Le Shan (Courtney)

Firstly, at the bottom of my post make sure you read Marcus' latest - we have a new whiz bang blog feature...go us ;-)

Today is our last proper day in Chengdu, and as if to stick it to mother nature we decided to tackle Le Shan. Or should I say Da Fo, as Le Shan is the town. After a hearty breakfast we headed to the local bus station from where we would catch a long distance bus. We had no further information than that. Not a heck of a lot of planning on our behalf, but supposedly there would be a bus. Well there was a bus and we were on it before we knew it. The two hours passed relatively smoothly, given we had the two front seats and could see any impending doom directly in front of the bus. I have to say, when travelling by bus or taxi it is infinetly easier to be completely oblivious to what is happening on the roads! So the two front seats on the bus aren't ideal as the bus swerves and overtakes and narrowly avoids a thousand vehicles, as you know that when disastor strikes - you're heading straight through the windscreen!

Alas, arrived in one piece. However, we weren't there yet. Waiting on the side of the road was a guy with a van, telling people he would take us to Da Fo. For some reason we didn't question this at all, didn't ask cost, time nothing...just climbed in. Turns out it was an easy trip all for an extra 2 yuan which delivered us to the entrance about 15 minutes away. On the first bus at a toilet pit stop this young girl came up to us to say hello. She was a Canadian girl and was literally bursting at the seams to talk to us. Couldn't figure out why, but she said we were the first foreigners she had seen since arriving in China. I figured maybe she was travelling by herself and probably in need of conversation. As the bus continued we said we'd see her at the end. Well she also got into this van, with another young girl who was Chinese/Canadian. Turns out they were friends and were staying with her relatives (hence why the poor kid was probably dying to talk to us, she is probably losing her mind!) We ended up having lunch with them but made our own way after that as the Chinese/Canadian girl was a pain in the butt. Had that know it all attitude, even though I imagine we have spent more time in this country than she. Anyhoo, I am telling you all of this because she went on and ON about how it wasn't really hot and how the pollution wasn't bad blah blah blah. I can tell you, it is so damned stinking hot, regardless of where you are from. So we ran into these two girls at the head of the buddha, and this girl was STUFFED! Marcus and I both cracked up and tongue in cheek said "So, feeling the heat yet?" She didn't respond. I believe because she was panting so hard and clutching a railing for support ;-)

So off we went in search of the buddha. Da Fo is the tallest buddha in the world, he was carved out of a cliff face, taking decades and is more than 70m in height. I think we took the scenic route in trying to find him as we walked for 2 solid hours up and up and up some more moutainside. Just call me mountain goat. Couldn't even begin to tell you how many water bottles we went through and Marcus is out now trying to find some sports type drinks we can have before going to bed to rehydrate some more. Along the way though was beautiful scenery. It was peaceful and dotted all around the place were various buddhas, our favourites being those found in caves! Instant respite from the sun and heat.

Along the way we stumbled upon a fav Chinese pasttime....massive public arguments. God they love a good rumble, and don't care who hears them. For some unknown reason a young guy, about 30, was absoulutely going nuts at this old man, one of the bottle collectors. God only knows what had started this, but I couldn't imagine a thing this old man could have done to get this guy so enraged. Other people were yelling at the young guy, including a woman near us who was motioning towards us, I assume saying something like - hey, not in front of the tourists! Makes us look bad! But as the argument continued, this old guy barely saying a word, the young guy hit out with his fan (everyone carries fans here, including us!) splitting the man's garbage bag. The garbage bag was on its last legs but contained all the bottles this poor man had collected today. Well bottles went everywhere. I felt so sorry for this man, as he meekly got down on his knees and took off his t-shirt, trying to figure out if he could gather the bottles in his shirt as this young guy just smugly walked away. It's so ludicrously hot out, and here is this man being berrated by this guy. Surely it wasn't a battle worth fighting, whatever had happened.

Eventually we found Da Fo and he didn't disappoint. Such a huge thing, and so serene looking. Makes you wonder why anyone undertakes these sorts of things! By sheer fluke it was fairly quiet up there which gave us a good chance to take it all in.

It was't long after this that we headed off. We had no idea how we would get back to where the original bus had dropped us, but hoped there would be a pedicab or similar that could help us out. Well thankfully there was a bus at the exit! In true Chinese style though it didn't leave until full so we spent an extra hour sitting on the bus being assaulted by a Chinese dubbed version of Robbo Cop on the tv. I'm always surprised as there are never any other foreigners on these buses. They are such a good alternative to tours, cost a fraction of the price and are always easy to catch and identify. I really don't know why more people don't make use of them. The alternative from here was to hire a van, which would cost 650 rmb, regardless of how many people you had. So even if you had the maximum of 6 people, that's still over 100 yuan each. We did it in under that and it was all too easy. We even got to share the return ride home with possibly some sort of Chinese pop star. Well, he was uber Chinese cool looking and appeared to have an assistant answering his calls, so we figured maybe he was someone or just very demanding of his friends!

So that was our final day in Chengdu. I think this is a city that could really grow on you if you lived here. Unfortunately we have hit it at its summer peak. I think it could have a lot of charm, although it is so heavily polluted, it's really amazed us just how grey and heavy the sky is.

Tomorrow afternoon we leave for Kunming, with another llloooooonnnnggg train ride ahead of us. We get on the train at 3pm and don't get off until some time after 10am on Friday. But we are looking forward to joining the tour we have booked, and having someone else do all the organising for the next week and a half! It will make for a nice change just to be ferried around.

And now I need to go take a shower before the other people in the room ask me to leave.

Good night!

New! (Marcus)

Look over here!! ----------------------------->

Now shows a list of recent comments made on any postings - woohoo excitement!

In other news, I think we're both melting, bring on Kunming and cooler weather!

Animal Farm (Marcus)

So we didn't make it to see the massive Buddha today, instead opting to explore a local buddhist temple and surrounding streets. We both woke up feeling tired and dodgy after last night's margarita fun ;)

The Mexican restaurant was great! I had burritos then one of Courtney's Fajita's. Was a funny moment where one of the staff came up and awkwardly asked us how we were, like she was starstruck. We're like, "Yeah good!" and proceeded to have a bit of a chat. She said something about her boss...(the place is called Peter's Tex Mex Grill" and I interupted with, "Oh what nationality is your boss, Chinese or ?" thinking possibly American due to the type of food on offer, so she walks away without word and comes back with a framed article with a photo of her boss - who turns out to be Chinese and a write up of his story. Peter is obviously very successful - only 27 years old, 2 of these restaurants in Chengdu and one in both Beijing and Shanghai(the Shanghai one we will definitely hunt down when we're there next).

So she's standing there with the frame and I look past it to a smiling Chinese guy behind her beside a table who happens to be looking at us. I do a double take, look at picture, look at guy, say to her, "Um is that him there?" to which of course it was so we started having a chat with him and yeah, this stuff always happens here somehow! He turned out to be a really nice guy and while we couldn't work out exactly how he got into cooking American Tex Mex cuisine, we did ascertain he's been cooking for 10 years and well, now runs a very successful chain of what was really good quality Western food. Good times!

So one of the charms of the hostel we're staying; Sim's Cozy Guesthouse is the fact the garden areas which are full of ponds/waterfalls/plants are also home to a whole bunch of animal pets. There are 5-6 chickens that roam around, this tiny orange cat which we know is full sized as Courtney saw him in a photo a year ago and he is still the same size; just an inkling above kitten sized. Courtney can't walk past him without a pat and I wouldn't either if i wasn't damned allergicked...wahhh. So chickens, cat - then there's a pond full of goldfish/carp, another bowl with tropical fish, turtles, some massive frogs, 3 PIGS..or piglets - smallish black pigs, i don't know if they're fully grown or what, but they're cute in a piggy way. A big white rabbit, a guinea pig, you bloody name it, it's here!

The place has a really cruisy happy vibe and I think that completely attributes to the owners, Sim and Maki. Sim looks like a really chilled kind of guy. We haven't really spoken to him but you can just tell. He's Singaporean whilst Maki is Japanese. I think Maki is responsible for a large part of the menu they sell here - which happens to be super cheap super damned tasty food. They sell these huge brownies in the bar area that really help me deal with this weather.

And the weather? It remains stinking hot. We explored this temple today but both felt completely disgusting throughout. We were out for four hours and were super relived to get back to the hostel and it's loving air-conditioning.

There's a term in China, labling three cities as the three furnaces of China. We knew about these before coming and did NOT want to live in them - well it turns out we live in the same province as one, and are holidaying right beside the other. One is Nanjing, the capital of Jiangsu Province(where Wuxi is), another is Chongching, which is China's most populated city and a few hours away from Chengdu. Chongching is also where the recent earthquake disaster occured. Wuhan is the last of the three and I don't know much about it other than the fact it's in central China somewhere.

Chengdu is a nice city but mostly spoilt by it's pollution. One thing we have really learned as we have travelled around that Wuxi really isnt too bad afterall. Seeing other cities and what they offer - well Wuxi offers them too and I guess that now we are so familar with Wuxi, it's sort of like our home away from home. Doesn't change the fact that in our district, Xishan or DongTing or whatever it's called(we can never be sure), there's still stuffall to do, but there you go. Wuxi isn't too bad afterall.

