If you read my previous blog post, you would've seen our plan of where to go. This was followed almost exactly however towards the end, we found it very difficult to book the trains going to the various cities. Because Spring Festival is the biggest holiday in China, there were millions of people trying to get around, which obviously made it mad when we were trying to get from A to B! Because of this, we couldn't go to Harbin at the end and because there weren't any trains back home from Xi'an, we had to buy a flight! It turned a 40 hour journey into a 4 hour journey, but it did cost a LOT more. Which was money we didn't have.........
Anyway! I'll get on and tell you what each city was like and what we did.
Xi'an - 西安
Our first stop was Xi'an for 4 days. We had already been to Xi'an before so it was lovely going back to a place we knew. As soon as we pulled into the station, we could feel how warm Xi'an was compared to Xinjiang! It was up to 5 degrees, which when we're used to -30, it felt really hot. Also, because we're all very competitive (/childish), we had a race from the train station to the hostel we were staying at. It was boys vs girls, so Jono and Jony against me and Tessa. It was a really fun way to start our holiday, so here's a link to that if you'd like to see who won!
The video will open in a new window.
After we checked in at the hostel, we went straight out across the road for a Subway to officially start the holiday. After a shower and getting clean and settled, we went for a walk through a really old and very traditional Chinese street. It was just beautiful. There were colourful stalls scattered about selling Chinese paintings and wooden flutes. The whole way down the street, you could hear an old man playing on his flute and it just felt so Chinese.
We then made our way to the beloved Muslim Quarter which sells absolutely everything. I got myself an Abercrombie hoodie, over-ear beats and vans and for the lot, I spent around £25! Oh China, how I love you. We headed back to the hostel via Starbucks (thus a carrot cake) and decided to start the holiday well, so we started drinking the worst baijiu ever. Baijiu is bad as it is, but when you buy it for 4 kuai (40p), it is possibly the worst thing in the world. Anyway, it did the job and shortly after, we headed down to the bar where we made friends with some Spanish and American guys. It was so nice being around other white people! The night went on and we went to bed at about 6/7am.
The following morning was spent watching various unmemorable videos filmed the previous night - hilarious.
The rest of our stay in Xi'an rotated around going to the Muslim Quarter, eating various non-Chinese food and generally loving life. At one point though, I ordered chili, chips and cheese from the hostel restaurant but they said they didn't have any chips... So instead I ordered a burger. Then when it arrived, I had everything OTHER than an actual burger... So, bun, lettuce, tomato, bun and even chips. When I complained, they looked confused as to why I would want a burger in my burger. So they took it back and a few minutes later, it came back out. Exactly the same but with a half cooked, half raw burger sat in the middle... I was not a happy girl.
Life went on and the day we were due to leave was spent having an Indian and sitting around the hostel singing and listening to Jono playing the guitar.
Photos from Xi'an:
Jiujiang - 九江
This made us very jealous. We were in Juijiang for almost a full week and it was just lovely. Our friends Ella and Nicole live there, so we moved into their house for the week. We spent most the time eating 'real' Chinese food - the food more like the food served in Chinese restaurants in Britain.
We did also teach a few of Ella's classes how to ceilidh which was brilliant! Very hectic when there's around 60 children running around the sports pitch but we just about managed...
While we were staying here, we also made it our mission to do a few of the 'Miranda' games. If anybody watches that show, you'd be please to know we made a great deal of fruit friends.
On the weekend, we went into Nanchang - the nearby big city. We met up with Hannah, Beth and Catherine there and went straight out to H&M. We spent quite a lot of money there... We then went to Papa John's for supper which was VERY expensive! The next day, we went back to the shops and then to Pizza Hut... We really like Italian food. Then we got the train back to Jiujiang and left for Guangzhou the day after.
Photos from Jiujiang and Nanchang:
Guangzhou - 广州
Our first impression - SO HOT! Our hostel was beautiful. It was sitting just next to the big river in Guangzhou on the well named 'Bar Street'. One of the first things we noticed about where we were was that there were plants and trees and GRASS everywhere! It was the first time we'd seen foliage since November, so it was a bit of a shock to the system but a very welcome one. We began to explore and stumbled across a beautiful quiet park where we sat and soaked up the sun. We ate at Subway and Jony told us off for doing so when we were surrounded by such good food. So he helped himself to a spring roll instead.
