Last trip of the term

Yesterday marked the end of my travelling in Asia. I returned from Shanghai and arrived home by 11pm. I think that this was a good way to end my travels - I can appreciate all that I've learned and grown accustomed to over the past 8 months.

Pictures can be found here. (222 photos! Wow!)

Limin and I left for Shanghai on the 13th. We were bored in I-house, so we actually left for the Shenzhen airport an hour earlier than we originally planned. Unfortunately we were on the shuttle bus to the airport before Limin realized that she had mixed up our flight times - turns out our plane wasn't going to leave for an hour later than we had anticipated... So we arrived at the airport about 3 hours ahead of time instead of 2. Whoops. This wouldn't be such a terrible thing, but the Shenzhen airport is boring. (Not as bad as the Nanjing airport, but nearly so.) We ended up sitting at McDonald's most of the time, snacking. Then our plane got delayed by an hour. Then when we were sitting on the plane ready for takeoff, we got delayed by another 30-40 minutes due to difficulties in the Shanghai airport. Luckily the airplane staff deterred a minor mutiny by passing out snacks and turning on the TVs.

So in the end, we didn't actually arrive in Shanghai until around 2am. To make up for the delays, our plane (China Eastern Airlines) offered a free bus to downtown Shanghai. Yay free stuff. We arrived downtown around 3am and when we found our hostel, we also found out that they had given away our reserved room because we were so late. (I was amused because there were several white people passed out in the lobby.) Luckily we were able to rent a more expensive room. It was super comfy. Limin and I decided to not get up and leave until 10am the following morning.

This is the point where I should mention that Limin had a cold. She was merely sick for the first day, but after that, it was all downhill. She was constantly falling asleep or coughing everywhere. I felt so bad for her.

Well, Limin and I got up the next morning and found a great little restaurant to have breakfast in. I had some kind of rice soup and managed to burn my tongue no less than 6 times in the half hour we were there. After obtaining sustenance we walked to the waterfront to get our bearings, then went to find a famous temple in downtown Shanghai.

I really like Shanghai architecture. It's a strange mix of 1950s American and Chinese styles. For example, the entirety of a building will be old fashioned brick (think of an old bank), but the roof is totally a Chinese turned eaves roof. It's so neat. Much of downtown Shanghai is done in this style it seems. The other thing that's so amazing about Shanghai is the sheer contrasts of its buildings. You'll see skyscrapers besides little hovels. The Shanghai bus station is a really cool designed building with swoops and arches everywhere... But across the street is a block of old chinese buildings that were probably built in the 1930s, if not earlier.

Limin and I managed to find the temple - it was located in a very touristy area. All the buildings were in a restored traditional chinese style. They did nothing but sell souvenirs and snacks. Unfortunately this also meant things were very expensive. (Well, expensive for China - I paid a whole $10RMB for a fan - $1.40CAD) It was raining a bit, which kind of sucked the energy out of Limin and I so we just wandered around the area poking into random stores.

Afterwards, Limin and I walked to the People's Square. We had been told there were a bunch of museums in the area. Unfortunately this is when Limin's cold really began to kick in. I dragged her into the Museum of Urban Planning. It was a museum dedicated to the history of the development of Shanghai. It was really cool - they'd have pictures of historical areas of Shanghai, and show a current picture of the same area. Some areas have barely changed, others are totally unrecognizable. The museum also had large model of the city of Shanghai. It was totally amazing how large and realistic it was. (Amusingly though it didn't have any of the squalid chinese huts on it. I wonder why... ;)) By this time, we had done so much walking we were exhausted. We ended up finding a small place inside the museum with seats where you could watch a movie, so Limin and I sat down and had quick power naps. Limin ended up finding a padded seat to sleep on while I finished touring around the rest of the museum.

After I woke up Limin, we continued our stroll and found ourselves on Nanjing Road - a famous shopping district in Shanghai. It was full of expensive stores. It reminded me of the mall called Festival Walk in Kowloon Tong actually. We didn't go into any of the stores because we weren't willing to put out the money we knew we'd have to spend. Instead I grabbed a steamed bun and we roamed down the street until we reached our hostel again.