I am really looking forward to leaving Chengdu for no other reason than the weather is really difficult to deal with, BUT I have to outright put it on the reccomended destination list for no other reason than the Panda visit was that good. Was just looking over the photos and I swear, you will not see anything cuter EVER! The guide who took us said we were actually lucky seeing them so active and playful. I kind of expected it to be like Lions in the Melbourne Zoo - you always want to see them sort of moving around and doing stuff but they never were - they were always asleep against the fence that made them hardest to see. Initially that's what the Panda's were, and that's what I expected to leave with, but oh no! And how's that for a total sidetrack!

Tomorrow we'll retry for this 70 metre buddha and perhaps dance on it's toenail. The day after we're off again on our way into Southern China and Kunming - hopefully to clearer skies. We cant wait for that.

See you!

Pandtastic! (Marcus)

So we have been in Chengdu a few days now and it really doesn't feel like we have seen much at all. We have been spending quite considerable time here at the hostel and while we are enjoying ourselves, feel like we've explored less than we have the other cities to date. Why? Easy answer - the weather - it is bloody hot!

When we arrived we had a bit of a climate transition similar to when we arrived in Cairns early last year. In Cairns as soon as we stepped off the plane we were hit by a wall of heat and humidity - and Chengdu was no different. While it's maximum temperature is probably less than somewhere like Cairns, the humidity is waaay up there. We were picked up by someone from the hostel and had to wait around for 5-10 minutes while she looked for someone else. It was that kind of unbearable feeling of - oh my god I gotta get out of this sun!

The sun here when it comes out is absolutely potent. While it's hot most of the time, it's also hazey/cloudy. You can't often tell what the sky is doing as the sky is of course so polluted. We were both surprised I think by how polluted Chengdu is. I think we were both expecting this green city full of teahouses and clearer skies; wrong!

While it's not a bad city - definitely a better vibe than Xi'an, it's certainly just another Chinese city. It is heavy in bicycle and scooter traffic(like Wuxi) and all the roads have metal seperators between the road proper and the scooter/bike lanes. I guess it got to a point where the amount of bikes/scooters that were freely moving into/overflowing into the main roads was causing too many accidents. It's a good idea actually as it does seem to keep the two types of vehicles very seperate.

In Wuxi it's a free for all. I actually feel for the taxi drivers at times - they would have to be the most patient and/or ruthless people in the planet. The amount of times scooters/pedestrians/bikes just randomly go across the road in any direction is an absolute shocker. The longer we spend in this country however the more we come to the agreement that they just should NOT have cars. They do NOT know how to drive - no matter what the vehicle is. You seem some of the most ridiculously stupid driving here - feats of absolute stupidity.

So anyway today we set off on a half-day tour via the hostel to what was easily one of the highlights of our trip to China yet...to see the Panda Breeding Base! It was located approximately 15 minutes away by car in what turned out to be a surprisingly large and dense environment. The grounds were very reminiscent of what the Panda's natural environment might have looked like and i was very impressed with how realistic the individual enclosures were. Of course it's a pity that the haze throughout the place was actually smog - not some kind of gentle mountain mist. Silly they have a place like this in such a smoggy area really; it can't be good for such an endangered animal having to breathe it.

We started off by seeing absolute newborns and they were amazingly small. Little pink things that looked more like rats than baby panda's. We watched a video at the place where when a Panda gives birth, it happens so fast the mother doesn't even know it's happened, it's just like walking along then hey blammo out the back falls a baby like a..well like a number two :) The Panda mothers then don't even realize what it is and start batting it around...crazy stuff. The keepers have to get in there and get the baby out before it's potentially harmed. Supposedly this is common on first pregancies but on the 2nd they're very motherly. The craziness of that first birth kind of fits the whole Chinese theme in my opinion ;)

After this we saw a large enclosure with around 7-8 babies...well small Panda's, around 1 year in age. These guys were what we expected - non-moving, hanging in tree's and structures at all different angles...asleep. The next enclosure had 2-3 larger ones, one that actually came right up to the fence but moved away when a stupid chinese woman came yelling at the top of her lungs in excitement..right beside one of the MANY 'Speak Quietly' signs. All 6 people of our group shooshed her...sheesh.

Actually some of the signs around the place cracked us up, one was like, "Wildlife is not to be used for food!" ..haha yeah gogo China!

So then came the definite highlight, out came a keeper with a big jar of apple pieces. Over the course of the next 20 minutes they proceeded to feed them and this was quite possibly some of the cutest stuff i have ever witnessed in my life. It was so cute that I felt completely cuted out and just started walking around hugging people. Ok that's not true, but it was damned cute!

Initially only one of these youngsters was roused by the food, the others were so uber lazy they had to be majorly coaxed out. The keeper would give this first little fella a piece of apple and it would take it, hold it to the side of its mouth then plonk down on its backside. They are so utterly lazy! When it had finished, it'd immediately pick up and plod its way in the direction of the keeper to get another piece then immediately back down on its rear. It was so so so cute. We took a heap of photos and videos, a pity I can't upload a few from this virusey computer.

One by one more of the Panda's would make their way out until finally all of them were out. As they climb down from things it's in about as unmajestic a way possible, they slip around, grab onto the top of the ladder/platform, plonk their butt down, repeat until they're at the bottom - absolute classic. Graceful these animals are not! They are so amazingly lazy, but hell, I wasn't feeling so energetic in the sun and humidity either!

There was one instance when 5-6 of them were all lined up on a log and that was the absolute pinnacle of cuteness. We got some good shots of this. Wonderful stuff.

We moved on and witnessed 3 larger Panda's in an all in playfight which lasted for absolutely ages which involved them rumbling like playful dogs, trying to push each other down the front of the enclosure into the pit dividing Panda from Humans. They kept getting shoved down where they would slide through the foilage, bang their head on the ground then climb back up and repeat it. Very adorable and surprising at how much energy these sleepy beasts would have expelled in the sweating heat. While we watched these we had the pleasant experience of being bitten by mosquitoes the size of 10 cent coins.

Beyond this we saw some Red Panda's, which were cool in their cat/lion cub like way but not as impressive as the regular Pandas. Then of course we had to watch a movie about Panda's and go through what was the crappest museum display I have ever seen. Complete random crap! It was just a collection of random photos/teeth/panda cock in a jar/books with odd captions then this mind-bogglingly weird stuffed animal display where a Panda sat a few feet away from a sabre-toothed tiger attacking the world's most out of proportioned deer thing.

All in all a good day. I was glad to get home and get cooled down - still a little paranoid after suffering some heat exhaustion effects. We're off to get Mexican tonight and are excited as hell. Really really miss good mexican and indian food. Tomorrow we're going to try and take the two hour trip out to see a giant buddha carved into a rockface in a place called Leshan.

Later!

So what did you do today? (Courtney)

Oh, you know, just hung out with 15 of my closest panda buddies! Yup, that's right, today we headed out to one of the panda reserves in Chengdu to experience one of the compulsory activities in this province. I can safely say that it was probably the highlight of the trip to date! They are so cute I want to be a panda keeper when I grow up. I wish we could put up some shots, but they're so cute I don't think any of you could handle it.

So, Chengdu. Damn it's hot. I mean, it's really unbelievably hot. And humid. There is a guy on the phone near me talking to a friend and he's going on about the heat. It's like this all consuming heaviness, making it near impossible to want to do anything! Our small outings have been planned around various buildings we can go to that have air conditioning. In my mind, Chengdu was going to be this magical paradise, full of great food, greenery, cool streets...basically a chinese utopia. Not all is what we had hoped for though, which seems to be a continuing theme in this country. We were joking the other day that if you got too negative you could really view this country as an unfortunate series of disappointments! It holds so much promise yet delivers on so little!

Not all is lost though. Chengdu just remains another city along our journey. It's as smoggy as the best of them, just as chaotic, but it does have a laid back feel to it that we had read about and been told about. The pollution in this country is just so disappointing, it could be so beautiful but it's as though it's doing it's damned best to destroy itself. You really can't appreciate places when they are covered in a layer of pollution, and the haze is so bad you can't make out the buildings at the end of the road. Living here has been compared to the equivalent of smoking a packet of cigarettes a day, and I can see why!

We got talking to a French couple today who live in Harbin, which is waaaay up north. We are so interested in seeing Harbin but it's funny when you speak to people who live here, they just confirm everything you experience. From what we can now gather, Harbin is just the same as the others! Possibly with even less to draw you to it! That doesn't mean we wont still see it, but as we travel along, we are certainly arriving in each destination with more and more realism and less optimism!

The hostel we are staying in is fantastic, barring a slightly out of the way location (they moved recently, we didn't know!) The initial room we were given was just uninhabitable, so we asked to move, which i've never done, but they happily let us switch rooms after viewing a couple of options. Things have been much more comfortable since, we have a cosy room overlooking the garden, rather than this dirty, run down room overlooking a 6 lane road! But seriously, the hostel is great. They have fantastic service, were able to assist us with our next train tickets and the restaurant/bar area is brilliant for a hostel. So much room and seating, there are little nooks everywhere, both inside and out. We've made quite a bit of use of the food served here, mostly as Marcus has been a bit under the weather the last day or two.

