Day 33 - November 6th

Wake and take a taxi to the Tea Museum, where the taxi driver waits for us (I meet Andrena there) whilst we look around the museum. He gets pissed off as we take a good half an hour when he suggested that it only takes a few minutes to see everything! He then takes us to Longjing Village (Dragon Well Village) to buy tea. The first 'tea house' we went to tried to charge us Y500 a catty (500g) for the tea, so we walk out! We carry on walking up the road and get to the village proper. The air is so clean here! On our stroll, an old lady comes up to us and asks us if we wanted to take pictures! She then grabs us and grandma-handles us to get into the perfect poses for pictures with the mountain as backgrounds and surrounded by tea plants (trees?). She could have been a film director with her demands of “stand this way… no, no, point the camera this way!” We end up going to her tea house and buying tea from her. Y250 for a catty! Half the price, so I buy 3 tins!

Time is running short as Andrena has to catch a train back to Shanghai, so we get a taxi back to town and get some food. We go to a Muslim place for a quick bite, which turns out to be the slowest meal to cook ever! And the spiciest as well! The food takes so long that Andrena actually misses her train back to Shanghai, so we go for drinks at the hotel opposite (originally coffee, but then saw that alcohol was same price!). Safely get her on the train on our second attempt!

I then decide to go for a wonder around the city which takes me to Carrefore (French food store, like Tesco). I walk past the car park and see a man going to all the mopeds and hitting the boot compartment and setting all the alarms off. He had the BIG and CLEVER look on his face! I then went to the Temple of King Qian, the king of the area many years ago who led the local people through many years of peace and prosperity whilst joining with rival kingdoms to create China. I saw the tiniest squirrel in there! Very different to the grey ones at home! It seems that I had just missed something, as a lot of photographers were walking out and there was gold clothe on all the walls and pillars.

I then found a book store and replenished my reading literature and got a paper which I sat by the lake and read as the sun went down. Was very old man like! As the sun went down I returned to my hostel by bus this time. Hangzhou’s bus system is strange in the fact that I got a coach with the bus route on and there are also mini vans which run the same route. So it’s not one company with a fleet of buses, but many people running the same line.

I get back and have dinner; West Lake fish again. I’ve realised that I am eating well again - hurrah! I then chat with the reception girl at the hostel all night, showing her pix of my travels so far and testing her English! I’m surprised that she didn’t recognise Marx and Engels in one of my pictures. Early night.

Miles walked: 223.15m

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, 1^st place going to Beijing Military Museum, but that’s mainly because I got to ride in a tank there! After the 4^th 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 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 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 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 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

Day 12 - October 16th

Bitten by mozzys last night on the eyebrow!!! Who bites the bloody eyebrow! This makes me angry all night and I try and find the culprit! I find lots of mozzy splats all over the walls in the room!

Wake up still ill! I think about how I want to spend the day. My original plan was to see all the attractions in Qufu and leave for Qingdao tonight. On second thoughts, I feel I need to rest and take it easy so I haggle my second nights stay at this hotel for Y50! I then get a rickshaw driver to take me to all the sights for Y20 for the day! He even took me to get breakfast and medicine for my cold!

First stop is the Confucius museum, where I get a free guided tour! The girl who gave me the tour got sooo annoyed as my Chinese was poor and I had to stop her every so often to ask her what she meant! She got really frustrated! It was hard work for both of us! Apparently she is a descendant of Confucius and was training to be a vet!

On the way to the next stop, I spy a music shop so I jump out the rickshaw and go in. I buy a harmonica, but they didn’t have any small travel size guitars! Just as I was beginning to like this place, the rickshaw driver takes me to this tackiest shittiest waxworks! They precede to rape me several places… entry, incense sticks and gay hand wash which they said was from blessed water. I should have known better, but I was caught unaware! Spend Y56 in there for stuff I really didn’t care about! I tell them I am disgusted with their behaviour and they seem to be a bit embarrassed and I tell the driver never to take me to a place like that again! He is also embarrassed! We then go past a youth hostel! The taxi driver from yesterday said there wasn’t any in town!!! I am pretty pissed off at that point!

