China on James Jarvis

🇨🇳/🇭🇰 Mini-Sabbatical Part 3: Chengdu to Hong Kong

hello@jamesjarvis.io (James Jarvis) — Mon, 13 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This is part of the mini-sabbatical series. Read more here.

Qingchengshan

Before leaving Chengdu (where I unfortunately missed out on my chance to see Pandas thanks to illness ☹️), we were recommended to visit a nearby resort town called Qingchengshan.

Transport links were good (a short train from Chengdu) and the hotels seemed nice and quite cheap, so why not!

Upon arrival, it seems this was one of those towns that had been through a “boom” and “bust” period and never quite made it made it on the other side.

All of the buildings must have been less than 20-30 years old, so quite modern by resort standards, but many had fallen into disrepair.

This was next to the tourist information office in Qingchengshan, which was pretty dead when we asked for information

Still, more for us! Our hotel (like many in the area) was a hot springs resort hotel, and we were lucky enough to have pretty much the entire place to ourselves, so we inevitably spent most of our time relaxing around the hot springs. At least Feiyang did, my weak British genes kept me out of the hottest pools for the most part.

We were also staying opposite to a fantastic traditional style restaurant, where all food was prepared in the same fashion as an ancient village would have done.

Ducks just hanging about

This was my first experience of so many dried meats in one place, and we only wished we found out about it earlier, as by the time we got around to visiting, they were only 30 minutes before closing.

One of the days we stayed, we went for a couple hours of walking to a nearby tourist village, past the Sichuan University. I think they were having exams that day, as hundreds of students meandered about looking mildly stressed, munching on some sausages and snacks from the food carts that stopped enterprisingly outside of the entrance. We grabbed a 20p spicy processed sausage as we passed, though I’m fairly sure that gave us some digestive issues later on.

In the village, we found a cute-but-not-quite-Gubei traditional village. It was clearly not quite as affluent as some other areas we had been to, but that made it all the more interesting! Passing by shops with more traditional food, tea houses with Koi fish, local farmers markets or bamboo woodworking shops, the place felt much more “real” than the cities we had become accustomed to.

Beneath this bridge you could rent pedalo boats, but we chose to get bubble tea instead

Whilst I probably wouldn’t recommend Qingchengshan for the first time visitor, if you had more time than us it seemed like a good entrance to the nearby National Park, and I suppose you could always spend a bit more time in the hot springs! We had spent long enough in the region where I had high expectations of Pandas and Sichuan Peppers, and ended up being ill for most of it. We are as fast West as we were going to get on our trip, and we are now looking at having to race down to Hong Kong in one week’s time, to make sure Feiyang gets back to England for her Accountancy exams!

Yangshuo

I miss these massage chairs so much as I travel now. £1 and you get 15 minutes of relaxation

Leaving Qingchengshan, we make sure to enjoy the £1 train station massage chairs while we wait! The scenery so far has been fairly flat all the way from Beijing to Chengdu, though you can sometimes see mountains in the distance. Yangshuo however greeted us with a completely different, slightly alien landscape. Perhaps that’s why this region is famous for inspiring Avatar’s imagination-capturing floating cloud forests.

Pandora?

For those unaware, Yangshuo lies on the Li river, near the larger town of Guilin. It’s at roughly the same latitude as Taiwan, the same Longitude as Hainan, and has a similarly tropical climate to both.

The river bank is dotted with rafts where you can rent a traditional outfit, and have your photo taken on the boat, with a bird chained in the background. Not our cup of tea but apparently a hit with the local tourists!

It’s claim to fame is obviously the jaw dropping scenery afforded by the smooth surrounding mountains, rice fields and bamboo sheltered river. Though quite strangely it appears the town was not much of a tourist hotspot until the foreigners arrived. Supposedly, an American bought up some land by the river in the 80s, and opened a very fancy hotel that is still fully booked out months into the future. Many have tried to capitalise on this success, and our own hotel was owned by a Belgian couple who live on/off in the village, with tales of dozens more airbnb’s popping up.