Saturday we hit the streets in our normal style. The weather was so hot, yet before we knew it we had somehow been out for 3 hours...hence our exhaustion! The breaking of our umbrella signalled the end of our exploring so it was back to the hostel. Within a couple of hours Marcus started feeling really unwell, so a night in was decided. I ended up going to the bar for a little while to eat and read a magazine to fill in some time. We think Marcus might have had a bit of heat exhaustion as he was a bit out of it and appeared dehydrated. Whilst he was feeling better come Sunday it was decided he should have a quiet day otherwise he would end up in the same state if not worse. I'm not kidding when I say it is HOT. We realised that on Saturday we had probably under a litre of water each all day, which I think probably contributed the most to why Marcus felt so unwell.

So the prospect of hanging around the hostel all day on Sunday didn't overly appeal to me. I figured Marcus was ok, so I would head out for a bit to a market. All seemed to be going well, me out and about in a new city, told the taxi driver where I wanted to go, amazingly he appeared to understand my Chinese! Wonders never cease. Until of course we got to the destination, and on looking out the window I realised I had no idea where I was, what street I was on, nothing. (note to my mother - nothing to worry about, I was in the middle of the city!) Chengdu is renowned for its poor street naming and numbering, when you couple that with my absolute inability to follow directions or know where I am at any given point, it's a recipe for disastor! Streets change names constantly, so it becomes easier to try and trace your way via landmarks. I was in search of a market that supposedly sold seafood, animals, plants, birds etc. I wanted to see something other than the same old "antiques" and souveniers. Well turns out I was actually at the right spot (go me and my poor Chinese abilities!) but of course, as my luck with markets go, it was just the same old crap you can see anywhere! Funnily though, on one of the streets I walked, there was shop after shop selling turtles in tanks. As I walked I spotted one of the shop keepers sitting on a low stool with her feet dangling in one of the tanks, I assume to cool them off! Made me laugh.

By Sunday night Marcus was on the mend so we headed out for some authentic Sichuan food. The province of Sichuan is known for its spicy food, mostly two dishes - hotpot and mapo dofu. We really want to eat hotpot whilst we are here, but the weather isn't really conducive at the moment! So we headed out to one of the "touristy" restaurants that we have read about to try their famous Mapo dofu dish. Touristy my foot! The restaurant we went to was as local as any that we eat at in Wuxi, making us the centre of attention..but hey, that's nothing we aren't used to! We did get the dish though, which is basically tofu in chilli oil with spring onions and minced pork/chilli/ginger type paste on top. My god it was good! Pretty damned hot but delicious. So delicious in fact that when the young waiter served us he said with a cheeky tone "It is so delicious!" Which made us laugh out loud as it reminded us of our students - they all LOVE saying the word "delicious". (Seemingly my kids also enjoy saying the word "naked" and will try and work it into any class.)

Up next on our food hit list is....drum roll....Mexican! It's been a long time since we have had Mexican food (well, really any nationalities food other than Chinese is a rare event) and we are both uber excited. There is a tex mex restaurant somewhere within the city and we are off soon to find it! It's going to be margaritas and fajitas all round!

Tomorrow we are going to head out to Le Shan, which is an area about 2 hours bus ride from here. There is the world's largest buddha, Da Fo, which was carved into a cliff face. Yet again I am expecting tranquility and a clear view...but in reality I know there will be a million people there and we'll be lucky if we even catch a glimpse! It's supposed to be pretty spectacular though, he stands over 70 metres tall, and from what I hear you could picnic on his big toe ;-) Can't beat that.

I hear tequila calling!

Quickie! (Marcus)

I forgot to mention in the Xi'an to Chengdu post - about 5-6am when it was starting to become full light, Courtney and I were peering out the window as naturally sleep on the train is completely evasive.

What we saw was some absolutely beautiful landscape. One of the things i have loved about going between places by train is we have been able to see some really different landscape. Outside of Beijing some interesting farmland - outside of Xi'an, lots of layered farmland - but different - a lot browner/a lot more dirt.

Between Xi'an -> Chengdu - man we passed through some awesome Mountains with a really large brown river flowing in the valley between them. The train tracks seemed to follow this valley from start to finish - located on the base of these rocky mountains. It was just so beautiful and interesting to watch. We tried to snap off a few photographs but they didn't come out very well.

The train kept passing through tunnels through the mountains themselves but we could mostly just follow the course of the river - both of us watching with somewhat awe.

It was just so interesting. All the way along it were levels of crops, farmers steering oxen like animals, small houses perched along the hillsides - at one place a large rockslide where the rock was mostly white but with a deep red colour through the middle, almost as if it had been painted.

I have absolutely no idea where this place was, nor the rivers name, but it was fantastic being able to just randomly see it.

Spot the tourists! (Marcus & Courtney)

First and foremost - apologies for the mammoth essays and walls of text - they're not exactly easy on the casual eye. Here are some random shots of along the way. Even our sweat is sweating in Chengdu - it's hothothot!

Enjoy!

Eating what turned out to be very un-curry tasting curry on the rooftop with the Two Towers(tm) in the backround (Bell on the left, Drum on the right).

Hiking up to the wall to then start the climb reminded us how fit we are...aka not. It was high! See that little path way down below? Well we had to start from way back there...They only gave us 3 hours to climb on the wall itself, half of that was just making our way TO it!

If you don't know where we are, well...

The Temple of Heaven, also known as the Temple of 2 Million Tourists.

It had to be done.

What did you think of the flag lowering ceremony at Tian Amen after waiting forever for it to start only to find out it was in fact just a lowering of the flag with a few marching guardsmen? No fireworks! No music and national anthems! Not even any paddle boats, sheesh!!

The Forbidden City.

After each drink we became bester and bester bestest friends.

Grapes on a Stick covered with toffee - only bested by Strawberry on a stick with toffee, you have no idea how good these things were..the grapes...holy crap, sweestest grapes I have ever eaten. *pantpant*

Me overlooking approximately the same number of average tourists found at any tourist attraction in China except these were made from terracotta.

We love grown adults in pyjama's in public - just love it. This was pre-train at the station. We saw im in the morning as well, kicking along in the same get-up. Like cat's, we like to catch as many of these on camera as possible.

Random girl in Xi'an - chance of her knowing what her hat reads: 19%

Last but not least, one of the many beer friendly perches in our current destination, Chengdu.

So long and thanks for all the ...shiz! (Marcus)

So long Xi'an and hellloooo Chengdu! Well we can't really give any impressions on Chengdu yet as we only just got here but....staying true to itself, we saw Xi'an out the way we saw it in....absolute hole of a place!

So we went and saw reception at the hotel on Tuesday or so, requesting to extend our check-out by half a day - a facility it seems most places in China are happy to do. This was really helpful to us as the train left around 8pm and like in Beijing, saved us plodding around all afternoon without a base to return to etc.

We wanted to pay for the room extension then and there as Courtney has most of our funds budgeted away. We also wanted a receipt as you can 100% guarantee that come midday on the day of check-out, they will NOT have a record of us extending the check-out - payment or no payment. So she couldn't give us a receipt so we didn't pay - we'd settle it on check-out. Come 12:20pm Thursday, I am lying on the bed and get a phone-call, "Hello Sir, What time were you planning on checking out?" Colour me super surprised! We went through this song and dance in Beijing also.

So we went out for the afternoon to get some lunch and on the way out I checked the card in the door to make sure it would still work - in Beijing it was disabled and we had to get it re-adjusted to the new time of checkout. We go out, get lunch, yadda yadda, come back, bam, cant get in. Wishing it was just dejavu by this point - so back down we go again to get it corrected.

6pm rolls around and we're all packed and ready to go. I spent the last 5-10 minutes in the room filling out their feedback form - i heaped praise on the smiles and polieteness of the bellboys and the young guy who would make up our bedroom on a daily basis. I like writing feedback for these guys, naming them specifically if possible as it's basically a thankless job and I feel sorry for them. A little bit of curtesy and politeness from their part goes a long way in my book. So I fill out praise and offer a few minor suggestions about the hotel as a whole - ie it's an 'International' Hotel supposedly but they will in no way assist guests with the purchasing of train tickets - something that can be very difficult for those who are not Chinese.

We get down to check out, wait at the counter for a few moments then at 6:03pm we are attended by a woman at the front counter. (*Note - my good feedback did NOT include these front counter women). So now she wants to charge us for an entire day as it's 6._03_pm - 3 minutes after the 6pm cut-off. We told her we had been waiting at the counter for several minutes and thankfully she accepted that. Had she not, I would have been informing the manager about firstly that, secondly waiting a minute or two for the damned lift and finally that I had spent at least 10 minutes in the room before leaving it filling out good feedback for them! It's ridiculous how utterly to the letter the Chinese can be. There is a line where their customer service transforms from being nice and punctual to absolutely unforgiving if something such as being 1-3 minutes late occurs. This is something they really need to change. It is not the first time we've come across it.

Anyhow, all good, we get out of there and are on our way to Chengdu - or so it seems. We have our packs with us so ask one of the bellboys if he can assist us with getting a taxi - if you are up to date with this blog you will recall the absolute pain we have had with taxi's in this city. Well spank my ass and call me charlie - here we go again!!