The next day, he was really ill so couldn't come out! Us girls went to this big nature park which was beautiful. We found a place where you could rent out a small boat on the big river in the centre of the park, so we made full use of that. It was so relaxing and serene. While we were on the boat, we spotted what looked like a small water park in the distance so that was our next stop. The day walking around this park was just really nice.
That night, Ella, Hannah and I had a party. We found a bottle of vodka which was relatively cheap! When we powered through that, we headed out. Now obviously, as we were living on 'Bar Street', we didn't have to stagger far to find a place to go.
The rest of our stay in Guangzhou was filled with seeing the sights, catching the ferry across the river, catching the night boat from one end of the river to the other (at night believe it or not - beautiful), playing with various cats and hiring roller-skates.
Towards the end of our stay there, Tessa found out that one of her good friends from home had sadly died from cancer, so she flew out back to Scotland in time to make the funeral. It was really odd being away from her. It was the first time we had spent more than a day apart since we got to China!
However, we did have some fun when we met up with Jono and Alice at the station... 'Oh no! We left Tessa at the hostel! "Tessa? What train did you get? Well where are you now...? You're in SCOTLAND?!"' The fun never ended.
We hopped on board our bed bus (a mixture of such fun and complete uncomfortableness) and started our journey to Sanya.
Photos of Guangzhou:
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| The most Chinese looking man I've come across... |
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| Bed bus! |
Sanya is the best city in the world. There was a strangely high number of Russians there..... But it was amazing. We were staying at a hostel called Sanya Backpackers which was run by Chris and Linda. They were the most friendly and helpful people I think we've ever stayed with.
Sanya was really hot. It was around 25-35 degrees every day and we spent a lot of our time at the beach! One of the first things we did in Sanya, was going straight to the beach and just walking into the sea fully clothed. It started out just seeing how far we'd go - it turns out, pretty far! We went until we couldn't stand any more and thus began to swim and thus got completely soaking. Luckily, it was so hot we dried off really quickly!
Because Chris was lovely, on one of the first days he drove us, an American couple and a young Chinese guy to one of the beaches further away from the city. It was beautiful. Clear blue sea, clean beaches and only a few other people. The first day we were there, he taught me and Ella how to surf which was brilliant! In the evening, the sun burn began to come through. It looked a lot like I had very fetching red sleeves and long socks.
The following day, I woke up and could not open my eyes. I made my way to the bathroom and squinted into the mirror and the elephant man looked back. Brilliant. My face was red and had swollen a lot. I asked Chris for help and after an hour of rest, I went to the hospital with one of the workers at the hostel. I got an injection in my bum, was put on a drip for 3 hours and was given 6 days worth of pills. I was also instructed to come back the following day for the same thing. I got back to the hostel just after lunch and because Ella, Hannah and Jony were doing a jungle trek, Jono and Alice came and gave me company. They arrived with a beautiful toy hermit crab and a cornetto for me, lovely people. I removed my shades and Jono loved it. Apparently they weren't expecting it to be that bad so it took them a bit by surprise!
After the hospital the day after, we had a scavenger hunt! It was the girls vs the boys (Alice, Hannah, Ella and me vs Jono and Jony) and the list went as follows:
1. Best photobomb
2. Best owling
3. Best awkward whale
4. Best thing stolen from where you had lunch
5. Shittest thing to buy for 5 kuai
6. Weirdest looking person
7. Most random place
8. Best place to get your bum out
9. Weirdest thing to put in your mouth
10. Most money raised for 10 minutes of busking
We had a whale of a time.
Sadly the boys won overall but we had such a fun day doing all of these weird things! I especially enjoyed it when I had a Chinese baby's foot in my mouth.
A day of beautiful memories... I got quite a few funny photos too which I shall share with you now!
The rest of Sanya was spent by trips to the beaches, trips to Starbucks, trips to the Dolphin Bar (a really good Western restaurant which served the best food I've had in 6 months), walks to the park, picnics and cornettos.
It was really sad leaving Sanya. I definitely plan on going back some other time!
