Wednesday 21 November 2007

Day 28 - November 1st

Mozzy last night kept me up! The bastard bit me on the forehead as the rest of my body was wrapped up in my sleeping bag! I finally make it to the museum (third attempt!) and the whole place is full of children on a school trip. I get myself an audio tour and then go to the top of the museum and worm myself down (the opposite to the school kids). After 2 hours of museuming, I have a break and have a chocolate cake. The kids have seem to have gone, but they are replaced by even more annoying Americans!

I would say that this museum is my second favourite in China, 1st place going to Beijing Military Museum, but that’s mainly because I got to ride in a tank there! After the 4th hour, I regret bringing my Lonely Planet with me, as my shoulders start to ache! I leave at chucking out time, spending a total of 5 hours there. I think I saw everything, but the last hour was very rushed! Maybe should have woke up an hour earlier!

On the way home, I see a street-peddler selling Monopoly. I don’t know if it’s the Shanghai edition, but I get it for the boys as a gift for letting me stay round for soo long! I’m happy as I haggle it down by a lot!

Monopoly night! I win!!! I’m great! Max is the funniest person ever!

Miles walked: 186.186 m

Day 27 - October 31st

Sleep in till 1. Doesn’t look like I will be going to the museum today! Cook noodles for lunch at home. I feel real bad that I have wasted yet another day, so decide to leave the house and just go somewhere. I end up going to the old town… I’ve been here before! My dad took me last time I came to Shanghai! Worse, it’s full of people! I’m not really feeling busyness today!

The metro system in Shanghai is very similar to Hong Kong in the fact that the platforms have glass panels to stop people falling/jumping and have doors at where the doors of the train would stop. But unlike HK, the doors were open all the time, rather than just when the train pulled up. Sort of pointless now having a safety system when you don’t use it? My thoughts on the savvyness of the Shanghainese changes. Even funnier, the trains aren’t even the whole length of the platform, causing stampedes of people running up the platform when the train stops… surely not safe? Worst of all, I get stuck on my train as I can’t get off because the crowd of people rushing in when I am trying to get out! My metro experience was not very good today!

Have dinner with Eamonn, Neith and two other Irish, Amy and Keane from the flat downstairs. Big Halloween night tonight, but I am too tired to go with them! Also, I was determined to go to the museum tomorrow! I was asked what food I really wanted to eat. I answered; “shepard’s pie” the response was “fuck off back to England!!!” I settle for a lasagna instead! Go home and have early night.

Miles walked: 180.488m

Day 26 - October 30th

Wake up and drag myself up! I’m such a bum nowadays! I’ve woken up the last two days when Max gets back from Uni at midday. I tell him I’m going to the Shanghai Museum and set off to get some foodage! I force the food down me, but I’m not really enjoying it any more! Feel pretty miserable! I talk to Lisa, which cheers me up, and then I decide it’s probably best to just go home and sleep. So I go to the supermarket and get myself some snacks and fruit and then head home.

I sit and watch some more BBC News and then I hear a key rustling at the door. Now, I know Eamonn is at work, and Max had just gone to Chinese class… it’s the third house mate who I have not met yet! She walks in with her mum and uncle; “hello! I’m Eamonn’s friend” I’m glad she didn’t find me in my underwear with a beer in my hand (the thought had crossed my mind… what? No one was in the house!?!?) Was still pretty awkward though! But they left after a bit so I was left on my own again!

Nap!

Wake up to Max returning after lessons. “Do you want to come play football?” My answer? “Hell yeah!!!” So he lends me some shoes and a t-shirt and we’re off to play football with the French. Most fun I have had in a long time!!! Showed my skills and most importantly formed part of the Great Wall of China in front of our goal!

Return home HUNGRY! Have a shower and shave my scraggly beard! Go and have dinner with the French… order the typical Kung Pao Chicken and Sweet and Sour Pork. Get a call from mum and wish her happy birthday. What a great son I am, I make her call me to wish her birthday wishes! The French guys go up to their apartment to have a smoke. I decide against it, as I feel the high is not worth the risk. I was told that it’s not that risky, as most police officers don’t know the smell of weed, so even if they investigate, they wouldn’t know what it was! Though life sentence in China doesn’t sound that appealing for me for a few drags and a high!