Absolute classic - we're standing on the side of a really busy street and our bellboy is having a HELL of a time hailing a cab. Oh they stop, but when he tells them we want to go to the train station? Nup, see-ya later, they wave their hand and get the hell out of there. The first taxi he hailed was ready for us, then 3 Chinese men just pushed straight in front shut the doors and away they went. I lent down to the open door, saying, "Thank you! Thank you! XieXie! Thanks!" looking the closest guy dead in the eye - he looked away and wouldn't look back. Absolute pricks.

I figured it was because it was too short a distance to the station from where we were...of course, not worth the effort. It was busy between the hotel and there - but the whole city had shocking traffic. In China, you hop in and there's an immediate minimum cost. In Xi'An it's 6rmb(Wuxi/Suzhou - 8, Shanghai/Beijing - 10). This covers the first 4 kilometers, then it's I think 1 rmb per km/minute - something like that. A trip to or from the station was really cheap, only 7rmb or so - definitely not enough for them to bother having to carry two westerners I figured.

Courtney was thinking the same thing. As taxi number eight or so was making to bail on us, I told the bellboy - tell him if he takes us to the station we'll pay him 20 rmb - whoa surprise, he accepts and off we go. He of course does NOT look happy at having to take us. He's driving like a fkng maniac and doing absolutely every rude thing he can to make us know he's not happy; everything short of smoking....Driving like crazy - and i mean crazy, purposelly spitting out the window - something taxi drivers rarely do as I think even they know it's rude in front of western passengers - and then finally of course, lights up a smoke.

At the station we got out handed him his 20 without word and pushed into the station and away from this dump of a city and it's pricks of taxi drivers. So long forever.

Inside the station it was busy as always but at least well air-conditioned. Here is where we experienced the true contrast in Chinese people - as we sat and waited for our slightly delayed train, we spoke to a young Chinese guy who was majoring in English. We covered all the usual topics but it was enjoyable - he showed us photographs of his father and was asking me if he lookd like him - to which I stupidly said, Yeah you guys have similar eyebrows...hey i was tired!

The train was delayed around 30 minutes and thank god it arrived as poor Courtney was approaching toilet disaster phase. The joys of being able to stand as a man are a real privillege in the train stations as the sit down toilets...have no walls on them. Long ago we became adjusted to the fun that is the squatter toilets. Now it's not about whether it's western or squatter(i'd rather use a squat any day for the record), it's about whether 1. the toilet has a door, and 2. the door has a lock. I think i'd actually fill my pants with little surprises rather than whip them down in a public room and do the business like the chinese do. Courtney needed to go alright..and off she went. "They have no doors," i told her, but she wanted to check it out for herself. 30 seconds later she's back, "Not a chance," she said. The women's toilets were not only wall-less(well tiny walls that hid nothing), they were also in a line facing each other - completely open bathroom area with smoking men hanging outside it in full view. Worst toilet's ever.

China tip - if you are going to a train station and think you MAY need to do anything that involves sitting down - do it before you go to the station - seriously.

We board the train and are welcomed into the world of the Hard Sleeper carriages. China has many classifications of train, from soft sleeper luxury - which is a private cabin with four nice padded matress bunks and clean pillows/sheets, to hard sleepers which are padded mattresses in open rooms - 6 per room. The hard sleeper pillow and blankets do not appear washed - we lay there thinking about lice potential...brr. The lack of the door means you get all the outside noise of babies crying, people walking around, chinese guys talking at full volume at 3am etc. Having 6 per the room/dorm also meant there was a much higher snore chance also.

Like the soft sleeper, the train was still bumpy and noisy and very hard to sleep in. The Chinese seem to be able to sleep during anything..and do. There was a russian guy above me(i was in the middle) and Courtney below me. We had a panic attack before heading onto the train when we realized we were both Carriage 4 - Berth 14....basically this meant(or so we thought) we would be sharing the same tiny matress! Thank god it was different to the soft sleepers in this regard. Three people would get no.14 - bottom middle and top. It didn't say who got who but middle is the most expensive, bottom second most, top the cheapest. The russian guy seemed to know he was top so slept there. Middle wasn't too bad but i was paraoid of rolling off in the middle of the night - the train would bump hard at certain intervals - i think when two tracks converged and it'd totally jolt me to wakefulness.

Unlike the two previous trains, this train stopped a LOT. It would stop at stations for at least 10+ minutes. At this time it was oh my god, must try and get to sleep! No movement, no sound! But avast! of course it didn't work like this - for when the train came to a complete and silent stop...you suddenly became aware of the snoring..... The russian guy above me was snoring like a truck, the guy opposite like a smaller truck and even the young kid who was sleeping with his mother opposite Courtney below was kicking his snorevibe in the mix also. It wasnt constant the whole night but it made it very hard to sleep.

Courtney and I just cant master the sleeping on train thing. It was a 16 hour train trip so we're both really tired now. We have one more sleeper train left and it's similar in length. We're going to try our damndest to get a soft sleeper this time round at least.

In the soft sleepers you have control of the lights and personal lights above your bunks if you wish to read etc. In the hard sleeper it was lights out at 9:40pm sharp. At 7am sharp on came a blaring bloody Chinese radio show over the trains intercom. Christ that's annoying! The Chinese are all up and bounding around at 6:30am or so, but bleh, what can you do! We just lay on our beds until midday when we finally pulled into Chengdu.

Chengdu involved us getting a free pickup from the hostel - so painless. But man is it hot. Very smoggy, the sun up there but not really visible and muggy as hell. We have come back to the hostel which has moved from it's original location and now is further out than we had hoped and in what looks to be a pretty ordinary area. The hostel itself though looks not bad. The room is mediocre but the grounds are full of nice seating areas and cheap as hell food! Just ate a burger here for 20 rmb - super cheap for what it was. We were both ravenous from not eating much more than snacks on the train.

We plan to explore the surrounding tomorrow as we're both tired and it's just started raining HARD.

Later!

Terracotta Warriors? Check! (Marcus)

Well our time in Xi'an almost draws to a close and I am typing from a keyboard that requires you to punch the keys(litterally) in order to get them to actually bloody type. We leave tonight for Chengdu and I think it's approximately two days overdue.

In a nutshell, our overall impressions of Xi'an improved over the several days we spent here but I definitely would not reccomend this city to anytone unless you were absolutely madly keen to see the Terracotta Warriors. Beyond them, the city doesn't really offer much at all.

The city walls were somewhat underwhelming and unfortunately one of the reasons we were keen to come here. We had previously seen people cycling along them in a Pilot Guide(lonely planet'esque tv series) and it looked great however, when the city is so damned busy and smoggy it basically removes any...I don't know what you'd call it, romance perhaps? Certainly removes any mystery or what not - it's just a higher vantage point to watch smog.

Our opinions of the city were not helped along by the fact that the first day in it was hot and smoggy as hell - the next two days rained solidly. Yesterday was actually very warm and sunny and a lot clearer - this allowed us to explore further - increasing our opinion, but again, not reccomended.

The place just has absolutely no character of its own; it's just faceless mess of a city. The restaurants were all below-average or fare we could get elsewhere. The people we have met have in no way been any different to anywhere else other than the taxi drivers(and worse) people getting taxi's from the train station being outright bloody rude. Add the guy who blatantly line hopped as we queued for tickets into this - until we tapped him on the shoulder and said, nuh uh.

Another feature of the city that we had on the agenda was getting into the backstreets and exploring the Muslim quarter of which yesterays fine weather allowed us. This was very enjoyable but not worth the trip here alone. The streets were mosty interesting and filled with very interesting scenes(not to mention heaps of kitties!) but it was also dirty as hell and well, not far removed from anything we have seen elsewhere.

The highlight of yesterday was visiting the Great Mosque(largest in China) which was also nestled amongst the Muslim Quarter. This place was great - just like many places we had seen previously but decidedly lacking in tourists. It is amazing how much more you can appreciate a place - get a feel for its peacefulness and serenity when it's not full of noisy tourists. I thoroughly enjoyed walking through its 1200 year old grounds, taking photos and just basically relaxing.

A bunch of fairly interesting markets adjoined the Mosque - i say fairly as they looked good - undercover long passage-ways - middle east style - but on the other hand just full of the same crap you can buy everywhere else. As usual, every second storekeeper called out, "Hello, Hello, T-shirt T-shirt." Pass. I did get stopped by three girls who asked if they could take their photo with me. I felt a bit gimpy but said, Yeah why not. The shopkeeper beside me asked if i was a movie star - in hindsight I should have revealed that why yes, as a matter of fact I am!

To finish off the night we went and found the 'more relaxed' bar street as mentioned by lonely planet. Now it definitely was more what we were looking for - bars with outdoor seating, perfect for a few quiet beers in the warm evening however like the rest of the city, it had absolutely no character here and we moved on after a pair of beers, still impressionless.

On Tuesday we went out to see the Terracotta warriors - we had to, it was the main point of coming here. We were both feeling fairly down at that state and decidedly anti-Xi'an, but we went anyway and it was an interesting experience. We opted for the most adventurous route - locating a local bus that went out there for a measley 7rmb rather than paying 280rmb to go on a tour(and get stuck in some crap tourist factory before/after).

We set out in the pouring rain, the first taxi claiming not to know where the Train Station was(yay HERE WE GO AGAIN!!!) but the second taking us - With minimal trouble we located the bus and we were on our way!