Hotel breakfast views don’t get much better

I think we may have timed this trip quite well, being slightly out of peak season, and so soon after the lifting of COVID restrictions, we were mostly alone in the hotels we stayed. This one was clearly catering for western tourists, yet it was only us and another Russian couple who were staying. No complaints from us though, as we could reserve the best view every morning!

Bamboo rafts

We had a couple days around town, and decided to spend one of them doing the classic bamboo raft trip down the river. Anticipating lots of sun and some great photos opportunities, we made sure to pick up some nice cheap straw hats before getting on a raft.

Embarrassing tourist, me? No…

This was probably the single most memorable thing we did on this trip. A 2 hour float down the Li river, in fantastic weather, with some of the most spectacular views in this corner of the world. You’d struggle to find anything else more relaxing than this!

Our captain(?) kept calling me “Hello” as the white guy on board, but he made sure to take some nice photos of us!

Yes, yes, it’s a cheesy pose I know

I recognised the river on one of the banknotes, and found that the 20 yuan banknote denotes a location not too far from where we were!

20 Yuan close enough

You could visit it if you have time, but you basically have to take the ferry from Yangshuo to Guilin, so we made do with a near-enough shot. I have this hobby where for each country I visit, I keep a denomination of the local currency and hang it on my wall at home as a souvenir. It turns out to be a bit more manageable than fridge magnets, but having bank notes represent famous places from the country is certainly more interesting than a random politician!

Further down the stream you begin to notice that we are on a bit of a man-made ride though. Aside from the hundreds of bamboo rafts, and sheer abundance of electric mopeds about, you notice that the river banks themselves have been shaped by concrete, and planted with bamboo. Not that I’m complaining, I do like some bamboo.

I wish bamboo like this grew everywhere

E-Scootering

These mopeds were everywhere

Despite the fact that this town is in the middle of the countryside, it’s not quite rural enough to feel like it has been untouched by technology.

As I passed, I felt like this photo summed up the feeling of China in one image

Again, every car you see (aside from the tour buses) are electric, and you lose count of the seemingly self-replicating electric mopeds that litter the streets. I think it only cost us ~£15 to rent an e-scooter for the day, and nobody checked our licenses or asked for a deposit, they just let us go out on our own adventure.

Without ever having ridden a moped before, we set out for the rest of the day on the bike.

Our magnificent steed

A 20 minute drive from our hotel was the start of a riverside drive that was supposed to be dotted with cafes and other shops. To be honest, we didn’t have enough time to fully explore the area, but we had fun zipping about from one area to the next, stopping to admire the views and get away from other people for a while.

Along the way we stopped at an old lady’s stall by the river where Feiyang introduced me to a “bean drink”. Whilst I can’t remember the name of it, it came in a little tub, and you drink from a spoon. The gritty, bland-but-sweet taste wasn’t really to my liking, but it took Feiyang back to her childhood.

We also stopped by a western style cafe amongst the rice fields, where you can hardly tell where the rice ends and the instagram models begin, due to sheer number of photo-shoots taking place.

Not ones to miss out, we also took photos, blocking out the others

Feiyang clinging on for dear life

As the sun set, we booked a full body massage (my first!) at the hotel, and drove back to the scooter rental place.

Touristy, but deservedly so. 10/10 recommend you visit Guilin/Yangshuo, if only for the nature rather than the cities.

Not much going on in the town, but good enough for some places to eat and buy some souvenirs

Hong Kong

I’ll spare you a recap of the ~8 hours it took us to get from Yangshuo to Hong Kong, but it was something like “train-train-3(!)-immigration-borders-train-hotel”. Around this time it was Feiyang’s turn to get ill, so once we checked in to our hotel, she stayed behind to rest while I went out to try and get some laundry done.