Spend an hour and a half trying to find credit for my phone and panicking so that I could call Olivia and meet up for drinks tonight. Her mobile wasn’t working, so I was relying on her calling me, but you can’t receive calls in China unless you have credit. Gay system! I finally get credit at around midnight and receive call from Olivia. It was only her 2nd attempt to call me! As usual, she wasn’t even ready or packed (her flight leaves tomorrow at 6am). We decide to meet at 1am! Girls ey?

We go for drinks and stay out until around 4. No sleep for her tonight! Taxi home was pretty scary, the driver was actually falling asleep at the wheel! I decide to talk to him to keep him awake!

Miles walked: 173.083m

Tuesday 20 November 2007

Day 25 - October 29th

Wake up and try and make it to the Shanghai Museum. Decide to meet Neith for lunch, though it takes me about an hour to find where she works! We have a good natter about missing home and eat a sandwich! I then try and find a bus back into town for People’s Square, but I’m not sure which one to take so I ask someone. Their first reaction is "are you from Hong Kong?"

I decide to get into a taxi and have a nice chat with the driver! He thinks I am a film director! The topic gets onto people from UK and about class differences and such. I know I might be heading for a particularly sensitive subject so just decide to tell him that at the end of the day, everyone is the same everywhere and so are governments! Phew! He likes me and says that I am a descendant of the Yellow Emperor! He then asks me about the doll in UK. I tell him I know little about it!

Make it to People’s Square, but it’s too late to go to Shanghai Museum (3 o’clock by now… I’d need a good 4 hours and it closes in 2) so I settle for the Shanghai Urban Planning Museum instead! Pretty good museum, though it got rather tedious at the end as I don’t really care too much about Shanghai to be fair :P

Read in People’s Square and then decide to go for a walk. This walk becomes a mammoth walk which gets me lost and covers around 10miles!!! I just started walking and couldn't stop!

Meet Olivia (friend from BLCU who was visiting Shanghai too) at around 11pm. Tell her how fed-up I am of travelling! She tells me I look very thin and I realise that I haven’t actually been eating lately! Maybe why I keep doing stupid things! We hang out at McDonalds!

Miles walked: 166.903m

Day 24 - October 28th

Hung over! Write-off day! Done nothing apart from watch the Discovery Channel, a DVD and the football!!!

Shortest entry I’ve written!

Miles walked: 153.076m

Day 23 - October 27th

Wake up to piano playing from upstairs. Would sound real cultured and cool if I could say what was being played… but I’m not cultured and cool! Look out the window and see children playing in the park. Big contrast to what had happened the night before. I go to the living room and turn on the TV. They have satellite! I watch Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back! I also find that they have BBC News! Quality!

Have dim sum lunch with Martin. Was alright dim sum, nothing on the stuff back in Hong Kong! Eamonn takes me to the French Concessions and a swanky place called Shin Tian Di. There are soo many fit girls, both Chinese and Western! Eamonn leaves me to go help a friend with her English… apparently she has fit friends!

I walk around the French concessions and it feels like being back in London! There’s enough whiteys, though they all speak French! I walk a good few miles and get tired so I decide to go home via the metro. I take it the wrong way and get lost twice! It’s a silly system! People seem so much savvier here in Shanghai. Very un-Chinese!

Get home and upload a bollock-load of pictures! So much faster here and using a decent PC! Go to a ramen place for Dinner; one of my favourite places when I was in Hong Kong. Meet Eamonn again and the drinking starts! I won’t get into too much detail of the night out, but we went to a place called Bon Bon (all you can drink for Y120) and ended up with a Danish passed out on the sofa, whilst Eamonn had to escape the clutches of Helgar, the German who was after his Irish bits! Return home at 6am!

Miles walked: 151.316m

Day 22 - October 26th

Pack my bags and it ends up heavier and bulkier than before! Maybe it’s the make up bag the Danes left which I was taking to them! I have a Burger King with Tom for breakfast! We walk pass another internet café which is closer then the one we had been going to all this time round the corner. I say goodbye to Tom who is the first person I have spent more than one day hanging out with!

I top up my phone, buy an Y100 card for Y105, a common thing I found out from now on as I have a Beijing number and that takes a different top up card.

