We left for China on a 14 day trip. It was fantastic. In hindsight we should have done it the other way round, 14 in Vietnam and a month in China. It is a place I would go back to.
The start: We flew to Auckland and stayed overnight in a reasonable hotel – small room but OK.
Again like the Vietnam trip the plane went via another place (then Hanoi) now it was via Hong Kong where we had to change to a Dragon Airlines flight.
Beijing: The airport was huge and we should have taken photos but were a bit jet lagged. It is so large we had to go on a few minutes train trip to get to the baggage area.
The trip to the hotel was easy as the traffic was quite light; the city lights were tremendous. Hotel was good – it had free internet. The others advertised it but it was only if you brought your own laptop. It even provided free condoms!! In the others you had to pay!! I suppose with the cost if you had more than one child you couldn't take any chances.
We were taken on various tours by our guide. She was called Larry. The explanation was that her parents wanted a boy and when her sister was born they decided to go ahead in ‘one child China’ to have another and pay the fine (we think it was about 25% of their annual income). When they got another girl they decided to give her a boys name??
We of course thought this very sad. Living with this every time for the rest of your life would upset us but she didn’t seem worried. I am sure in the West we would change our name. Quite odd.
So it seems at a cost you could have another child and later it became evident that this was relatively common. She said all the top Party people had to set an example and only had one child (well as far as the public knew).
Around Beijing was extremely interesting; just looking at the city in general, the buildings, clean streets, the people. In Beijing we went to the usual tourist spots, Emperors Tomb, Tiananmen Square, the Olympic area (the Birdsnest Stadium), the Great Wall, the Hutong area where we went on a cyclo ride, etc.
The square was huge and the day we went it wasn’t that full although our guide thought it was. As it was only 15 minutes walk from our hotel we went down early one morning to see Mao’s tomb as it was only open 9 AM to Noon. We never got to go in as they were queuing in their tens of thousands (was there over 100,000 queuing – who knows, but there were people as far as the eye could see).
We always felt safe and I noticed that the Police weren’t armed and unlike Vietnam they were all doing something.
Some other sights at Beijing were the Zoo where we saw the Panda who was quite alert when we were there; a large Mall near the hotel had a ice skating rink inside it; we visited the Temple of Heaven; various markets; including a food market at night where they had scorpions and sea horses for sale to eat (later on the train to Shanghai we met some Mormons who had tried the scorpions – no real taste they claimed).
Xian and the Buried Army.
A ‘small’ city of around 10 Million; we flew in from Beijing. Still smoggy and quite cold in the mornings with little sun.
When we got the taxi from the Airport a policeman filled out a complaint card which he gave us. At the end of the ride we either completed it or handed it back to the taxi driver. Great system. Keeps them honest. At Xian (pronounced we think Jian) we visited the Buried Army, toured the City Wall – takes about 2 hours to bike around the top where we went by a hop-on hop-off electric vehicle.
They get 50 million visitors a year to the Army, it is 11,000 square metres and the man who discovered the Army was there that day signing his books. Our guide Chen said he is the last of the 3 who made the discovery- he said the others (like most Chinese males) smoked and are dead.
At the local museum, we saw the oldest human made things we have ever seen – 4000 years BC. We saw a skull 150 million years old.
Visited the Moslem Quarter – and the next day found the ‘Grand Mosque’ which was only a small house with a courtyard. We only found the street and sign because a birded crapped on Christine and we stopped and when we looked up saw the sign. A couple of Yanks were also looking for it so we went down together. It was a real disappointment.
We also visited the Drum and Bell Towers, saw a fireman’s display where we got a couple of free hats, had our photo taken by several policemen all dressed up in them and put our names on a huge whiteboard. (see our photos). We saw our first pregnant woman (about 4 in total for the trip).
We started to notice it in Beijing but the many of Chinese are not small people.
Train to Shanghai. What a disaster. There was a “tomb cleaning’ holiday and we couldn’t get taxi from the Hotel to the railway station as they refused to go as the Police were ticketing them as no parking is allowed near the station at the holiday. The Hotel were hopeless – they said get a bus – with all our bags and the language problems!!
Anyway, a Tuk Tuk driver came along and he was willing to risk it. So we got there but took about an hour to find out where to go as thousands of people were milling about and nothing was in English. Finally, we found the correct entrance and found an English speaker who directed us the right way. We never found out how to check our bags (which was probably better as it happened) and didn't know what to do with them. Then luckily we were in the train with a Mormon group from Utah and a pleasant woman from the group was in our carriage. Their Guide told us what to do about storing our bags on the train.
The trip down was not the best as it was noisy and uncomfortable but we had pleasant company. Then a guy came through yelling in Chinese, basically saying we think, it was bedtime so I took the top bunk for a broken sleep.
Shanghai: Wow what a city – even with the smog. Although again contrary to what the Travel Agent said there was no free internet at the hotel.
We saw and experienced many things – the fantastic buildings (both old and new), the huge TV tower which we went up, the terrific planning (smog; but 40% of the city is green), shark in an aquarium in a road underpass, the ‘Chinatown area”, the old ‘Imperial Concession areas, the Bund and the trip under the river, another guide who had a brother, the Urban Planning Centre, the subway which we worked out how to travel on with the help of a Frenchman, the Mag-Lev, the students constantly stopping you to try out their English, NZ$10,000 to buy a number plate so you can then buy a car, the night boat trip, the Museum, great security (everywhere in China they X-Ray your bags), the Acrobat Show (was it the highlight of the trip?), the BBC blocked because of items critical of China, the bureaucracy to change money (30 pieces of paper at the ICBC Bank), the Chinglish, the Hop-On Hop off bus which was the ideal way to get around, the huge Malls (with very few areas devoted to children), over the bridge at the river and so much more.
We would go back to China tomorrow.
At breakfast one morning I chatted to an Australian who said he was a 'reasonably senior bureaucrat in Canberra' and he said some times it made you question democracy. He said we talk about doing things and nothing happens after 50 years (I responded just like NZ) but the Chinese say it will benefit 10 million so bugger the 500 people it will upset and they go ahead and do it. We procrastinate and posture for the next election. Also it seems it is not all a one way dictatorship as there was a demonstration reported in the paper at Beijing airport and our French friend told us the Mag Lev was supposed to run all the way into the city but those whose houses would have gone objected and it didn't.