I had bought some e-sims using MobiMatter (use the code JJHAS96592 if you feel the need 😉), and for the most part it had worked fine throughout South East Asia, and even China. However, Hong Kong is a bit of a strange place.

Once I had found a laundrette, it was completely automatic. No worries, I had a card for contactless. Ok, Hong Kong has some strange Octopus payment scheme, so not contactless… No worries, I have WeChat pay. There’s no WiFi, but I have an e-sim right? Well, turns out you need to register your identity via a passport scan before using any sim in Hong Kong, so they can explicitly match up any internet traffic to your identity. WTF?

Anyway, after a quick jaunt back to the hotel to set this up, I finally pay for my laundry and have enough time to quickly check out the view from Kowloon point before I needed to go to sleep.

Probably the most impressive skyline in all of South East Asia. Looking from Kowloon to Victoria

On the way back, I suddenly got a Deja Vu of some of the scenes from one of my favourite cheesy films, Rush Hour 2. In that, Jackie Chan is seen crawling up and fighting on some of the famous Bamboo scaffolding surrounding the cities buildings. I was afraid that 22 years of health and safety regulations would have put an end to this scaffolding practise, or that it was a strange stereotype and bamboo scaffolding didn’t actually exist, but no! The bamboo scaffolding is real!

Imagine Jackie Chan up this

We had two days in Hong Kong, so split it roughly into a day around Hong Kong Island, and a day around Lantau Island.

Victoria Peak

Starting out early, we looked up the top things to do in Hong Kong, and chose to travel up to Victoria Peak to get some good views of the city.

I didn’t quite appreciate this from the night before, but Hong Kong is incredibly hilly. We took the Peak Funicular up to the top, and I’d recommend this to anyone visiting, despite the fact we got lost a few times trying to find the start of it!

Since Hong Kong is so hilly, and was kind of built by whoever was in charge at the time, the roads are a bit all over the place as they follow the contours of the land. We were stuck in Hong Kong park for a good 30 minutes before we could find the right exit, and made sure to swear our way through our clothes running up and down the same hills.

Feels more like a rollercoaster than a train

Once on the funicular, you get another dose of how steep Hong Kong can be, as you climb well over a 30% gradient up to the top.

At the top, you get another glimpse at the density of Hong Kong.

You would have been able to see the infamous Kowloon Walled City were it still standing, but regardless, Hong Kong is still one of the most densely inhabited places you can visit. Almost every building that can be built, has been built as a high rise apartment block.

Sorry for spoiling the view

There’s a certain beauty to it, and it does remind me of a denser, hillier Singapore, but we’ll get to that later.

The rest of the day we spent pretty much just walking around, shopping and eating.

I don’t have any pictures, but we explored some of the famous night markets, where you can buy ay designer bag you want, for £5! We also managed to get apparently the best Dim Sum Feiyang has ever tried, but you’ll have to ask her for the restaurant as I’m quite frankly useless when it comes to food.

Lantau Island

Hong Kong is made up of over 200 islands, of which the bulk of what you might think of as “Hong Kong” is just contained within the Kowloon Peninsula, and Hong Kong Island. Outside of this, are the New Territories, a collection of landmass that were originally inhaled by the British as part of the now-expired 99 year lease, which actually makes up more than 86% of Hong Kong’s total territory.

Lantau Island is the location where you would find Disneyland, Hong Kong Airport (technically reclaimed land), and some beautiful beaches.

We decided to visit because it is also the location of a large Buddha statue that seemed quite interesting to us.

~6km of Cable Car to avoid a half day of hiking, feels worth it

To get there, we took the Ngong Ping 360 cable car all the way to the top. This offers a “crystal” cabin (basically double the price) where you can see through the floor to the passers by below. Not sure it is worth the price delta, but it’s certainly fun to see others in your cabin freak out!