Limin and I then headed to the train station. We had bought our tickets earlier in the day and were assigned seats in different cars. Unfortunately our train was delayed by an hour, forcing us to chill in the dirty crowded train station where people kept staring at me. I'm used to being stared at by some people during my China trips, but this time it felt like everybody was looking at me. We finally managed to board the train, and after I tried to boot a lady out of the wrong seat (whoops, seat 111 was on the OTHER side of her), I managed to claim my seat and had a very uncomfortable ride to Hangzhou. (The train was crowded just like on my Nanjing trip, there was a gambling ring going on in the seats beside mine, and I didn't have anywhere to put my luggage so I sat with it on my lap the entire ride.)

Our hostel in Hangzhou was really pretty. It was located literally on the side of the West Lake (Lake Xihu). Amusingly it was also located between two clubs. The entire street we were on was nothing but bars and clubs, so nights were a bit noisy, but not as much as you would think. Our hostel couldn't find our reservation, so Limin and I had to add two cots some rooms with 2 bunkbeds already. That night was the most UNCOMFORTABLE night in my entire night. My bed was hard as a rock. I'm used to hard asian beds, but this cot was a new low. I kept waking up, and when I finally got up in the morning, I had a headache and stiff back. I might as well have slept on the floor.

The following morning was very relaxing. Limin and I found out there was a tea festival in Hangzhou, so we wandered around there oggling all the yummy food before finding our way to a famous street in Hangzhou. The street is famous because its stores are all located in very old buildings... That's the only reason. Practically every store there sold touristy things, so I ended up getting a few souvenirs and got a chinese chop/stamp made for myself! Yay! So now I have a stamp that says "Mo-lin SEAL" (in chinese of course.)

After a lunch that took forever to arrive, Limin and I headed off to Hangzhou's main tourist attraction - The West Lake. It's a huge lake surrounded by pretty trees and gardens. I have to admit, it was pretty darned nice looking. And pretty big. And pretty difficult to build up incentive to walk/bike around it when you're exhausted... Therefore Limin and I got lazy and decided to pay to hop on a mini-bus that drove around the lake instead. We were very amused by how fast the bus drove. We ZOOMED around the lake, only stopping when we got stuck behind groups of people... And whenever that happened, the bus would start playing this really annoying music as a warning that it was coming. I think I had nightmares about the tune it played that night. After our bus foray, Limin ran out of energy and returned back to the hostel, leaving me to fend for myself for several hours. I ended up going for a bit of a walk around the lake.

People in China crack me up. While walking to the lake, an old Chinese guy (err, well he was only around 40 I guess) started talking to me asking where I was from, if I was a traveller, blah blah blah. I would only answer him in monosyllabic answers because frankly, I have a hard time trusting people while I'm travelling. I made it to the lakeside and there was a police officer patrolling the area. The moment he saw the guy talking to me, he started yelling at him in Chinese. I could understand the man telling him that he had only been asking me a few things. The police man forced the man to leave the lakeside and I hightailed it out of there. (The officer didn't even talk to me.)

After awhile of walking, I decided to grab a seat on the ledge of a grassy area. It was a bit crowded, but there was space around me. Suddenly a lady sets her child on the ledge right beside me. I automatically moved a bit away to give them more room, then the woman moved the child to be right beside me again. That's when I realized she was trying to take a photo of girl with me. I was a bit flabbergasted - she didn't even try to make camera picture motions or anything. I obliged her anyways and smiled as she snapped her photo. The lady then smiled and left with her daughter. That was it.

I remained where I was and about 5 minutes later another older lady came and sat beside me. This lady though wanted to practice her Chinese. She just asked innocent questions like how I liked China, blah blah blah. And I obliged her by chatting and asking about her own hometown (she was in town visiting her sister). She was also nice enough to let me try out my Chinese on her. LOL. So she ended up telling me the story of the West Lake. After awhile we ran out of small talk and I fled the scene.

I ran into Limin (she had woken up early and we just randomly saw each other near the lake) so we walked around downtown Hangzhou poking in and out of stores. We ended up walking back to the historical street and having a very delicious dinner - some kind of stewed lamb with other dishes. It was soooo tasty. Afterwards we wandered back to the lake and flopped down on the edge of the lake and snapped photos. It was fun and relaxing just sitting there chatting. We then returned to the hotel and happy joy! I got my own bed in a room full of French people. The bed was still deadly hard, but not the hellish experience of the previous night.

Our 4th morning was spent going to a very old Pagoda. We partly walked there and partly took the bus. It was quite the hike. When we arrived at the pagoda, there were a gazillion monks there. They were all quite young and it seemed like they were on more of a field trip/school outing than doing anything for their religions. I don't know what their story was, but I felt like I was dodging them everywhere. It was amusing.