I get a ticket to Suzhou and I think it is 1st class again when I get on the train. Pretty short trip and I sleep for most of it. I get off the train and find a whitey tour group. I leave the station and am swamped with people selling maps and homeless people with limbs missing. Not the best first impression! I buy a map and then someone asks me if I need a hotel. I tell them I got a hostel booked and they ask me the price. I tell them Y40, they turn away knowing they can’t do much to match that!

I get into a cab and am taken to the hostel by a nice man who is learning English and Cantonese! We chat away alternating in the three languages and I help him with some of his homework!

I arrive at he hostel and I am told there is someone from England who looks just like me who left yesterday! I have a doppelganger!

I walk around the streets. It is really pretty… so are the girls! It was like walking backwards in time and the canal is really cool!

Arrive in
Shanghai! Have a stiff drink, sleep.

Miles walked: 143.750m

Monday 12 November 2007

Day 21 - October 25th

Just couldn’t get the day started! The amounts of times we left the hostel and had to go back for things or got distracted by things! We head to Nanjing Museum, first taking the metro system. We sit and admire some of the warning signs. A toddler sitting across from us stands up and walks towards me so I give him a nice smile. He gets embarrassed and turns to run away to his mother, grabbing the first part of her body he could. Turns out it wasn’t his mother he turns to, but he accidentally grabs hold of a random guys legs he was next too! Cute Chinese baby!

I get distracted by a book store we walk by and I decide to go in to solve my lack of reading material problem! I am browsing the English section as Tom has to use the facilities, when a Chinese girl comes up to me and starts talking. I’m not sure what she is talking about, but she shows me a flyer for an English School. I stop her mid-sentence and in perfect English say “I can speak English!” She is highly embarrassed and runs away! Funny girl! Was pretty fit too! I end up buying The Time Machine by H.G. Wells (Tom’s recommendation) and Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner.

We then board a bus takes us to the old Ming Palace Ruins, the predecessor to the Forbidden Palace in Beijing. On the bus, we see a girl who gets off at the wrong stop and has to ask her friend who is on board for Y2 so she can get back on again. It is mildly funny! Nanjing people are funny! The Ming Palace Ruins turns out to be just a park with the front gate of the old palace and just an open space with some ruins/rocks which I presume used to be the palace… they weren’t lying when they said it was a ruin!

Nanjing Museum is okay. Not that much is labelled in English even though the Lonely Planet says otherwise. The most impressive thing of note was probably the lacquer-ware. Most other things in the museum I have seen before in either Beijing or Xian, though the Jade armour was pretty cool too! It is something I had read about as a kid in a children’s encyclopaedia. Spend a good two hours in there. Fall asleep on the bus journey home, so we decide against going to the Citadel, plus it was getting late and dark by then. We spend next three hours in an internet café playing Counter Strike! I forgot how fun it was to shoot random people!

We returned to the hostel to have dinner and chill out. I decide against going out on the town with Tom as I am still feeling ill and I have to be better for when I get to Shanghai. A lot of drinking to be done then! So I have a shot of Jim Bean and take a rain-check with Tom. He decides to go out and tries to find the girls who work at the hostel at a nightclub they said they would be at. I notice a picture of Sam in one of Tom’s photos! So that’s two different sets of people we both have met on our journeys!

I speak to the night porter at the hostel and it turns out he is from Guangdong. He tries talking to me in Cantonese, but I understood him better when he spoke Mandarin! I also find a guy from Hong Kong when I go to brush my teeth before bed. He is putting some facial scrub on… such a Hong Kong metrosexual!

Miles walked: 136.063m

Day 20 - October 24th

Slept in until 11! We (me and Tom) finally get our act together and rent bikes from the hostel. Tom had to get his fixed and he gets charged Y5, I think I would have got it for Y2 or 3! We get brunch at a Papa Johns which turns out to be pretty expensive for very little, however it is the first time in China I have seen a refill on fizzy drinks!

We then cycle to a park where the guard tells us we cannot enter with bikes. So we ride down the road a bit more and enter through another entrance where the guard just waved us through without paying! We then ride to a place called Zujin Mountain; basically huge park with a mountain in it. We decide against riding our bikes up the mountain as we don’t have too much time due to our late start (2 o’clock by now) and didn’t fancy the workout! We pass bus’ which goes to Argos! I later find many more buses in the city go to there. I’m guessing many people in Nanjing want to do some catalogue shopping!