Arriving at the top, we found ourselves intruding on a kind of race event. There were 5k/10k/other races going on around the island, with each of them having to run up and down all of the stairs to the main Buddha statue. My hat goes off to some of these people, who are clearly double my age and twice as fit, so that put some things into perspective at least. They also had to contend with an already crowded staircase swarming with Aunties and clueless tourists alike, so I’m sorry if I got in the way of anyone’s PB.

Feiyang or Buddha?

I wish we had more time on this island, and others, as there are supposedly some amazing hikes you could do!

Lama Island to the South is apparently a bit like Pulau Ubin from Singapore, in that it has mostly been left untouched by technological progress, being kept in a stasis of dirt roads, no internet and simple housing. Whilst I don’t know if this is true or not, the islands still hold some secrets that beg to be explored!

Leaving

Bye, Feiyang! See you in 3 weeks

Feiyang left Hong Kong early in the morning, and I gave her most of my cash so she could get a taxi straight to the airport. Her flight was at 7am, mine not until 2pm, so we parted ways as she head back to England. My own flight back to England is booked 20 days later, departing from Changi airport, so I now have ~3 weeks to get from Hong Kong to Singapore on my own.

I spent some time down by the Kowloon peninsula to think about what I wanted to get up to over the next few weeks. Also, I wanted to reflect on my time in Hong Kong.

After spending some time in Singapore, and having known both were ex-British colonies, I was fully expecting Hong Kong to feel the same as Singapore.

Yet, it felt different.

Hong Kong was much more chaotic, feeling less safe. Despite it also being independent for less time than Singapore, it felt less “Westernised”. Over 90% of the population of Hong Kong are Chinese according to the latest figures, so you don’t get quite the same international mix as you do with Singapore.

Whilst I can’t speak for the population, some citizens we talked to did express some concerns about the new governance. Free speech is no longer as free as it once was, and some inhabitants are struggling to adapt to this power shift. Though the British lease ended over 20 years ago, I feel the nation is still struggling to find it’s own place. Or, struggling to lose it.

I would imagine that the working culture in Hong Kong is very similar to Singapore, but the living conditions appear to be less favourable by most metrics. It is a place I would like to experience fully, but not one that I would readily choose over a similar location, such as Singapore.

That being said, the biggest similarity I felt was the airports. Both were absolutely marvellous.

🇨🇳 Mini-Sabbatical Part 2: Beijing to Chengdu

hello@jamesjarvis.io (James Jarvis) — Tue, 07 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This is part of the mini-sabbatical series. Read more here.

Back in Beijing

Gubei was awesome, but the unrelenting march of time moves on, and so we find ourselves on the way back to Beijing.

Along we way we stopped for a quick break to relieve ourselves at a rest stop. Most countries have these places, and they all seem to stand out for different reasons.

For the French, it’s the nice public toilets and picnic benches.

For the British, it’s the fact that Welcome Break somehow have a monopoly.

For the Americans, it’s the strange business-park layout that forces you to drive between buildings.

For the Chinese, it’s the urinals that measure your glucose levels.

Bit surreal, but we continued regardless (I didn’t pay to have it done).

Olympic Park

We still had a couple of hours of sunlight to kill on the way back to the flat, so we thought it would be a good chance to see the buildings that put Beijing on the map for me. The Beijing 2008 Olympic Games Park!

The Beijing Olympic park is not too dissimilar from Olympic parks from other cities to be honest. There is the centrepiece stadium, now used by local sports teams or for concerts. There is of course a huge shopping mall (in this case, under the whole complex) and a few museums to take advantage of the mass transit systems that had to be built.

A few architectural standouts won’t go amiss either, such as the Beijing Olympic Tower (that strangely was only build 6 years after the games). Whilst we didn’t go up it, the views would I’m sure have been incredible.

The last place we visited here was the Olympic Forest Park. For a city so vast and so heavily developed, it is always welcome to escape into nature a bit, and this park absolutely scratches that itch for so many of Beijing’s residents. Even offering bike + kayak rental for a small fee, it’s a quite literal breath of fresh air.