We again followed Lonely Planet's advice - (sidenote - we dont take this book as gospel - but it does have some fairly good tips for finding the better stuff) - we opted to view an introductory movie at the cinema there and then view the three display pits in reverse order, Pit 3, Pit 2 then the finale, Pit 1. What this meant that after a primer(movie), you'd view the smallest pit 3(ranking officers etc), second largest then largest in that order - natural progression. While we did pull it off this way, it was an absolute prick to work out which pit was which. In true Chinese style, beyond the map at the entry gate and some random signposts, of course they wouldnt think to actually label the display halls themselves. We have been amazed at some of the primary tourist locations just how poor or lacking the basic signage is. We can basically guarantee that at any tourist location we arrive at, we will basically circle it's outside walls looking for the entry as there is usually zero signage - the same rang true here.

The warriors themselves? Very interesting - the intro movie itself was surprisingly simple yet surprisingly interesting. As we wandered around the rest of the grounds we couldn't decide what we found more interesting, the warriors themselves or the way they had been escavated. It was an ongoing process and it completely boggles my mind how someone can dig them out and seperate the broken bits of terracotta from the ordinary earth and then combine them into remakes of their original form. The pits had a combination of completed warriors, and clear examples of where they were getting them from, all in all, very interesting. Like most other attractions in China, you had seen what to expect on TV so like the forbidden city, the wow factor was just not there - but still very interesting nonetheless.

As usual, upon exiting the grounds the only way out was via a long passage of souvenir shops where the hawkers called over and over, "Hello! Hello! Warriors! Warriors!" while holding up small display boxes with barely recognizable warriors in them - ie we're not talking quality here. Pass, pass, no thanks, nup, no, NO! We're pro's at ignoring hawkers now, all thanks to having been here for 5 months previous.

I think my highlight of the day came from the usual most unexpected place. I went up to a food store and saw some red coloured gum which would be nice for a bit of flavour as we hadn't eaten yet. I asked the woman, how much? 5 kwai(dollars) she said. The five months experience has also made me aware when these people are jacking the prices up purely for the unsuspecting tourists. Now I didn't particularly need the gum, so i thought, nah(expecting it to be 1-2rmb tops). No thanks, I said and started to walk on, 3 rmb!!! she said, grabbing the gum and thrusting it at me - hah! In what was a first, we had now bartered for chewing gum. Even more amusing(to us!) at the very same time, a 'white' tourist had showed partial interest in one of these boxed warrior sets from an adjoining vendor. The tourist had declined(original price 10rmb) so naturally the barter process kicked in - the next offer? 3 rmb! So these quality terracotta warriors - complete with a display box can be had for a whopping 3mb...or the price of some pre-bartered gum.

On our way home we were uncertain as to how we would actually get back. The bus didn't actually finish its journey at the warriors, but simply dropped us out front. In fact we didn't even know we were there until the driver called back, "Hello! Hello!" and pointed out the door. So for the return trip, we HOPED the bus would regularly pass back by the front, so that's where we headed. As a worst case scenario we could pay a taxi an exhorberant 200rmb+ and be taken back - at least that was an option. So we get out front and are immediately approached by people wanting to taxi us back - no thanks, nup, no, nah! The best of these was a woman - who looked a bit ragged actually, offering to take us back to town for.....1rmb - that's right, 1 dollar. Um yeah sure, sign us up for a mugging please!

A short while later the bus arrived and we returned to the city. The bus seemed to stop 10 times as much on the return trip, dropping and picking people up, but beyond that it was without issue. The only thing worth mentioning along the way was a certain gentleman we saw in passing. He was standing unobtrusively in the middle of a park, an open umbrella before his..front. As we passed we both happened to be watching him and both noticed that beneath that umbrella he was having an erm...sneaky mid-afternoon 'salad toss'.

I'll finish on that note, see you from Chengdu!

Countdown to Chengdu (Courtney)

Today is our last day in xi'an, city of....well pretty much nothing really! Just another charmless city in a thousand others dotted around the country. We haven't got up to a whole lot over the last few days, except wander ceaselessly around town, get drenched repeatedly and struggle to find decent (or even edible) food. There have howevr been some highlights, namely the terracotta warriors (the shift buttons on this computer basically don't work so i'm just gong to give up using them...apologies for the decreasing lack of punctuation and grammar in these posts) which we both found pretty amazing, a trip to a muslim mosque in the muslim quater and some pretty decent japanese food including fun at the sushi train. but i think marcus might fill you in more on these as he is better with the history/details etc

i am going to write a bit about, well i suppose people here. the city is just teeming with peope. supposedly the city has a similar population to that of wuxi, but it certainly seems like the popluation is a lot denser here, or maybe just more concentrated in the city area. the streest are packed, not only with pedestians, but food stalls, beggars, scooters and bikes, dogs, rubbish, blarring store music and even the occassional catwalk fashion show - i'm not joking.

wht strikes me here is there is a much larger division between what we assume is middle class adn the absolute poor of the poor. thi is basiclaly a city of shopping malls and starbucks and they are packed to the brim with young, cashed up chinese. yet outside all of these places are beggars in record numbers, and these people have i think less than nothing. it can be hard in china to not be cynical at times, but here i am really feeling for the people out on the streets. in china my mood swings radically, often daily at the things we see and experience. i go from total frustration to hating everything to being intrigued and amazed and then being annoyed at myself.

there are so many social problems here, and how do you help? how can you even start? no amount of money would help the average person on the street and as we discussed last night, would anything help? would anything get these people out of the horrible situations they face or would it just be futile. would giving money help make their lives any different or would it just all somehow disappear and the same cycle continue? can anyone actually get out of these situations and somehow assimilate (and be accepted by others) back into a more normal life when they are so alienated.

As we walkedhome last night we saw three young girls in this main square area, they would have been about 6 -10 years of age. THey were soo dirty. kids here are often dirty as it is, but these girls we just filthy. I feel so much for them because they just should not be begging. i know that the kids can be used to draw the most sympathy but it is just so wrong. the parents should not be pushing their kids to do this, surely it doesn't teach the children anything, regardless of how desperate their situation is. obivously i can't understand their situation but it irks me so much to see children approaching people. i know that people always say you shouldnot give money but you should give food but that is hard to do. we had this little girl follow us for quite a bit, there are times when we give money and times when we dont. there is no criteria for this, it's just random and you cant feel bad for thoseyou dont give money to, because if we gave to every person wesaw on the streets we'd be begging too by the end of the day. i gave this girl a note but i know that whatever we could give her wont help her. she needs food and clothes and most importantly she needs education, but she will be lucky to get a bit of food out of any of hte food her parents are given. i so wish there was a way i could just give her the money, just for her. or better yet buy her something, even somthing basic like an icecream that only she could enjoy. walking away from these kids just makes you feel enormously helpless.

Further along the road was an elderly man lying on the pavement,seemingly with part of his intestines hanging out of his stomach. how do we know if this is real or a scam? there was another man standing over him collecting money. there is just so much need.

then there are the oldies who collect rubbish. people all over the country do this. we see these impossibly old men and women struggling with the weight of the paper and plastic bottles they collect, at all hours of the day and in all weather. the rubbish they collect can then be sold on. we sometimes here that some of these people actually make a reasonable living out of doing this, but money aside,what kind of living is this? we're not talking 40 year olds here,these are people in their 70s still trying to survive with no one to look after them.

I know that these things happen all over the world and also in our own country, i suppose we just dont see it in australia as openly or on such scale. in a country that has such a huge population i can't see how there would ever be at ime where there was not such enormous poverty and need.

And now a couple of random things...

i've decided that a city here can be judged by its taxi flagfall rate. yes, i've givent his a lot of thought! Wuxi's taxi flagfall is 8 yuan, think it was the same in suzhou. Beijing and shanghai were each 10 yuan. Xian...6 yuan. i think this can say a lot about the city on a whole! furtherto this the traffic is NUTS!!! Sheer chaos on the roads here, and we have added quite a number to our tally of road accidents that we have seen.

something i have been meaning to mention for ages is how takeaway soup and noodles are generally packaged here - in bags! it cracks me up everytime, seeing someone walking down the street with a plastic bag of soup. strangely i've never seen anyone covered in the remnants of a burst bag.

LAst night as we walked home, we made our way along a makeshift market. obviously all of these people were sellign illegally, as suddenly there was a cry in the crowd (assume something like "police!") and they all started running! Now this would be funny enough, but it was made all the funnier by the fact these people weren't really "mobile". i've seen this in europe too, where people grab up their stock and are off. but here, people have things laid out on tables and best of all on wheeled racks. so suddenly the square was this chaotic motion of people rolling racks everywhere! Frantically grabbed for the camera to try and capture it but it was a false alarm so by the time i was ready to shoot they were all back to selling.

And lastly, kids and split pants. i'm amazed by the volume of bare bums i've seen in this town! it seems like no kids wear nappies. now, clearly i'v enever tried to toilet train a child, but i imagine it to be a tricky and messy process. so how do they get by with babies with no nappies??? how are parents and grandparents not constantly covered in pee and poop? it really amazes me because you see so many parents on the street with their child folded up, bum over the gutter waiting for the child to go. the kids are way too young to be able to say they need to go, or even be aware that they need to go. but obviously they have some sort of system and it seems to work!! So naomi and adrian, i know i sent you those pants as a joke, but maybe you should get mahahlia into them! save yourself a whole lot of nappy changing....