The pagoda itself wasn't terribly exciting. It was old. There was nothing inside. The stairs were scary to climb up and down. The views were nice though. There were six floors and at the top, you had a great view of Hangzhou's river and city. When we were done oggling the view, we climbed down the stairs and wandered around the pagoda's grounds. (Well, there was a quick break in which we had some icecream.) The grounds were really pretty. There were lots of gardens and a giant bell you could sound for wishing for things. (One of the signs near it had suggestions for things you could wish for - one of which was "Being reunited with friends from across the Taiwan Strait" - Limin laughed at that.) We then went to one of the gardens located around a pond and grabbed a seat in a small gazebo. It was pleasant to sit and watch families walk around and have their kids trying to catch tadpoles in the pond. Once again Limin fell asleep (I'm beginning to wonder if she had been awake for any part of the trip???) and I wandered around until it was time to wake her up.

We ended up going back to the hostel after we were done. We were tired and rather bored by Hangzhou (it really wasn't a very interesting city) so we decided to go to Suzhou earlier than we had planned. We had booked our bus tickets earlier in the day and thus had to grab a cab to get to the bus station. Do you think we could find a freakin' taxi anywhere in China? The one that did stop for us got taken over by a Chinese guy before we could react (MOFO!). It took us 45 MINUTES to get a taxi. GAH! So we missed our bus and had to pay half again our ticket to get to Suzhou. The bus ride wasn't terribly pleasant because the bus was playing music over the entertainment system really loudly, and since we were driving in China, it insisted on honking its horn at anything that moved in front of it, including air particles. *hiss*

Upon arrival in Suzhou, Limin and I made our way to our hostel and crashed for the night. (We had finally arrived in a hostel that actually had our reservation.) We shared a room with two chinese guys the first night, and had our own room (with another killer bed for the second.)

The plan for our first day in Suzhou was to go to a nearby "water city" - an old fashioned city that has many waterways. It was again just a very pleasant walk around a chinese town with random snacks thrown in the way. The city wasn't quite the shock it would have been for me if it had been my first time in China. The water around it was very dirty, but you could watch ladies washing their clothes in the water, or even washing their hair and the like. The buildings were very old and not maintained very well or anything. Luckily I'm used to it, so I just enjoyed the views and simpleness of it all.

Amusing anecdote:While waiting for our bus in Tong Li (The water city), two German ladies came to me for help. They had just bought bus tickets for a nearby small city and didn't know what time the bus arrived or left or anything. Luckily Limin was able to help tell them that the bus people would let them know when to go... (Of course, this actually meant that when the bus came, the people yelled at the ladies and shoved them towards a bus.)

Limin and I intended to go to a famous garden in Suzhou upon our arrival, but about three quarters of the way to the garden, Limin looked at me and said, "I just can't do it Maureen. I'm going to die if I walk around anymore. You can go on ahead." I now know the meaning of pure terror. I got our hotel's address (written in Chinese) from Limin and was dropped off in the middle of a strange city in a strange country and told to go sightsee. Umm, eek? Luckily I had been dropped off right beside one of the parks, so I went in there, but I'll admit I felt very self-conscious (there were other white people there). Plus I was terrified of what would happen after I was done with the park - I didn't know where any of the other famous places were or anything. I hate chinese taxis because I always feel like they're trying to rip me off.

So, after I was done with the park, armed with my trusty chinese address, I then started the arduous process of walking back to my hostel. I had been under the impression it was only a 15 minute walk (where the hell did I get that number??? Wrong park I guess). I was able to ask people at random corners if "This place far or not far from here?" And lo and behold, people understood me!!! Oh my goodness! That's not to say I understood them in return. The most I caught was how long of a walk it was, or to walk straight or turn left. My response was to follow their directions as well as I could and when I reached another major intersection, ask another person. My 15 minute walk turned into an hour long one, but I was pretty happy because I was accomplishing stuff.

I did manage to turn down one wrong street - I had seen a Hostelling International sign, but it led me to the wrong hostel. I then realized I needed to be on the NEXT street, which I could see from across a bridge, so I decided to try to take a shortcut through some housing areas... And by housing, I mean Chinese hovels. Seriously, I doubt some of these streets had ever seen a white person, or the people ever ventured on to the main streets of Suzhou. It also seemed to be the hub of Suzhou's garment industry - every house had someone in it using a sewing machine. Crazy. Needless to say, I got many more stares than normal in this area. My defense was to walk quickly with an air of determination. (No worries mom, I wasn't in any danger, but it was unnerving.)