Even though it’s pretty far out (right on the edge of the city, a couple hours to get to for us!), it was absolutely rammed. I could liken it maybe to Hyde Park in peak summer, but with almost zero tourists (as Beijing didn’t really have many outside visitors when I arrived).

The running track that goes through the park was quite comical, with people practically queuing to get past one another, but I digress - clearly it has a strong demand and we must be grateful for it’s existence.

We enjoyed sunset with a short hike, then slowly made our way back to the flat.

Tian Tan Park

More parks!

In the morning, we grabbed ourselves a Chinese pancake and McDonalds coffee (don’t judge me) from near Feiyang’s flat, and set out to tick some more items off the Tripadvisor list.

Tian Tan (also called the Temple of Heaven) is one of the largest parks in Beijing, or at least the largest one located centrally. Within it, you’ll fine a well landscaped park, complete with many areas for the traditional “Auntie Dance Class”.

This was probably my favourite thing that I saw throughout Asia that I really wish the West had more of. If you are retired, you need to keep fit somehow, so why not join a group and dance to some wildly out of genre tiktok pop songs in a group? I loved it!

There were some Uncles joining in, but typically they would join the Uncle Class, who would be trying out some other activities such as Tai Chi.

We spotted one absolute legend of an Uncle travelling around on his new toy, a motorised suitcase.

The legend in question

Not quite sure what he was trying to do here, as the suitcase was walking pace, and the cobblestone actually forced him to fall over a couple times, but it was funny to see so I grant him that.

In the center of the Temple of Heaven is the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests, and the highest concentration of school field trips.

I am ashamed to admit that I learnt almost nothing from the countless temples we visited. Big fan of the architecture, but I just can’t recall anything in particular that stood out about this temple.

Lama Temple

The Lama Temple. Why can’t all buildings be this pretty?

In an attempt to experience more, on recommendation from Feiyang’s Mum, we went to visit the Lama temple.

This was the first Buddhist temple I had ever visited, and what first struck me as intriguing were the large communal Censers.

The idea is that you pick up 3 sticks of incense (specifically 3, to transcend towards equilibrium, stability and infinity). Upon lighting your incense, you stand in front of the Censer, say your prayer and place them inside to burn with the rest.

Very peaceful, I really enjoyed the atmosphere. I was also perhaps starting to get a bit lightheaded from all of the smoke.

Summer Palace

Summer Palace is a must visit if you are in Beijing for more than a week.

Not to be confused with the “Old Summer Palace” (just down the road, but destroyed by the French+British in the mid-1800’s), it is a wonderful example of traditional architecture blending in with nature. Of course, all places this beautiful are mired in some form of controversy. For the Summer Palace, a significant proportion of funds that were supposed to be used to upgrade the Chinese Navy were instead rerouted to expanding the Summer Palace in celebration of the Empress’s 60th birthday.

Stunning views from the top

Besides it’s history, nowadays it is simply a tourist attraction that can be booked through WeChat, with great views over the surrounding area, and some great walking routes around the expansive and well maintained gardens.

We were visiting in late October, so the nights were beginning to draw in a bit earlier, but sunset gave this place a mystical feeling, and as we walked back to the car, past street artists along the promenade of the lake, we took some time to slow down and watch the sun set.

Museums

Entering our second week in Beijing, we were struggling to find things to do.

The issue with accidentally aligning our trip with the Belt and Road conference, was that whilst the weather was amazing the previous week, all major attractions near Tiananmen Square were shut. Now that the diplomats have left, a huge wave of bookings via WeChat meant that the Forbidden City along with most other attractions had sold out. Top Tip: Book tickets on WeChat well in advance. Supposedly 85k tickets are available for the forbidden city every day, and they sell out in minutes.

Also weirdly enough, as soon as the diplomats left, the pollution came back.

Despite the health warning, we climbed up a hill to see this view

Better luck next time, I guess?