And on that note, see you in chengdu...land of pandas, tea and hot pot!

Urgent breaking news! (Courtney)

Hi everyone,

Months ago Marcus sent in a pic of Jimmy to this funny site we, well mostly me, read. Here i am today going through my emails and looks like Jimmy has scaled the heights of internet fame.

Check it out here...

http://www.stuffonmycat.com/index.php?itemid=10764

Xi'an..the city that sucked our chi...(Courtney)

Beijing..where for art thou Beijing????

Yup, we've hit Xi'an, and let's just say the rose coloured glasses have been smashed. I kind of feel like I did when we first arrived in Wuxi. That sinking feeling of where the heck are we...and how do we get out!!

We arrived yesterday morning after another long train journey. Made longer by again not sleeping until about 5am...only to be woken at 6am by what sounded like a million Chinese toddlers. Train stations here are like nothing you can imagine. It is organised chaos to say the least. We left Beijing via the west station, which is just collosal. The size of this thing was amazing, yet for the thousands of people trying to enter the station, there was ONE door entrance. One door, you had to see the crowd. We were basically just carried along in what we have come to describe as a seething mass of humanity. And people here don't travel light on the train...especially when you consider that people move province on the train. THere are people ehre with their life belongings, which just adds to the chaos. I'm geniunely surprised each time that I don't see people herding animals. I'd hate to see what would happen if the station had to be evacuated...

The trains themselves are great, clean and efficient. The enivitable happens to the bathrooms about 5 minutes after leaving, but it's nothing you can't handle. We got off and made our way out of the station. We had decided to try and buy our next train tickets immediately, as we are only in Xi'an for 4 days, which isn't a lot of time in this country. It should be noted that at any given time more than 10 million people are travelling by train in China, so tickets can be as hard to obtain as the preverbial hens teeth. Up until now we've had good luck, but our luck was bound to run out at some point.

We found a little ticket booth with only 2 people queuing, of course this was too good to be true and we were soon guided by one of the security staff to the real ticket area. I don't know why we didn't photograph or video what we saw. Nothing can prepare you for the absolute nightmare that is queuing for train tickets at the station. There are about 25 windows in a huge room, people snack out onto the open square in front of the station. There are constant announcments at maximum volume, coupled with guards with megaphones. There are kids crying, people pushing and shoving, and each window has a microphone so they attendant can basically scream at you to be heard. So patiently we stood in a line that also had some westerners, and just hoped for the best. We only had one guy attempt to push in front, to which we both at the same time tapped him on the shoulder and gave a "Heh hem" cough and a raised eyebrow. I think he only moved when he realised Marcus' height!! Push in front of someone else thanks!! After what seemed like half a day passed (we still have our packs at this point) we make our way to the window. Only to find out that we should be at Window 3. Sigh...Down to window 3 we head. We stand in the "queue" for a couple of minutes before deciding it was all too hard and we would see if the hotel could help us.

This is where our story begins to deteriorate! On the way to find a taxi, we are approached by a driver wanting our business. THis guy really seemed legit, but you read so many stories of drivers saying a price then when you get to your destination (or the destination of their choice) suddenly you have to pay them 10 times. So we used his services to get a map, then headed to the taxi rank. Why there is a designated taxi area is beyond me, as it's basically a free for all. We did the right thing and lined up, only to basically be screwed. We finally got to the front, and just had group after group push in front of us. ANd there is no amount of rudeness that we can exude that can even come close to topping the rudeness of these people. We can't compare. We went to taxi after taxi, only to have people jump in them, be completely ignored by the taxi driver, have them drive past us, tell us they didn't know the street we wanted, you name it. I'm not kidding when I say we must have approachd over 20 taxis with no success. Most of them would just take one look at us and either drive on, nearly killing us in the process, or wave their hands in our faces saying "no no no". We were getting so so mad by this, as none of them would take us. We would go up to a window and ask in Chinese whilst pointing to the map where we wanted to go, and some other prick would jump in the back and they'd be off. All of the drivers pretended to not know the street we wanted (you can't believe our central or big the street is - they all bloody know it!) it was just so maddening. And I wont tell you some of the words we used throughout this process (there is a benefit of people not understanding you sometimes). Eventually I went to a police man. When in doubt, ask the police. It's his job to help, especially as he was patrolling the area. Sure enough, a cab was instantly called over, and we were off.

I can tell you, we both sat in the back of that cab fuming. We were exhausted from no sleep, no food, the heat...it was nuts.

We get to the hotel and they do not provide help with train tickets...so you guessed it...it was back to the train station for us!!!!! Jesus...we should have just toughed it out that morning, because there were literally no tickets left for the trains we wanted. We got tickets in the end, some hard sleeper ones on a train we didn't want...but at least we have tickets to our next destination. It was just absolute chaos..and has come to not be a one off in this city.

It's like Wuxi on steriods! I suppose the absolute filthy pollution doesn't help, nor does the teeming rain but lordy are we glad we are only staying until Thursday. Tomorrow we will attempt to get out to see the Terracotta Warriors and we want to check out the Muslim quarter too. But besides that we are fairly happy to have a couple of quite days lounging in the hotel room watching tv!!

ANd now my time is up in this oddball internet cafer so..until next time =)

Xi'an ...... (Marcus)

Ni hao from beautiful, sunny Xi'an! Haha just kidding! Try hello from icky smoggy Xi'an, the place we have actually commented as we walked around it that it actually made WuXi look nicer!

There's a comment in the Lonely Planet regarding Xi'an saying something like, "It's one of the great polarizers of China, you either love it or hate it." Hate is a powerful word, but i have to say that so far we are just basically looking forward to getting on the train and heading to Chengdu. This place has little to no appeal that we have yet discovered.

In fact practically everything we have done here so far has been negative. The 'taxi debacle' at the train station set a precendent.

Currently we're sitting in a huge smokey net cafe with what must be at least 70% of the teenage population of the city. They are doing everything from playing games, chatting on msn messenger, playing computer card games you name it. I think many of them live here.

We had issues getting train tickets for Xi'an to Chengdu. We missed out on getting soft sleepers so are stuck with hard sleepers - the difference being 6 people to a cabin(racks of 3 beds) rather than a nice plush cabin with just 4 people - Should be interesting at any rate, but i guess it doesn't matter, we don't get a wink of sleep in the soft sleeper anyway.

Our hotel in true Chinese fashion couldn't remotely offer us any assistance with getting train tickets - the service provided by the hostel in Beijing absolutely eclipses that off this 'international hotel.' The main purpose of our coming to this net cafe was so Courtney could email the hostel at Chengdu and ask if they could pre-purchase tickets for us for Chengdu to Kunming. You can only buy tickets in the city of departure, thus we couldn't buy tickets for Xi'an to Chengdu from Beijing - of which the hostel would have certainly helped us.

So we thought our mission for the day was to come and find this net cafe, have a nice relaxing coffee at Starbucks then head back and just relax. It's raining quite heavily today and typical of Chinese summer weather, when it rains, it doesn't stop.

So our easy mission became an absolutely stunning epic battle between East and West as we tried to locate it. I had cross-referenced the map and directions in the Lonely Planet to find the right street - this wasn't a problem. We came here and walked up and down it twice, then around the block, no joy; all the while the rain came down on us.

So we decided to go and grab that coffee at a Starbucks across the way, hoping the rain would ease up a little. Coffee's down the hatch, rain not remotely abated, we set out again. This time we decided to be a little more resourceful and whip out the translation book, we seek 'internet'!

So first stop is a girl at a stairwell to what looks like a video game parlour. I say Internet and she shakes her head - that's about the extent of her help. OK. We continue down the street and Courtney heads into a hotel and asks a young girl behind the counter. She tells us to head down the street to the right(the way we were going) about 100 metres and it is opposite. Alrighty! We at least this confirms where it is! We head down..nada, we go right around the corner at the end and a fair way up the next street - nada! We are scrutinizing every building as it can be hard to tell what a chinese net cafe looks like - they're easier to spot during the night due to the glow of the computer screens.

Ok this is ridiculous we think, stopping to look at a pair of ducklings taking shelter under a parked car. We walk back around the corner to a hotel which is on the opposite end of the street of the first hotel. Courtney goes inside and asks the bellboy. He comes outside and tells us, "Up this way about 100 metres on the left." Of course this is back up the direction we had just come from. So we walk back that way, checking and re-checking every alleyway along it - and where do we end up? Outside where the first hotel was..of course! This is also where the game arcade was. At this point I am thinking the girl out front of it had no idea what i was asking so we just went up and in and had a look for ourselves at what was inside.

Well she was right - no internet - the girl at the top confirmed this also. A random chinese man approached me and asked if he could help; this guy sounded cluier. So we tell him we're looking for internet and he directs us back down the street - the direction we had just come from. How far? Oh about 100 metres, duh!!!

So we've been told 3 times now, it's 100 metres and we have ping-ponged up and down the street like cute little lambs looking for it. So as we head back the third time, we decide stuff it, and check another side road we had already been down. We're now asking people thick and fast. The one from lonely planet doesn't appear in the same spot, but there IS a net cafe here somewhere.....

