Day 8 - October 12th

Worse wake-up ever!!! People slamming doors and cacking outside. The horrid cacking, clearing throat sound that the Chinese all seem to do! I go and have breakfast… disgusting slurp and preserved shit! I eat a few of the plain buns and an egg. That reminded me of my cat Chairman Mao who likes to eat eggs. Strange! I then go to find some place to wash my clothes. Turns out it was going to cost Y100 because they measure it in the pieces of clothing rather than weight and I had a lot of underwear! I walk away… it’s going to be a bad day.

On the way back to my room I bump into an American guy called Owen. I ask him if he knew of anywhere to get clothes washed. He seems in a happy mood as he has just got his done at the same place and thought it a bargain! I decide to get my clothes washed for Y100. To top it off, it was drizzling outside which continued all day!

On my way out, I bump into Owen again and we spend the rest of the day together seeing the sights in Kaifeng. We see a lot that day as we hop from destination to destination via rickshaws. We visit the Temple of the Chief Minister, Shaanshangan Guildhall, Longting Park (old palace) and Tieta Park to see the Iron Pagoda. The pagoda is claimed to be the best (number one) in China! It is pretty cool and we climb to the top to find a group of men stinking of booze and giggling! Why didn’t I think of that? There is also this strange system in Kaifeng where if you tell the people of the ticket offices that the rickshaw people took you there, they get Y2 for food money! Pretty cool system I think! Everyone’s a winner!

Owen turns out to be a pretty sound guy and was working/studying in Hong Kong for the last year and really got into the local music scene there, something which I didn’t manage to do! I guess the Americans who usually leave the country are always the sounder ones!

We then decide to go to the Sacred Heart of Jesus Church. Looks like a Catholic style church.. Seeming that we had done two of the worlds major religions we decide why stop now? We walk half a block to see a well which is what remains of the old synagogue (Kaifeng used to have a large Jewish population). It is situated in the boiler room of the number four People’s Hospital. Walking through the hospital was one of the most messed up things I’ve done in a while! We walk past a room where it seems a patient (Owen informed me later that it was a lady) who just looked grim and had a sort of stand and cloth looped around her jaw, keeping her head up. I really don’t know what the hell it was but I walked away as fast as possible! Messed up! Owen decides to go back for a second look! We walk into the boiler and find a well… not much to it!

We then walk to Dongda Mosque via the Muslim quarter. Not as nice as the mosque I saw in Xi'an but had the same hallmarks… looks just like a Chinese temple! So four major religions in a day! Can’t do that in many cities, I tell you!

We then walk past a shop which has a load of kegs in the window. We stop in to have a few bevys! German beer… expensive, but you have to treat yourself sometimes! I also find the nicest smelling portaloo I have ever had the pleasure to use!

Have dinner in the night market. We sit down and order our food and then a lady with a guitar and a mic sits down on the table next to ours. We decide to invite her over and Owen asks her to play a few songs that he has on his iPod. No luck… too contemporary! So we ask her to play her favourite song and then I also play a song. I rock! I then ask her to play ‘The Moon Represents My Heart’ a classic Chinese song which I really like. No one else in the street agrees with me… too cliché maybe!

Owen suggests that I should record and play some Chinese folk songs and package it in a way for western audiences. I tell him my time came and went long ago…

Miles walked: 54.355m
Steps taken: 38,310

Day 7 - October 11th

Upset stomach still today. I think it may be all the greasy food I’m eating. I decide to go to the White Horse Temple, the first Buddhist temple on Chinese soil. The bus journey was long and my mind wondered. I thought about things like, if ever you needed to go for a poo, you can eat two apples and that usually does the trick! I haven’t done that since I was a kid, so maybe that’s not true any more? For some reason I also thought back to the time when I playing for KCC in the tournament in China and there was an upside down face man. The best upside down face man I have ever seen! I also remember my old statistics teacher, Mr. Jones also having a pretty good upside down face!

I went to the temple and helped some whities (European) burn incense. They were burning them one by one so I told them that they should do it in threes. I also bumped into the guys from Gansu again! Didn’t know what to say really! My Chinese small talk sucks!!! There are many giant spider webs in this temple but I can’t seem to get a good picture of it. I walk to a pagoda in a different part of the grounds and walk past a building where monks were knocking on their wood blocks and praying. Was pretty cool.

Another thought came to me whilst I was walking in the temple grounds. It’s more a thought from Gary actually! There are sooo many fit Chinese girls walking about and they’re always, always attached to a dooch bag boyfriend! Gary was right! They all look pretty good looking and have boyfriends who just look like complete tools!

I return to the hostel after taking a wrong bus (should have taken no.56, not 58) and check out. I walk to the bus station with all my gear and look at the sex shops again. There are actually brothels in between them. Still doesn’t explain why someone needs a blow-up doll in the morning!!! And surely business for the sex shops would be pretty crap considering you can get sex just next door?

I take the bus to Kaifeng. They show Twins Mission on the bus. Only four people on this bus… I think buses are the way forward! I see fireworks outside. The most bizarre music video was shown after the movie was finished. There was some woman singing an old Chinese folk song. The videos backdrop is Tibet with all these Tibetan people running around being happy and a fat woman (the singer) in what I can describe as a Jimmy Saville-esque track suit. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the video goes on and the Tibetan people start greeting the Han (Chinese) railway workers and they’re all smiling and happy and loving the Chinese. Good propaganda I would say!!!

I arrive in Keifeng and it’s pissing it down. The first things I see is a little shop with pink light and then loads of homeless people sleeping outside a department store. I make my way to the hotel suggested by the Lonely Planet. It is DIRTY!!! Minging as hell!!! I change my room once as the windows didn’t seem to lock, so they moved me to a room where the window had a metal grill around it.

I decide to go eat and treat myself to Chinese-style steak. I’ve only been gone a week and I’m starting to ‘treat’ myself! I find myself scoffing the food down, not eating, but scoffing! Though I passed on the bowl of fruit with ketchup in! The restaurant was playing songs which I learnt in singing class in Beijing Language and Cultural University!!! Didn’t stay in that class for long… no, it wasn’t ‘cos I was rubbish! There wasn’t enough people in the class… yes, I did scare them away!

I decide to go look for an Internet bar… I walk for ages and find nothing!!! No internet bar??? In China? The fuck am I? I decide to walk back to my hotel when I get to this local bar and there are three people standing around in the car park “chatting”.

Retire to my room and turn on the TV. Watch the most degrading thing ever… no, not animal porn! It was on the kids channel… basically it was a game show where there are five kids. One of the rounds had this American guy who was supposed to be the ‘boss’. He then orders each of the kids in turn to do his bidding as all good Americans should order their Chinese lackies! It was a disgrace. He’s done his country no favours by just publicly humiliating the kids and treating them like servants! I would be so embarrassed by this man's behaviour if I was from the States!

Miles walked: 43.498m
Steps taken: 10,682