Current location: Sapa, Vietnam
I arrived in Shanghai by ferry from Kobe, and after spending two days on the boat staring at the East China Sea the rush of one of the busiest and fastest growing metropolises in the world hit me like a ton of bricks.
I followed my Google map to my guesthouse by matching the Chinese characters on my piece of paper to the ones on the street signs, checked in, and headed off to the city.
Arriving to China from Japan was a real shock, the Japanese being one of the most polite, quiet and organised people on the planet and their cities being the cleanest and despite all the people and traffic most orderly, while China to me seemed like a cacophony of cars honking and driving as they pleased, with trash on the streets and the people yelling at each other and spitting everywhere.
It was the first time on this trip I experienced anything akin to culture shock, but I soon recognised the symptoms and started to ease myself in to a new way of thinking. Still it took a while before I stopped swearing at people under my breath in Finnish when they cut me in lines (although queueing isn't something the Chinese seem to know at all) or yelled at me when I couldn't understand what they were saying. (I actually got that in Russia as well. When people realised I don't speak their language, they assumed that if they raised their voice I would get the message.)
Never the less, Shanghai is an amazing city and the districts of Bund and Pudong at opposite sides of the Huangpu river are sights I certainly won't forget in a rush.
Watching the Pudong skyline light up in the evening is like traveling in to the future, and walking along the Bund waterfront is like taking a walk in the past.
After spending a few nights in Shanghai I took a 15 hour night train to Beijing, where I visited the must-sees, the Forbidden City and The Great Wall of China.
I also injured my knee while stumbling home dead drunk from a night out, and as I pieced together my rather surreal memories of the event and checked Google Maps the next day I realised that I had been on an adventure indeed, climbing over walls, getting lost in the parks surrounding the Summer Palace, slipping in mud and getting drenched in the heavy rain. What a sight I must have been...
A 30 hour train ride took me from Beijing to Chengdu, where I ate fiery Sichuan food and did a day trip to Leshan to see the Grand Buddha, sitting by the river at 71 meters tall, and got a taste of Chinese mass tourism, being pushed around by at least a thousand people trying to get a look at the statue.
Then after another 25 hours of railway travel I was in Guilin, where I took a bus to see the karst peaks of Yangshuo.
In Yangshuo I stayed at a English College as a volunteer to help the students improve their English by spending 2 hours every night talking with them about various topics, and in exchange got free accommodation and food.
Yangshuo is the rock climbing mecca of China, so obviously I donned my harness and climbing shoes and scaled some walls. I also took a mountain bike to the boondocks and went jumping off bridges into rivers.
From Yangshuo I took the bus back to Guilin and spent the night before catching a bus to Hanoi.
I think that just about covers everything. I said in an earlier post that my portable hard drive had committed seppuku, but now it seems to be working just fine.
I wonder if I should back my files up online now...
Nah, I'm sure it'll be fine.
I arrived in Shanghai by ferry from Kobe, and after spending two days on the boat staring at the East China Sea the rush of one of the busiest and fastest growing metropolises in the world hit me like a ton of bricks.
I followed my Google map to my guesthouse by matching the Chinese characters on my piece of paper to the ones on the street signs, checked in, and headed off to the city.
Arriving to China from Japan was a real shock, the Japanese being one of the most polite, quiet and organised people on the planet and their cities being the cleanest and despite all the people and traffic most orderly, while China to me seemed like a cacophony of cars honking and driving as they pleased, with trash on the streets and the people yelling at each other and spitting everywhere.
It was the first time on this trip I experienced anything akin to culture shock, but I soon recognised the symptoms and started to ease myself in to a new way of thinking. Still it took a while before I stopped swearing at people under my breath in Finnish when they cut me in lines (although queueing isn't something the Chinese seem to know at all) or yelled at me when I couldn't understand what they were saying. (I actually got that in Russia as well. When people realised I don't speak their language, they assumed that if they raised their voice I would get the message.)
Never the less, Shanghai is an amazing city and the districts of Bund and Pudong at opposite sides of the Huangpu river are sights I certainly won't forget in a rush.
Watching the Pudong skyline light up in the evening is like traveling in to the future, and walking along the Bund waterfront is like taking a walk in the past.
After spending a few nights in Shanghai I took a 15 hour night train to Beijing, where I visited the must-sees, the Forbidden City and The Great Wall of China.
I also injured my knee while stumbling home dead drunk from a night out, and as I pieced together my rather surreal memories of the event and checked Google Maps the next day I realised that I had been on an adventure indeed, climbing over walls, getting lost in the parks surrounding the Summer Palace, slipping in mud and getting drenched in the heavy rain. What a sight I must have been...
A 30 hour train ride took me from Beijing to Chengdu, where I ate fiery Sichuan food and did a day trip to Leshan to see the Grand Buddha, sitting by the river at 71 meters tall, and got a taste of Chinese mass tourism, being pushed around by at least a thousand people trying to get a look at the statue.
Then after another 25 hours of railway travel I was in Guilin, where I took a bus to see the karst peaks of Yangshuo.
In Yangshuo I stayed at a English College as a volunteer to help the students improve their English by spending 2 hours every night talking with them about various topics, and in exchange got free accommodation and food.
Yangshuo is the rock climbing mecca of China, so obviously I donned my harness and climbing shoes and scaled some walls. I also took a mountain bike to the boondocks and went jumping off bridges into rivers.
From Yangshuo I took the bus back to Guilin and spent the night before catching a bus to Hanoi.
I think that just about covers everything. I said in an earlier post that my portable hard drive had committed seppuku, but now it seems to be working just fine.
I wonder if I should back my files up online now...
Nah, I'm sure it'll be fine.
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| Pudong at dusk. |
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| Shanghai night skyline with the Oriental Pearl and the Bund. |
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| Pudong night skyline. (The whole side of the building right from the one that says Aurora was a screen running advertisements.) |
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| Zhujiajiao ancient water town, a few hours out of the centre of Shangai. |
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| The entrance to the Forbidden City. |
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| BTW, you can't see the Wall from space. That's just hype. |
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| Why do all these buddhas always look like they're high out of their minds? |
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| Early morning Tai-Chi in a park in Chengdu. |
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| Yangshuo karst scenery. |
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| In the boondocks. |
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| At least 9 meters. At least. Water was nice and warm. |
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| Happy 5th birthday to me! @ Monkey Jane's Rooftop bar, Yangshuo. |
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| If something doesn't seem wrong to you in this picture... Well then something doesn't seem wrong to you in this picture, who am I to judge? |
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