearly a lot of talented artists in China.
It started to rain slightly. Dogs barked, locals legged it, we were apparently in for a wet time. We went to the overpriced, overpretentious coffee house at the entrance to the gallery areas, and had an overpriced coffee while reading the English Shanghai papers. I learned that students in Europe are now on holiday, and lots about China too, though the details escape now now.
Next stop was the riverside. On one side the huge skyscrapers built since 1990, some of which are pretty cool and distinctively very Asian. Lots of flashing lights. The biggest being a the huge bottle opener thing.
On the other side were the Colonial era buildings. No-one can build buildings like this as well as the British. With enough cheap labour.
Dinner was Peking duck. A bit of a super greasy version of what we're used to through apparently you can get both versions here. We tried to get other things to go with the duck, so i looked through the menu carefully. I know it makes no sense that we limit ourselves to only certain parts of certain creatures, but the pictures in the menu made me feel progressively more sick. tendons, horse, intestines, blah, blah, blah. Now you know about eating Peking duck in Shanghai.
An early night, for an early start tomorrow. Actually managed to get to sleep about 3am.
Brunch this time was in a food hall of a shopping centre. All stuff that anyone from England would be happy to eat. No tails or tongue in sight.
We took a taxi to the Gallery District. Or a place full of galleries, at the very least. There were lots of galleries in a small area, some bigger ones on the main 'street', and smaller ones on sidestreets that we still being laid. The art was mostly by Chinese artists; a lot of it very modern and some more traditional. A lot of it very interesting and slightly innovate to the Western eye, and of course the requisite amount of pretentious toss. Like the man who refused to use any colour but black, and one gallery that essentially said 'this is all a waste of time'. There are clearly a lot of talented artists in China.
It started to rain slightly. Dogs barked, locals legged it, we were apparently in for a wet time. We went to the overpriced, overpretentious coffee house at the entrance to the gallery areas, and had an overpriced coffee while reading the English Shanghai papers. I learned that students in Europe are now on holiday, and lots about China too, though the details escape now now.
Next stop was the riverside. On one side the huge skyscrapers built since 1990, some of which are pretty cool and distinctively very Asian. Lots of flashing lights. The biggest being a the huge bottle opener thing.
On the other side were the Colonial era buildings. No-one can build buildings like this as well as the British. With enough cheap labour.
Dinner was Peking duck. A bit of a super greasy version of what we're used to through apparently you can get both versions here. We tried to get other things to go with the duck, so i looked through the menu carefully. I know it makes no sense that we limit ourselves to only certain parts of certain creatures, but the pictures in the menu made me feel progressively more sick. tendons, horse, intestines, blah, blah, blah. Now you know about eating Peking duck in Shanghai.
An early night, for an early start tomorrow. Actually managed to get to sleep about 3am.
Saturday 3 July - still in Shanghai
Saturday, we woke up late-ish and spent a while planning the next week. We then decided it was time to go for brunch, at which point the heavens literally opened. It clearly wasn't going to get better so we took a couple of underground trains and went to a Dim-Sum restaurant. It was all nice stuff, we decided to pass on the Frog's ovaries syrup this time.
Due to the rain, we didn't do a great deal else until dinner, when we took a long taxi ride South. I think. It was so far that it cost five pounds, which is a fortune in the Shanghai taxi world. We had Korean BBQ with some Chinese-American guys, and it was very nice. We moved on for the Germany-Argentina match, in which Germany inflicted an excellent drubbing on the freak Maradona's team. We finally went to bed at 4am after watch some zombie rubbish.
From what I can tell so far, Shanghai is like a very spread out Hong Kong. There are lots of tall buildings, but there is much, much more room so it feels less concentrated. It has a bit of a buzz just like Hong Kong and a friendly one at that. There is a lot more of the poor side here, I don't think you'd get (literally) shacks with people selling deadly-looking food in Hong Kong. I don't feel in the position talk about the place much because the two places I've been in China now are clearly be far the most Westernized. When we go onto only the second most beaten track later this week, things should start to get more interesting.
