Goodbye China and travelling
Trip Start
Jun 30, 2005
1
12
13
Trip End
Jun 05, 2006
Beijing,
China
Sunday, June 4, 2006
(Jodie) Well its hard to believe this is the last instalment of our trip coming to you from China after over 11 months of travelling.
Back to Beijing on the night train. Again surprisingly comfortable. I didn't drink very much that day and held on so I didn't need to use the loo. Gavin developed a cold and dropped a can of beer he was very sensibly holding from his mouth (?!) which sprayed everywhere, though mostly soaking his bed and thus had to sleep on his duvet, and our cabin stunk of beer all night - nice! This time we stayed in Jade International Youth Hostel, which is in a different, more pleasant location than the other hostel, which has allowed us to see Beijing in a new light. It's a couple blocks away from the Forbidden City to the left, and a couple blocks to the right of a high street filled with nice shops and malls. This seems to mean that people gob and chain smoke less, which is always good! We have also discovered a lot more Chinese restaurants with English menus. Yesterday we went to 'Hou Won Ton', which surprisingly serves its speciality - won ton soup (which i love!) and have a woman making the won tons at the back of the restaurant. We ordered beef won ton soup (though tasted like pork), streamed pork dumplings (which tasted like pork) and spring rolls with 3 vegetables (these also had a fish of some sort in them - crab or prawn? which Gavin doesn't like, but he didn't seem to notice, and I didn't tell him and surprisingly he thought the spring rolls were very nice indeed! I still haven't told him about the fish, so we'll see if his notices again later.
Yesterday we ventured to the Forbidden City, which again is very impressive and a huge site, but filled with too many Chinese people in their 30 plus tour groups. Although I don't want to slag to Chinese off, I do wish they would develop some respect for others - instead they are oblivious to pushing into each other and again like to dominate areas for hours and have no concept of queuing (saying that I lie, this morning in McDonalds people seemed to be forming so kind of queue - we were so shocked that I almost took a photo!). In the Forbidden City and in Beijing as a whole they are doing a lot of repair work to many old buildings and monuments (no doubt in time for the Olympics), so that has been a bit frustrating, but obviously can't be helped. Last night we went to the Acrobatic show. The flexibility these young people had was shockingly scary and the stunts they did were very impressive.
Today we headed for the popular Sat/Sun market and on the way saw Beijing's smog at its worst. It is so bad that buildings a half a block away become faint and building a block or two away you can't even see! We have heard that they plan to shut down the local factories two weeks before the games to clear the air, it really is quiet shocking and gross to see the air pollution so evidently.
Well home tomorrow. Gavin and I have just done our packing and are now going to head off for some more won ton soup. You can probably tell that China has not been one of our favorite places we've visited and this hasn't been helped with us having had to lock ourselves in a horrible Internet cafe for our first few days doing applications, plus the gobbing and chain smoking. Saying that we do feel as though we are just starting to find our feet here really, which like any places has always taken a bit of time, here obviously a bit longer. The barriers in communication is a big one, every where else we've been they've spoken a bit of English and learning key words or phrases in their language has always been a lot easier. I'm not sure whether or not I would have preferred to come to China first or last on the trip. We have met people who are on the start of their trip and being in China has made them quite apprehensive about the rest of their time in Asia, thinking that they will be going home a lot earlier than planned. We've obviously reassured them, telling them it will only get better and easier. But if you didn't know that, I wouldn't be surprised to hear that people had gone home early. And coming to China last has made us even more excited about coming home and I can't believe that's tomorrow!!!
This year has been absolutely incredible and we are so glad that we've had this experience. But it will be so nice to get back family and friends, to home comforts and the many things of every day normal life we take for granted - if you don't think there are many, you can ask us about them when you see us! I hope you've enjoyed our updates, even if they feel like a novel - just think at least you haven't had to write them!
Anyways hope our last update finds you well and we will send a quickie soon to let you know that we've landed safe and sound.
Looking forward to seeing you soon,
lots and lots of love
Jodie and Gavin
xoxoox