We decide to skip the Ming tombs, but decide to go see Sun Yat Sen’s Mausoleum. It’s pretty cool with its blue nationalistic roof tiling, as opposed to all the red Communist style of Beijing I am used to! Dr Zhong Shan (another alias of Sun Yat Sen) was a very important figure in Chinese revolutionary history and is called the grandfather of the Chinese Nation, with his 3 principles; Nationalism, Sovereignty and Livelihood. He is revered by both Nationalists (Taiwan) and Communists. I admire a plaque erected outside his mausoleum reading; “The World Belongs to the Public” (trans.)

We also go to the Linggu Temple which houses the Beamless Hall… a large building with no beams supporting it. It’s not actually that impressive, just has curved roof arches and is converted into a sort of show room with revolutionary and anti-Japanese war dioramas. We then go see a pagoda… they all seem the same now!

It starts to get dark so we decide to make our way home. Have dinner at a restaurant on the way where I teach Tom how to eat meat off the bone. Funny how the food you eat when you are growing up dictates what you eat when an adult. Not much happens when we get back to the hostel. Played pool and then sleep. Sore bum again!

Miles walked: 129.587m

Saturday 10 November 2007

Day 19 - October 23rd

The light from the shop below the hostel is turned on all night as it seems someone forgot to turn it off. It is sooo bright! I woke up at 6 in the morning thinking it was midday due to the light but then look at my watch! By 8 o’clock the noise from outside wakes me up. The hostel would be in a good location if it was several metres down the road as it is right on a roundabout and Chinese drivers like to honk when they get to a roundabout!

I go into the shower room and turn on the water. I stand there for a good 10 minutes and then come out asking the cleaning lady if the heating is turned off or not? I had been standing there with the cold tap on rather than the hot! I feel a right plonker! I then play pool whilst I wait for everyone else to wake up. Joe suggests we go play badminton. Sounded like a good idea… I go for it! Turned out to be pretty fun!

Say good bye to the Danes and then go and have a Burger King! First one I had in ages! And it costs the same as a McDonalds! Why the hell do locals still go to Maccy D’s when there’s the King? Joe didn’t know there was a difference between the two, but now I have shown him the light! I go to the Taiping Museum which is in a garden. The garden is very nice and I would have stayed longer I wasn’t being eaten by mozzys!

I return to the hostel and meet a Dutch guy called Tom. We play pool and table football. He beats me at pool 2-1 and I take table football with a landslide 2-0! It turns out he met the boys from Leeds when he was in Shanghai! Small world!

We go have dinner with the Aussie couple. Not the best meal. Expensive and very plain, though they did order the plainest things! I decide to go for a ducks head. Pretty salty! Not much meat and was a pain in the arse picking the fleshy bits from inside the skull out (I’m guessing that must be the brain?)

I go to an internet café and they ask for my ID. I give them my passport and they just look at me. So I give them my HK ID instead. They are grateful! Everyone’s asleep by the time I get home so I also slumber.

Miles walked: 121.485m

Day 18 - October 22nd

Wake up and check out. Internet is down at the hostel, so don’t get to check up on my Facebook before my long train journey! I get in a cab for the train station and pass the bus station which I arrived at. The meter showed Y10… I paid Y72 on my way in… fucking cowboy taxi driver!

I feel that in Qingdao, I’ve been neglecting my blog entries, so 8 hour train journey with no reading material should help me with some good blog material! I get on the train (1st class baby!!!) I decide first class IS the way forward! It’s clean and plenty of leg space… important factors for 8 hour journeys! And I get warm water on demand! Wow!

A steward walks pass with her hair tied up in the back with a hair net… looks like a bollock! We pass the Qingdao Malting Mill… I’m annoyed that I went Qingdao and didn’t have a single beer… I was offered two free ones and all!!!

Hour and half into the journey, I decide to go check out the facilities! I press the button for the automatic door for the toilet… it flings open and there’s a Chinese guy pissing… ARGH!!! Pretty embarrassing! I don’t stick around to say sorry!

I notice there are less people to watch in 1st class compared to my last train journey! Though the guy who’s seat should be next to mine keeps moving away, but moving back as more and more people board our train. Past Jinan and Tai Shan… I hate back tracking!