We ask a dvd shop around the corner - a man comes out and tells us it's back on the street we just came from and around to the right...where the first hotel/game arcade is. We walk back there and back down the street again. Halfway down Courtney asks a girl working in a music shop type place and she gives us the best answer yet: "Walk back down the street(where we entered it originally) to the KFC and walk back this way 100 metres" - which, if what i have described above is clear enough, you will instantly realize this places us practically...where we're standing.

Ok so we just go back down to the corner, waggle our eyebrows at the bellboy as we pass and continue on. We decide to just walk up the next street to it's end because no matter what's down there, it takes us pretty much in the direction we need to return to the hotel anyway.

I see a chinese sign leading to a dark stairway - i see the word 'network'. Courtney whips out the translator, asks for 'internet', she indicates 3 rmb, success! Lonely Planet said 3 rmb per hour and this holds true. So here we are, amongst most of Xi'an's teen population and well, there ends our story.

We're wet and soggy from the rain and tired from walking in unimaginable circles. I feel like I know this local area better now than the back of my hand.

The hotel does provide internet in their business centre but 40 rmb for an hour opposed to 3rmb here is just a disgrace.

We will possibly go and see the Terracotta warriors tomorrow, or perhaps the muslim quarter and the muslim food street. The rain has pretty much washed away our idea of cycling along the city walls but to be honest, this town is so dirty and smoggy I really don't care to see it from the walls - i just do not dig smog at all, it just makes everything look so feral and dreary.

We did swim in the pool yesterday which was quite nice, but being indoors you're not really hot enough for it to be as satisfying as you'd hope. The shower on the other hand is the best we've had since the Pudi Boutique hotel in Shanghai and I swear, that is a joy for us :)

Xi'an is the start and end of the silk road - a city that used to be known for it's colour, swirling silks, dusty sandy air and camel caravans - sadly all we see of it to this point is a dirty, very smoggy city with no real charm whatsoever. This like all our views on China may change tomorrow but so far, we miss what we had in Beijing and eagerly anticipate moving on to Chengdu.

798 and Food (Courtney)

Thought i had better sit down and write about some of the things we have been up to over the last few days. I think Marcus has done a pretty good job of covering most things! Tonight we leave for Xi'an, which I think i am most looking forward to because where we are staying has a pool! now, who knows what sort of quality the pool will be, but really at ths point, it's so hot I just want to swim! It seems unnatural for it to be summertime and to be so far away from the beach.

Our week in Beijing has been pretty exhausting. What with the hot weather, all of our walking and the fact the city stretches for what seems like 100 kms, we are both fairly buggered already! The city itself is really sprawling, there is no real "CBD" area and the subway does a loop around the outside of the main part of the city, so there is a lot of walking to and fro. THe subway is great though, god our system back home needs improvement. I always love other countries public transport, ours is just so lacking, even for our small population. The subway here is so easy to use, from purchasing tickets to finding the platform to switching trains. It couldn't be simpler or more efficient...which believe me, if you've ever spent any time in this country you'll appreciate more than normaly the word "efficient"!!

Thursday we decided to take it easy and head out to the 798 factory area. THis is a very large block just outside the city, which was once all factories - mostly brick making factories i think. It remained dormant for many years and was doomed for destruction when a group of artists bandied together to save the site. They moved in and soon the place was being overrun with artist studios, galleries and the inevitable tourists. I have been wanting to go check this place out for a long time, yet naively was surprised by the sheer level of people at this place. There must be a couple of hundred galleries there, but I really didn't think the Chinese would be there in such great number. i suppose that's part of the whole problem with the over population here, even if you think something is not that popular, it only takes a marginal percentage of the population to visit it to make it overrun with people.

All of the old buildings have been converted, most of them keeping a lot of original aspects which gave the place a wonderful bohemiam atmosphere. It was all very laid back with little cafes dotted around the place, bookstores and most importantly contemporary Chinese art. I know this might sound bad, but I really don't get overly excited about seeing traditional CHinese art. There are parts that i like and appreciate, but I was really interested to see what new artists are doing. We weren't disappointed, it was a great experience and we happily wiled away a handful of hours before the sun became too much! I bought a book of photography (now weighing down my pack) which detailed the ordinary lives of the Chinese over the last few decades or so. Really simple but i loved it immediately, and i know that whenver i look at these images I will be reminded of the simple things we see daily.

AFter this we headed back into the city. I wont bore you with the details but marcus was on the look out for this aquarium he had read about, and i was on the lookout for a way to waste my own time whilst he went to the aquarium. As always, nothing is as easy as it seems and i can't even begin to tell you how far we walked. But eventually we got there, Marcus got to see some fish and I got to have an incredibly warm and icky glass of wine in the Chinese equivalent of a wine bar. Hmm...

Now onto food. And man, have we eaten some amazing food in this city. Just today we had lunch for the second time in this great little place in the hutong we are staying at. It is literally someone's largish living room. Mum out the back cooking, her oldest son (about 12 or 13) doing the waiting. I feel for this kid, because he has a younger brother who is out in the laneway playng with his friend or his kitten, yet this young boy is in this hot room serving everybody. And boy does he work hard. This place turns over a surprising number of people and this young kid is taking orders, cleaning, serving food, handling the cash...and he does it all so well. Whilst the hutongs are amazing to see, the living conditions are very poor and whilst you want to see the hutongs be looked after, it's got to get to a point where people just can't live in them anymore.

BUt anyhoo, the food. THis place has a fantastic menu and for once we have been able to order actual dishes, rather than just asking for things we know, because someone has translated the menu into English. Just a little folder with texta writing but it does the trick. Earlier in the week we had this fantastic pork dish, which i think must be actually what real sweet and sour pork is. It was described as pork with vinegar and sugar...and oh it was good! Today we had some skewers and this beef and potato dish which we get at school occasionally. i think only matt and abby will understand when i say this was the good version of this dish!! It really does pay to go and eat where te locals are as invariably the food is just so much better.

Last night (after a long hot and failed attempt to see the Olympic village - namely teh birds nest and water cube...damn it all as i really wanted to see them!!) we went to a restaurant down the road that serves Yunnan food. We are heading to Yunnan province in a couple of weeks and my excitement is even higher now! The food here was fantastic and the atmosphere was great. All low tables, soft lighting, little screen prints, very cool stuff. We had this great minced beef and chilli dish, yunnan spring rolls which were different to normal but oh so good and this absolutely fantastic potato dish. All thin layers of sliced potato fried with chilli, herbs and I think sme sort of pickle vegie. Yuuuum!

The night before we headed to one of the touristy duck restaurants...when in Beijing.... We both love duck and have been waiting till Beijng to eat any, figured we would savour the experience! YEs it's a touristy thing to do but it has to be done and we had a great time. Our tour guide to the great wall had told us taht we must order a dish of sugar when we get duck - turns out you dip the crispy skin into the sugar and when you eat it, it basically melts in your mouth. Great tip! It was the full deal of course, man at the table cutting up the duck, and we were most pleased to be offered half the head and brains!

AND...the night before that we headed to Wangfujing Lu, which is the main shopping street of Beijing. Basically a huge pedistrianised street full of designer shops and odds and ends, plus a food street off to one side. I had been told by a guy at work that the original and best food street had been moved to a couple of blocks behind the main street, but we kind of forgot that as we started wondering around. So we headed down the main food street which was very cool. You'll know it from pictures, all little shops with basically everything on a stick. From beef to chicken, to of course the crickets, scorpians and seahorses. Plus pretty much anything else you can think of! We ate our way along here (and were surprised by the number of chinese people trying to take sneaky photos of us whilst we were eating?!?! go figure) with our best find being fruits on sticks that had then been dipped into a just hard toffee. Oh be still my heart! These were sooooo good. Marcus had a stick of grapes, and you couldn't imagine how sweet and juicy these things were.

So we kept on wandering down the shopping street and were about to turn around and head for the subway but decided to just see wht was around the corner. Lo and behold - the original food street!!! Oh how sad we were when we realised that this section was indeed better. More authentic and the food looked much tastier. So we snapped off some photos and indulged again, this time with a stick of strawberries and toffee. No words can tell you how delicious this was!

Thta's about it on the food front, we have eaten a ton of stuff since we have gotten here and i've no doubt that will continue once we hit Xi'an. Xi'an is known for it's Muslim area and street snacks...let's just say it's probably a good thing we are doing so much walking!

It's funny as the week has gone on, you soon realise that all of CHina really looks the same. i'm not sure how I would feel coming here as a tourist, some people must really leave witha very different impression to the one they arrived with. Outside the immediate city area, Beijing is just like anywehre else we have been. Even once you get into the hutongs, it's just normal life, just like it is in Wuxi. Crazy driving, stuff all over the streets, people everywhere. Everything here is public, there really isn't the concept of personal space. From people cooking on the street, to kids doing their homework, washing hanging EVERYWHERE, babies being washed in buckets...it's all on display. I feel so sorry for the oldies who have to walk down the street to use the bathroom. I know that they know no different but to me it's still strange to think of people not having a bathroom, let alone running water. China can be an incredibly frustrating country and i am so glad we have the experience of having lived here as it makes travelling here just so much easier. We had quite an adjustment phase coming here and I have no doubt we will strangely have an adjustment phase when we go back home. Things are just so different here, it surprises me everyday.