I did manage to get back to the hostel via my shortcut, but Limin had left the room and I was locked out. I was too tired to go very far, so I surfed the internet in the lobby for an hour and then she returned. We ended up having a very lazy evening - watching TV and snoozing. But the time 7pm came around, I was starving, but chicken to go out and try to eat by myself. Limin subtly told me that she was too damned sick to go out and eat dinner with me. For those of you who know me - you'll remember that I hate to eat at restaurants by myself. Now here I was in China, where I can't read menus, and get stared at at the best of times, being told to go out and fend for myself. Gah!

I did venture out finally, and forced myself NOT to eat at the Italian restaurant next door. I instead found another restaurant with a bit of English on the walls - it was a really nice Fusion restaurant, and the staff did speak English and had bilingual menus. Yay! (Without bilingual menus, I'd be limited to a diet of beef, rice, and noodles - the only chinese food characters I know.) The staff was totally impressed by my chinese ("Does this dish have meat?") and tried to chat with me a little, but I had a hard time hearing/understanding them because they were very quiet (I don't think they were allowed to chat with customers).

Amusing anecdote: I had to use the washroom while I was at the restaurant. It was located on the second floor and just as I was about to squat and do my business, I realized that there was a square window that ended at just about knee level... If you looked out into it, you could see into the building beside you could totally see into it! I was able to watch people eating their dinners in the restaurant below, and there was some kind of house directly across from the toilet! What the hell man? Lack of privacy fails to phase me much anymore though, so I just tried to get my business over with as quickly as possible and flee the scene before I could see all kinds of upturned faces filled with shock.

After dinner, I bought some snacks (long live China's buttermilk muffins!) and returned to the hostel to watch move TV/old movies with Limin. I have to admit, I love Chinese television. The chinese subtitles move too fast for me to read much (not that I recognize most of the characters), but I have a great time making my own stories by watching the show and expressions of the people. I seriously watched about 2-3 hours of TV this way and enjoyed it immensely.

The next morning, Limin and I headed out to our last touristy area. It was called "The Humble Administrator's Garden." It was sooo pretty! The garden was divided into three sections and was filled with ponds, pagodas, and the like. I have to admit, I really do enjoy Chinese gardens. They always place focus on the positioning of one or two things and everything is shaped around those objects. Limin and I chilled at the garden for most of the morning and just snapped a gazillion photos.

We were too lazy to try to find anything else to explore after we were done with the garden, so we ended up just grabbing a bus back to Shanghai instead. Much napping ensued. When we arrived in Shanghai, we had a bit of trouble finding the the airport shuttle bus (no Mr. Uniformed man, simply pointing in a direction without any verbal commands isn't useful - seriously, chinese people are terrible at giving directions!). When we found it, we decided to hold off for a bit (we still had like 5 hours before our plane took off) and chilled and ate at a McDonald's.

Our plane to Shenzhen was delayed by only half an hour and we were finally on our way back to Hong Kong. Yay! Unfortunately I was deadly bored on the plane. The TV was too far away for me to read the subtitles of the movie they were playing, and my headphones didn't work. Luckily for me, Limin woke up and played games with me (hee hee, Hangman with a non-native speaker is deliciously fun) till we were ready to land at the airport. Even more unfortunately, just as we were getting close to landing, my McDonald's decided to come back to haunt me... Unfortunately the seatbelt signs were on and the bathrooms were closed. Without going into details, know that I was in a great deal of pain throughout landing and when I finally exited the plane, I ran to the nearest bathroom (DAMNED SQUATTING TOILETS).

Thus was my final trip to China before I return home. It was a pleasant trip, but I think the novelty of travelling in China has worn off. I found my aggression levels were much higher (especially in Hangzhou) because I had grown tired of people trying to cut off off when getting on the bus, going to the washroom, buying tickets at places, etc. Even Limin commented on it. But you have to be aggressive/rude to survive here - not all the time, but a lot of it. Of course, lest you think all mainlanders are evil, there are very friendly and helpful people - e.g. the people who gave me directions during my walk in Suzhou, the lady who practiced her English on me in Hangzhou, the random man who was polite enough to let me get off the bus first, etc.)

I will admit though that I am extremely pleased with my choice of living in Hong Kong for the past 8 months. Hong Kong is such an amazingly different place from China. It's a great mixture of both Chinese and Western cultures, but without being distinctly either.