Due to the rain, we didn't do a great deal else until dinner, when we took a long taxi ride South. I think. It was so far that it cost five pounds, which is a fortune in the Shanghai taxi world. We had Korean BBQ with some Chinese-American guys, and it was very nice. We moved on for the Germany-Argentina match, in which Germany inflicted an excellent drubbing on the freak Maradona's team. We finally went to bed at 4am after watch some zombie rubbish.
From what I can tell so far, Shanghai is like a very spread out Hong Kong. There are lots of tall buildings, but there is much, much more room so it feels less concentrated. It has a bit of a buzz just like Hong Kong and a friendly one at that. There is a lot more of the poor side here, I don't think you'd get (literally) shacks with people selling deadly-looking food in Hong Kong. I don't feel in the position talk about the place much because the two places I've been in China now are clearly be far the most Westernized. When we go onto only the second most beaten track later this week, things should start to get more interesting.
Friday 2 July - Arrive in Shanghai
I arrived on Friday feeling surprisingly un-jetlagged having swapped seats with a strange Irish man who had a premium economy ticket, hurrah. I found Lloyd waiting me for with a piece of paper with my name on it - living the dream!
We took a taxi back to his place; my first encounter with the roads of Shanghai. They kind of have rules - people seem to obey traffic lights. Trying to cross the road is more a matter of negotiation than anything else, and before long we had nearly knocked over some locals. At crossings, cars will try to swerve around you in preference to stopping.
Having dumped my stuff, we went and registered me at the police station. A slightly angry policewoman took my details, made me sign things, and then printed other things out on a dot-matrix printer. It was slightly surreal, but I was glad to be there because of their fabulous air conditioning. I didn't mention the heat, but suffice to say I usually look like I've just completed an hour of sports. We then took a tour of the local area, and local tourist trap.
What followed promised to be the highlight of the day. We walked five minutes down the road, and up a ramp to some shops. Well, I walked up the ramp; Llloyd sort of fell up it. We then walked into the place advertising massages. It was just how you'd hope the place to be actually, very convincingly authentically Chinese, to my South London eye. We swapped our shoes for the supplied slippers, which through some miracle almost fit. We then went into a slightly darkened room and laid down on the massage tables. The man was more thorough than I was expecting. He did the back etc, and proceeded to the buttocks. Lloyd didn't get his buttocks done, but did get his ears cleaned out with the girl's finger. Apparently this is a really good place compared to most, really professional and no happy endings etc. All in all, really good.
It was natural that the first meal we had was an Indian. A nice one. We then went to a Japanese bar to watch the first half Holland vs Brazil, and then an ex-pat one for the second half. There was a drunk man with ten women; from what I could tell, each of a slightly different level of whoreyness. We came back and watched a film : Crank. It sounded OK until I found out Jason Statham was in it.
We took a taxi back to his place; my first encounter with the roads of Shanghai. They kind of have rules - people seem to obey traffic lights. Trying to cross the road is more a matter of negotiation than anything else, and before long we had nearly knocked over some locals. At crossings, cars will try to swerve around you in preference to stopping.
Having dumped my stuff, we went and registered me at the police station. A slightly angry policewoman took my details, made me sign things, and then printed other things out on a dot-matrix printer. It was slightly surreal, but I was glad to be there because of their fabulous air conditioning. I didn't mention the heat, but suffice to say I usually look like I've just completed an hour of sports. We then took a tour of the local area, and local tourist trap.
What followed promised to be the highlight of the day. We walked five minutes down the road, and up a ramp to some shops. Well, I walked up the ramp; Llloyd sort of fell up it. We then walked into the place advertising massages. It was just how you'd hope the place to be actually, very convincingly authentically Chinese, to my South London eye. We swapped our shoes for the supplied slippers, which through some miracle almost fit. We then went into a slightly darkened room and laid down on the massage tables. The man was more thorough than I was expecting. He did the back etc, and proceeded to the buttocks. Lloyd didn't get his buttocks done, but did get his ears cleaned out with the girl's finger. Apparently this is a really good place compared to most, really professional and no happy endings etc. All in all, really good.
It was natural that the first meal we had was an Indian. A nice one. We then went to a Japanese bar to watch the first half Holland vs Brazil, and then an ex-pat one for the second half. There was a drunk man with ten women; from what I could tell, each of a slightly different level of whoreyness. We came back and watched a film : Crank. It sounded OK until I found out Jason Statham was in it.
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