Off to Xi'an we go, ho! (Marcus)

Well our time in Beijing is rapidly coming to an end. We're both sitting in the hostel's computer room - sweating away, the meagre air from the fan in here not really strong enough to actually cool us. We checked out at 6pm and are biding time as the sleeper train does not depart until 9:30pm. We actually extended our room check out time by half a day(from midday to 6pm) so we didn't have to while away the afternoon elsewhere - it's just too hot to NOT have a cool air-conditioned room to retire to.

It's been a very busy week and we have seen a lot of very interesting things. It has been fun being here long enough that we could move about at our leisure and see all the things we wanted to see. As mentioned previously, there was only so much of the same style of attraction we could see(ie how many churches/castles are you going to visit in the same Europe trip?) so by this half of the week we've really just plodded around and scaled it back somewhat.

We have been all over however. On thursday(our 'rest' day) we started by visiting Beijing's 798 Art District - Courtney will tell you all about that. In the afternoon I thought I would check out one of Beijing's two aquarium's called the Blue Zoo. I don't know what it is about Aquarium's but I have always loved visiting them. I guess my love of fish since early childhood has always drawn me to them. So seeing there was supposedly two very large ones in Beijing I opted for the new one, Blue Zoo with Asia's longest underwater tunnel.

It cost 70rmb to get in, making it the most expensive single attraction short of our Great Wall tour. It really was only worth 25rmb; if that. The place was very average I decided. There really wasn't that many displays and of those visible they were of a very poor quality. The design of them was subpar and many of them looked dirty. In some cases, the fish in them actually looked tired or unwell. There was a medium sized tank full of sharks where they had seriously bugger all room to swim around - just like the large sea turtles in the one next door to it. Meh. So I headed on to the aquarium tunnel, by this point regretting having even come.

The tunnel was likewise unimpressive - nothing I hadn't seen before in other aquariums. In truth, I don't know what I expected - but at least I got to sate my own curiosity for wanting to see it, that was the main thing. I had kind of hoped that being new, it would be some cutting edge super awesome technologically advanced chinese aquarium, but no, it most definitely was not. It was if anything a very Chinese aquarium designed for the very easily amused Chinese tourists.

Of course the serenity of the underwater tunnel was destroyed by the blaring of the Chinese tour leaders megaphone - that's right, every single attraction anywhere has at least one tour group. They are immediately distinguishable by the megaphone holding, flag wielding person at the front - and if that's not enough, 20-30 people all wearing the same coloured cap might just tip you off.

I guess the actual highlight of the underwater tunnel wasnt the fish or the length or anything like that, but the fact that in true Chinese tradition - fish in water was simply not enough - it demanded more! More equalled two women swimming around inside the tank dressed as Mermaids - colour me surprised! A lake is not a place of enjoyment for the Chinese unless it is filled with paddle boats.....water? paddle boats? now we're talkin! The same goes for an underwater tunnel, it has to have at least ONE gimick or it's totally not worth the price of admission. Seeing these women did amuse me so it wasn't all bad.

Friday we were going to head to the Summer Palace but decided against it, instead we mostly hung around the local area. We went for a walk down by HouHai lake and in the evening, because Courtney really wanted to, tried to go and see the Bird's Nest and Water Cube - ie the 2008 Beijing Olympics new stadium and aquatics centre. Well what a failure that turned out to be. In truest Marcus and Courtney fashion we got off at what was seemingly the closest operational subway station - which of course turned out to be bloody MILES from the venues. So we walked and walked, Courtney was not feeling well and it was damned hot.

After a few blocks we finally spotted them and started heading to them but most of the area was closed off, no signage, and no idea which road actually would lead past it. Beijing is a huge city but it is not compact like say Shanghai. It's decievingly massive and takes a very long time to get around. We have had issues with map scale previous. When we went to see an antiques market last sunday, what looked to only be a few average sized blocks on the map ended up being an absolute to the moon and back distance. Hot and buggered we had to give up and get a cab to it and when we saw how much further it actually was, man what good value that cab was.

The Olympic venue was no different, however there were no taxi's in this area. There were lots of Chinese milling around doing god knows what, but no obvious way to get to the Olympic venues which after walking for a very long time were still a long way away. It was getting towards dusk and with the heat still right up there and Courtney feeling sick, we didn't have much left in us. We did find a paddock full of Chinese army equipment under camoflage though - I got a photo of this. You could barely tell they were there - obviously radar trucks and the like(prolly missile batteries!) - but seeing them was a real buzz. Two guards snapped crisp at attention to what was seemingly just a paddock with some shrubs in it....but no!

So we didn't see the venues other than the tip of the Bird's Nest - oh well, it's on TV enough.

And last but not least, to cap off this lengthy post(apologies!) we spent our day today doing nothing more than visiting a park opposite the Forbidden City. We were waiting for the weather and visibility to clear up as this place looks fantastic. It was only a lowly 2rmb to enter and in the middle was a large hill with 5 different pagodas. The hill was man-made, made from the dirt removed by making the moat of the Forbidden City oh so long ago. The views this hill offers of Beijing however are incredible, in particular the view looking over the Forbidden City itself.

Here you could see just how big he Emperor's Palace city actually was, and the roof's on display I daresay are even more impressive from a distance than actually walking amongst them with the tourist droves. From this vantage you can also see just how big and sprawling Beijing actually is.

All in all the park - which featured some lovely gardens, capped off what was a very interesting, very enjoyable week in China's capital. It's now off to Xi'an, the ancient capital. Where Beijing's history was really in the last 4-500 years, Xi'an goes right back to the very first dynasties...thousands of years ago. It should be very different to Beijing and we're looking forward to just getting there. Did i mention the hotel we're staying in has a pool? Hell yeah!

Catch!

The Forbidden City (Marcus)

On Wednesday we decided to explore the Forbidden City - or for the unaware, the former residence of the Emperor's themselves in Beijing. It's called the 'Forbidden' City as it was off-limits to the majority of people for the past 500 odd years. The Forbidden City was actually the very beginnings of Beijing itself. When the capital was temporary down south in Nanjing(same province as good ol Wuxi), they decided to relocate it back north and the construction on the Forbidden City; which took approximately 20 years, was begun. From the walled city, the rest of Beijing grew outward.

It's one of the must see attractions of China as it's effectively the largest collection of well-preserved buildings in all of China - and of course, the Emperors were such a huge part of Chinese history. I wanted to see it on those grounds but in reality, it all becomes a little same ol same ol. There is actually another Emperor 'hang-out' called the Summer Palace - a retreat of sorts where they would go to be somewhat cooler in the heat of summer. We had decided to visit this on Friday but have now scrapped the idea - it's just too samish for our tastes.

The Forbidden City was interesting, and it was impressive in its own way, but because of it being so same ol same ol, it was actually a little boring. We didn't explore too deeply, preferring to stick to the main areas but we did examine some of the side buildings of the outer court which housed small museum-type displays.

These displays were very Chinese in nature - as in, they were covered in dust. It was a real..I don't know, I suppose shame to see all these ancient instruments and other interesting odds and ends just covered in dust. The whole place is an absolute tourist mecca yet they cant dust off the displays within. When you looked into some of the throne type areas, again, they appeared dusty. Actally, when we peered into the middle of the Temple of Heaven(they bar access from inside any of the main buildings - you have to fight alongside 700 Chinese tourists to try and get a peek), likewise it appeared dusty.

With so much interest and excitement in their own culture, can they not do something so simple as clean, dust and look after the artifacts they are so proud to continue to possess? Another classic example of this was an ancient..I think it was a spear- a spear that one of the Emperor's used to hunt tigers. Firstly, it's news to me that there were even Tigers in China, and secondly - the spear had a sticker on it to mark that it was artifact number 42842. The sticker was just of the plain white square variety, nothing special except for the fact it was stuck dead smack in the middle of the 'artifact.' Then, topping that effort, BESIDE the original sticker was another one to it's right - this was an update of the first as if they did an annual stocktake. To complete the masterpiece, there were around another 3 stickers detailing the same deal, like whoever is doing it cant just put it on the original one, let's cover the whole treasure in check-off stickers!!! Blech!

Earlier in the week we visited the Lama Temple. Now the Temple's buildings were very nice to look at but they were also very similar to those in the Forbidden City, so by the time we've looked at 10 or so within the FC, we're a bit over it. Add to that what must have been 40 degree weather and on top of that a gazillion Chinese tourists and well the whole experience was somewhat underwhelming. We were pleased to check it off the list but that was about that, it really didnt float our proverbial boats the way the Great Wall managed to.

I guess if you do too much sightseeing of a similar nature you will always end in this kind of result where a countrie's history is fairly similar to the outside eye. Thankfully we will be heading to three more very different areas of the country so will be picking out the best stuff along the way and enjoying it.

One thing is for sure in all these explorations, China is a very interesting, very different country. It is fun being a tourist for a time and we are enjoying moving from place to place. The location we're staying is easily the best part of Beijing we have seen . Beijing itself was initially very impressive but we've since discovered that it mostly attributes to this particular area we are staying in. The deeper we have explored, the more we have seen and the more similarities you can come up with to a place such as Canberra. Of course way way way bigger, but so open, so sparse in parts - so lacking in real feeling or identity.

Cant keep my eyes open, see you!