I chat to Matt Earley on the phone… maybe I should have taken a trip up to Beijing. Korean saunas sound interesting! I have a thought; have I learnt more then I would from reading a book? Maybe I should talk to more people? Don’t really feel like it!

Pass soo much countryside! I see new sprouts in the field. It’s such a contrast from 2 weeks ago! I notice I’ve taken a lot less pictures this week. Suppose everything looks pretty much the same now! I decide to go to the restaurant car for some luncheon and pass the peasant’s seats! They don’t look too bad and maybe it doesn’t look like a Y100 difference, but I’d rather be where I am than with the common folk!

The train crew are cute. I test the water; "do you have any English magazines?" … they’re not digging it! I eat a shitty microwave meal for Y20. A thought comes to my mind… do I get food in my moustache when I eat? Would any one tell me?

I return to my seat to find the business man sitting next to me studying the safety manual pretty intensely! He’ll know all the safety exits very soon. Maybe I should start a conversation with him…

Speak to him after an hour of twiddling my thumbs! He asks me if there are poor people in UK. Odd topic we talk about! We exchange business cards after a while. Shit! I didn’t study his intently enough as he did mine when we exchanged. He must think I’m a barbarian! Turns out he’s a salesman for machinery which makes glassware. He’s been in the industry for 30 years and at his current business for 20 years. The job he had before was before the industry got privatised and he was working for the state.

I pass wind.

The man gets off the train an hour and a half before me and then a really camp guys sits next to me! I decide against talking to him! I take a nap but wake up to him trying to chat up a steward (girl). She is not impressed… he’s old enough to be her father!

Why do so many Chinese people smell of preserved cabbage?

The train had been playing the same music over and over again, but then a new CD gets put on and I get to hear the BeeGee’s ‘How Deep Is Your Love?’. The train passes a bridge which is one of Nanjing’s tourist attractions. It’s dark outside so I see nothing!

Get off the train and into a taxi. The taxi driver is rubbish! I tried making conversation and he just ignores me. Bastard! It also takes two phone calls for him to finally find the hostel I am staying at. The worse bit was when he pulled over to call the second time. He was there for a good 5 minutes talking to the girl from the hostel before he told me to get back in the taxi where we proceeded to turn around and drive 30 metres and arrive at the hostel! To be fair, there were no signs at all saying it was a hostel!

The staff at the hostel are pretty crap too! It takes ages for me to check in and the girl needed a calculator to multiply 35 (cost of the room) by 2 (nights I was going to stay). She then forgets to get me to sign my signature and give me keys to my room!

I put my things down and then head to the common area. I kick a puppy by mistake! He was under my feet and I didn’t notice him! He’s the cutest thing ever! Name is Simon! Hostel looks pretty nice, but empty. Not a single whitey yet! Maybe I will be speaking Chinese again! I order food and some hot milk. I’ve really got into it! I bet I get a layer of milk on my moustache!

I meet an Aussie couple who are travelling to UK via the rest of the world! Then I meet an Indian guy, Joe and we proceed to play pool… it was the worst two games ever! A group of Danish guys then come in and put on a Guns ‘n’ Roses DVD. We hang out and play a card game called donkey. This carries on till 1 in the morning when we decide to go get some food. I feel a bit bad as whilst we were eating, the conversation gets started on weird foods in China and I give them all the stories I have heard and experienced (monkeys, seals penis etc.). I put them off their food and they don’t finish their food! Return to the hostel to find an American girl in my dorm. Try to make conversation, but she seems really weird and non-talkative!

Miles walked: 113.960m

Day 17 - October 21st

Wake up feeling better, so I decide to rent a bike for the day. Qingdao is not a great place to rent a bike as there are many hills! Pretty annoying, as I had put on a new pair of trousers and within 15 minutes, they had dirtied from grease and crap off bike!!!

I cycle to a place called Small Qingdao, which is an island connected by a land bridge off the coast. I pass the navel museum on the way. Everything in Qingdao looks soo European! I make my way to the music square… all in all, today I rode for 6 hours! I have a very sore bum!!! I wanted to go to the TV tower to see the sun set, but it closed at 5.30 and I had arrived at 5, not giving me enough time to get up the tower.

Go home. Find out my train tomorrow leaves at 10.30 in the morning, so decide to rest up and sleep… not much to say about today!

Miles walked: 111.384m