G'DASIA - PART I

  Beijing, China
Monday, February 25, 2008

In cooler climates, there's a point when you feel you can't get any colder. When your fingers and toes are in the first stages of frostbite but you don't realise because they've been numb for hours. When you feel that every inch of skin, muscle and bone has been snap frozen. When you are thankful the contents of your nose have turned to ice instead of dripping all over your scarf. For us, that point was today.

Ok, so it was only -2 degrees Celsius, but our introduction to Beijing, China, is a far cry from the lazy days by the pool in Thailand a week ago.

Ni hao everyone,

When we last checked in, we were in Bangkok en route to Hong Kong, so we should get you up to speed.



HONG KONG IF YOU'RE HORNY
We want to start by saying that we both really loved Hong Kong. It's a huge city, the people are friendly, it's dirt-cheap and the transport system is a dream.

Our accommodation, however, was far from spectacular. As mentioned in our last update, we'd booked into the Kowloon New Hostel, which cost a budget 58HKD ($8.30) each a night. When we got there, we understood why.

HORROR HOSTEL FROM HELL

The hostel was located in Mirador Mansion, a decrepit, 15-storey building that that you entered down a little laneway next to a shop that sold Buddha statues and sex toys. Washing flapped about on every available space on the precarious balconies overlooking a central courtyard and you never quite knew which floor the rattling lifts would transport you to and what would await you when the doors creaked open. It was like a monster, building version of the Magic Faraway Tree.

CHRIS FINDS HIS STREET NAMESAKE

We were allocated beds in one of four shambolic little hostels, all owned by the same people, who apparently just put guests wherever they can fit them when they arrive. Seems for us that was a corridor that lead to a balcony that doubled as a laundrette and cleaners quarters complete with cleaners traipsing through at all hours of the day and night.

TWO LOBSTER BALLS PLEASE

Keen to get out of there as soon as possible, we dropped our bags and went in search of a place to watch the Liverpool vs Barnsley game. Fortunately, the area we were staying in, Tsim Sha Shoi, was buzzing with little pubs, cheap all night eateries and corner take-aways where, for 1HKD (.14c) you could get street delicacies like lobsters balls on a stick.

VB AND FOOTBALL...HOW VERY ASIAN!

Finally struck gold at Fatt's Place, a great little pub with a big screen, VB on tap for 38HKD ($5.40) and free peanuts. Could our night get any better? Oh yes, you were allowed to throw your shells straight onto the floor. Hot.

KUNG-FU CAZ

We also went down to the incredible harbour and strolled the Avenue of Stars, like the Hollywood version, but featuring the handprints of Hong Kong's greatest Kung-fu legends, including Jackie Chan. We also managed to catch the nightly Symphony of Lights, an amazing laser show featuring all the buildings on the Hong Kong Island side of the harbour set to symphony music.

SLEEPER TRAIN BEAUTY

Last Monday though, after two nights in Hong Kong, we were off again, catching one of the overnight sleeper trains (which we've nicknamed the "Darjeeling Express") to Shanghai.










A BIG SHANGHAI TO YOU ALL:
Heading straight to the smoky bar carriage, we discovered to our dismay that the Chinese don't put beer in the fridge. After some time, however, we were able to convince a rather stern waitress to store a special stash of Budweisers just for us in the kitchen and ended up drinking for seven hours with an American named Cameron.



THIS WEEK'S TRAVEL TIP #1:
It is much harder to walk back to, let alone find, your cabin on a moving train after seven hours in the bar carriage than is to get to the bar in the first place.



Spotting snow out our window as we pulled into Shanghai station Tuesday morning, we guessed we were in for colder weather than we'd had the past week. And we were right. Most days topped around 8 degrees, with heavy fog at night.

SHANGHAI DAYS

Shanghai is very different than we imagined. No riskshaws rattling down the streets for one. There's an old part of town, but a most of the city is really modern, with the newest part, an island in the middle of the harbour that was, up until 15 years ago, farming land, looking like something from a sci-fi movie.

DUMPRINGS!

The other thing we noticed is everything is so cheap. Four long necks of the local brew, Tsingtao, cost us Yuan 13.90 (about $1.89) and a hearty feed for two, of 16 dumplings and wanton soup, was Y16 ($2.18).







Because of this, we have spent most of the first two weeks of our holiday eating and drinking. We have seen the sights, but more in terms of them being "on the way" to our next meal.

PANCAKE PIGOUT

We've been stuffing ourselves silly with dumplings, steamed buns and all manner of street food. Obviously our plan to shed the kilos on this trip has not gone according to plan. Though we are doing A LOT of walking so we figure that should balance it out.






In Shanghai we stayed at the Mingtown Hiker Hostel, which, for Y40 ($5.70) a night gave us a bunk in a four-bed dorm, plus a bar, restaurant free pool, free internet and movies downstairs.