Some photos of Sanya:
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| 'Best place to get your bum out' - all the way down a 6 floor glass lift... |
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| 'Weirdest thing to put in your mouth' |
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| 'Weirdest thing to put in your mouth' |
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| 'Weirdest thing to put in your mouth' |
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| 'Shittest thing to buy for 5 kuai' |
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| 'Most random place' |
To be honest, we weren't that excited about Shanghai as we thought it couldn't compete against Sanya, but it was really amazing. And it was so British! The buildings and even some of the roads looked like we were in the middle of England. It was brilliant :')
It was lovely seeing the whole group though. When we arrived at the hostel, we were reunited with Naomi, Pete, Nold, Henry, Beth, Catherine and Ella and it was so good being in one big group again!
I spent the first day with Alice, Naomi and Hannah in H&M getting a few things to wear for Chinese New Year and spent the evening with Alice, Naomi and Beth having a lovely long chat about life, the universe and everything.
The next day, Jony, Jono, Alice and I found an M&S so obviously it was the best day in the world. It was on a really long street which seemed to have everything. We even found a bookshop which sold British books! Thrilling. We had supper at Burger King and then headed back to the hostel to get ready for the night.
It was Chinese New Year that night so we were all planning to go to the Bund. It was freezing but that didn't stop us all wearing our new dresses! Sadly, the fireworks were really really bad. You expected them to be amazing because it's Chinese New Year in SHANGHAI but yup, it was really disappointing. They lasted for just under 5 minutes and my world didn't change. We were also really tired, to myself, Jony, Jono and Alice went back for an early night.
The day after was the day that Tessa came home! We had lunch at M&S and then jumped on the subway to go to the airport. I got completely stressed out because the subway was taking a lot longer than what we planned and we got to the airport 45 minutes after she was due to arrive..... Luckily though, her flight was delayed by 1.5 hours! So that was handy. It was lovely seeing her again and she told us all about Britain and reminded us how brilliant everything at home is. To treat the boys, we got the Maglev back to the city. It's a train with no tracks, it runs completely by magnets. To be honest it was pretty cool... And it turned a 1 hour 45 minute journey to an 8 minute one! I think we reached 350kmh at one point.
That night, to celebrate Tessa's return, we went out to partaay. Everyone went to a club called G+ which was brilliant. We got back fairly late and we were all definitely feeling it the next morning!
Jony, Pete and I went out for a hangover Burger King which improved matters quite a bit. Sadly we didn't learn by our mistakes and we went out again that night!
The following day was our last in Shanghai, so we said our farewells to the group and made our way back to Xi'an.
Some photos of Shanghai:
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| I love the Chinese langauge. |
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| Chinese New Year on The Bund |
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| The boys looking VERY excited about being on the Maglev |
Xi'an (again) - （再次）西安
Ok, so this time, we didn't really do much AT ALL. Our lives for the next week revolved around eating at Subway or the hostel restaurant, watching various films, skyping various people and making friends. I think the only time we did anything else was when we went into the city to top up our phones. Thug life.
It was really nice though, very relaxing. Also, we were lucky enough to meet 4 British guys who were staying there the same time as us. They were our age and were doing a trip around Asia! I was very jealous. Towards the end of the stay, Hannah, Alice and Jono left leaving me and Tessa alone, but luckily the guys moved into our room just as that all happened! So we were never alone. On the last night, we went out once more in Xi'an. We played a few drinking games in our room together and then headed to the bar where we saw a lot of the friends we made the previous time! The Spanish guys were there and they invited us all to a club, so we had a very fun night!
It was really sad leaving Xi'an in the end. I think it's my favourite city in China. I'm going to go at least once more before I leave! However, we did have that plane ride back to Xinjiang to look forward to.
We worked out that if you take away what we would've spent on the train from the price of the flight, there was about a 1700 kuai difference. But the meal on the flight was really nice, so we're saying it was worth it (a normal meal is around 15 kuai...).
Anyway, we got back just over a week ago and I've already had a lot of my classes. My timetable's changed so I have less lessons per week which is nice and it was lovely seeing my students again! Also it was my birthday on the first sunday back and I received a lot of chocolate from my family, a few really nice meals from my friends, chocolate and tuna from Tessa (she's a strange one) and quite a few birthday cards. So that was nice!
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| My chocolate and sweet collection looking very handsome. |
It seems as though this has been a very long blog... Sorry about that but there was a lot to fill you all in on!