I am then followed by a lady on a bike who insists that she gives me a tour of Konglin (the burial ground of Confucius and his descendants). She starts at Y20 but I tell her I am not interested, then she drops to Y10 and I tell her it’s not about the money, I’m just pissed off and tired from the last guided tour! She follows me all the way into the cemetery and starts chatting to me. I get into the grounds and she offers to lend me her bike for Y5 as the grounds are pretty big. I go for it! And I take her offer on the tour as courtesy! I have a great time on the bike riding around the cemetery! Other people take the motor cart thingies which cost Y10 and are just ushered around! Suckers! The lady says it should take me 20mins to ride around… I take my sweet time and end up going for 35mins!

I return to the starting point where she gives me a tour of the main Confucius’ tomb. I take this opportunity to ask her as many questions as possible and make her write things down for me… get my moneys worth! I get jipped again at his tomb where I pay my respects but pay for some flowers! She is confused why I am so stingy so I tell her about my intended three months travels and how everyone is ripping me off. She relates to me and then as she begins to understand my predicament, a lady comes up to me and starts telling my fortune. I try to run away, but I feel bad so I ask my tour lady if it’s okay to do this. She says go ahead. Now, I’m no expert in palm reading, but I know some of the stuff she was saying, I could have made up myself too! She says I am single minded and independent, not relying on my friends or family to get what I want (good guess for someone who is travelling on their own!) She said something about my 68^th birthday where I will get a gift from my son (haha) and I had to do something with that gift or I will have a premature death, otherwise, I will live for a long time (the split in my life line supposedly)! Also, I will not be rich this lifetime, but my kids will be rich from my work! Also there are two/three women in my life but I must only choose one of them. Thanks for the insightfulness! I didn’t know I was only allowed to marry one person at a time! She then asks for some money, even though at first she said she wasn’t in it for the money! I’m very reluctant, so give her Y3 (3 is a good number in Confucianism)! She is not happy! My guide tries to explain my money situation. We end up at Y6. I am not pleased and tell my guide. She now relates to me more! She then spills the beans and tells me a lot of the inside secrets and tells me never to tell anyone that she told me. I am paying far too much for things and need to be a bit more stubborn and have a goal when I arrive in towns for the first time. She turns out to be really nice and she says that she has a son of her own who is eleven. I think I play the poor ignorant son card very well!

I have a pot noodle special for lunch. The special bit is the sausages I get for it!

I visit the Confucius Temple and the Confucius Mansions. This is when I realise that if I waited, then all the Chinese tours would just go away! I started to flake out a bit so chilled out in the Gardens of the Confucius Mansions. It smelt of farm! Languages started to blur for me now as I started to hear Cantonese everywhere and talking in Chinese for so long has started to really get to me! I swear the Tannoys in shops were speaking in Cantonese, but that would make no sense at all in the north of China!

Have dinner at the same restaurant/tent I ate at last night. I tell them that I am a little ill so they tell me I should have some fish soup and they give me ginger water (no, not orange water!). Bernice (old class mate from Beijing) was actually saying the other day that chewing on ginger helps the immune system! The food seemed cheaper today… I think I must have befriended them! I have liver for dinner… it was actually really nice! I leave and the couple who own the restaurant/tent tell me to get more rest and take medicine!

I watch my favourite TV add so far. It shows a factory worker and tells of the bad conditions people are working in. Then it compares the conditions as like that of a fish swimming in dirty water! It then cuts to a picture of somebody’s lungs all black and minging from inhaling dirt and dust. Cut to fish dying and floating up to the top of the fish bowl (my fav. bit!). It then has people dressed in industrial protective gear and they all have smiling faces! The fish is now happy… I swear it must be smiling too! The ad was brought to you by Shandong Provincial Government!

Watch the replay of the England match and sleep.

Miles walked: 84.886m
Steps taken: 15,996 steps