We spent our days there wandering the city, including the quaint backstreets of the French Concession. The French arrived in Shanghai after the British in 1847, but despite its name, there were few French people who actually lived there. Around 90 per cent of the residents were Chinese, with the most numerous foreigners being Russians. However, this didn't stop the French building Fuxing Gongyuan (Fuxing Park), just for their own personal use.

THE BUND

We also strolled the length of Shanghai's famous Bund (Anglo-Indian term for the embankment of a muddy waterfront), the long promenade that hugs the Huangpu River.

RED LANTERN FESTIVAL

Finding ourselves at Yu Yuan Shangchen (Yu Gardens Bazaar) in the old part of town, we were fortunate to be around for the Red Lantern Festival, which occurs two weeks after Chinese New Year, and the whole area was awash with colour, street stalls, performances and people...so many people.





Then it was time to say Shang-bye and catch another overnight train to Bejing.



BEI-ZING
Arrived in this year's Olympic City yesterday and as, we mentioned, it's freaking cold. Even the rivers are frozen.

TIANANMEN SQUARE

We're staying at the Far East International Youth Hostel, Y40 or $5 a night and today, rugged up in five layers, plus scarves and gloves, we trotted off to visit Tianamen Square and the Forbidden City. Mao's Mausoleum was closed so we're going to check that out in the next couple of days, but we hear his body has a suspicious waxy tinge, and that there may or may not be several body "doubles" that are wheeled out when the "original" is being cleaned.

THE FORBIDDEN CITY

We did, however, penetrate the Forbidden City walls that were closed to the public for over 500 years. Not sure why considering all of China could fit in there quite comfortably. It's huge, really huge. Every time we thought we were about to hit the city walls, another great courtyard would open up before us with alleyways and gardens snaking off in every direction.

A BUG'S LIFE

Last night, we stopped by Wangfujing snack street where scorpions, millipedes, starfish, seahorses, sea urchins and some sort of bug larvae were all on offer, before heading to a backpacker pub in our street and spent the night drinking (Tsingtao averaging Y3 or .41c a long neck) with a Brit named James who is staying in our hostel and another Brit, a journo called Johnathon in town with his two teenage sons, who are both in a band called Tokyo Dawns.




By the end of the evening we, along with James, had been invited to go and stay at Johnathon's house in Hampshire and then take a road trip with them to the Roskilda music festival in Denmark in August.

Tomorrow (Monday) we head to the Great Wall to do the 10km walk along the wall from Jingshanling to Simatal. We're also planning a trip to the Summer Palace and the Silk Road markets (where we hear you can pick up Converse sneakers for Y80, or around $10).

We're in Beijing until Friday and then we overnight train it to Xi'an to check out the Terracotta Warriors. Then fly to Hong Kong on Saturday, March 1 to catch a connecting flight to Delhi. Butter chicken, here we come.

Love,
Chris and Caroline xx

MOBILE EATERY

P.S.
Beck - your farewell gift has already come in handy - we used one of the collapsible bowls to store our leftovers from a monstrous lunch the day we left Hong Kong and tucked into it for dinner that night on the train. Nice one!
Antonina - your farewell present also proved it's packing space worth during what I call the Shower Incident in Mirador Mansion in which I had to make a discreet dash from one broken shower to another - Caroline.
John - that little calculator you gave us has proved to be one of our most prized possessions. Not only does it tell us the time in 10 different countries, it also has an alarm clock and an easy-to-program currency conversion that we can update in each country. We know you got it for free, but we appreciate it very much!
Bel - hope your first week of school went well and the teachers weren't too mean - oh, and hope the motorbike Ls test went ok??


ON A PERSONAL NOTE:
We're both doing well physically and emotionally, although Chris is starting to get the first signs of a cold with sniffles and a stuffy head. Not missing home yet, but last night we did crack open the Vegemite Chris' dad gave us and tucked into some toast for dinner. Chris has also developed a strange obsession with washing his clothes (too bad it doesn't also exist back home in Australia!) and has been flapping about trying to find a place to do a wash. It has been two weeks since we last had clean clothes after all. His mum would be very proud!

Caroline meanwhile, has been on the hunt for a real cup of tea, and after two weeks of searching (yes, we thought China was the tea capital of the world too), finally found a box of Liptons Yellow Label, which made her very happy indeed.


THIS WEEK'S TRAVEL TIP #2:
Never, ever look closely at the drain in the shower in a hostel. Ever.

CHRIS HAVING A MAO-MENT

THUMBS UP:
1. The little calculator that Chris' dad gave us
2. Our trackies
3. Caroline's hiking shoes - they almost didn't make the shortlist, but with an average of five-hours pounding the pavement each day, she's sure glad they did

THUMBS DOWN:
1. Learning to shower in thongs
2. Learning to wash clothes in the shower
3. Chinese people constantly smoking and spitting everywhere, including on the carpet indoors. Filthy habits