I still have a few more things to see in Beijing before I can consider it “ticked off”.

The National Museum of China

The National Museum of China is one of the largest museums in the world (I actually can’t tell whether or not it is the largest, it didn’t feel as big as the Louvre to me).

The Road to Rejuvenation, this section covered the distressing starts of the cultural revolution

We saw one chunk of it, with the impressive but quite politicised The Road to Rejuvenation exhibit covering the highs and lows of the Chinese people over the last 200 years. Since the start of the CCP it has apparently been all highs.

Of course, I’m not blind to propaganda from all sides, and naturally you wouldn’t expect a museum funded by a government, showcasing all of the recent failures of that government.

He who controls the past controls the present

As we cycle back through Tiananmen Square to head back to the flat, I admire the famous smooth face on the wall, and wonder what he’s seen over the years perched up there.

I wanted to get closer but honestly couldn’t figure out how to traverse the square, I think I needed another WeChat booking

Adventures in Xi’an

I knew absolutely nothing about Xi’an (much as I did with the rest of China), but there are 2 things I will remember about Xi’an. The Wall, and the Statues.

Terracotta Army

As we pull up to the compound early in the morning, we are faced by a veritable sea of Aunties. No need to worry though, having researched beforehand the fastest route to Pit 1, and armed with our younger legs we pace our way to the front, being some of the first to enter the halls that morning.

Thousands of intricate, lifesize soldiers, built around 70 generations ago

As the morning light streamed across the hall, it was a bit corny to say that it was a special sight, but it truly was.

You can read up about the army from many other sources if you want to learn more, so I won’t bore you too much. However something you might not have realised (I didn’t) is that each soldier was once beautifully and vibrantly painted, and this paint was in fact still present when the soldiers were first unearthed in the 70’s.

Imagine his armour a deep purple, with red and yellow accents

50 years of public display and tourism subsequently caused this paint to fade and flake away, cautionary tale of how tourism and the commercialisation of history can erode history itself. Leaving the museum, we walk past a McDonalds, Starbucks and a cinema, the irony entirely lost on us.

The Wall

An almost perfect rectangle with a 14km circumference.

We rented a couple of bikes and marvelled in amazement at what an architectural achievement it must have been to build this defence system so well, so long ago (though only around 500 years in all fairness).

At night, there was some kind of theatrical performance inside the main building by the south gate, and the entire perimeter is lit up by LEDs, truly one of the best cities to visit whilst in China.

A park, some shops, and a Buddhist temple

Outside of the wall are the usual suspects of cool places to visit in a chinese city: A park, some shops, and a Buddhist temple.

I can’t remember the name of this park, but it was pristine

I can’t remember much about the park, besides the fact that it was quite expensive to enter, pretty empty, and had a wonderful light/fountain show in the main lake.

As for the shops, there is this ridiculously over the top main street, with interactive artwork, public performances and at least a dozen electric car brand showrooms flanking either side of it.

On the electric car topic, China is so full of such high quality electric cars that it boggles the western mind.

We saw everything from small electic Jeep knockoffs for £8k (my favourite), to £25k Tesla-esque cars, all the way up to the wackiest £16k car for babies. I don’t really know how to explain it, but they have built a car that is custom designed to fit 2 parents and a baby. The front seats turn around to view the kid, there is a camera in the back trained on the kid with a live view up front, and special baby bottle warmers under the arm rests. I don’t necessarily think that it would be the best purchase decision, but they seemed to have some kind of leasing program where you graduate into a proper car after a few years, so I guess it works fine for whatever audience they are targeting…

The temple we visited was pretty memorable, but only for childish reasons (I never seem to learn too much from my travels).

The Giant Wild Goose Pagoda

In the centre sat the Giant Wild Goose Pagoda, an impressive tower that bears no resemblance to a goose.

In one of the surrounding buildings, an intricate wooden carving of The Journey to the West.

Culture is frankly lost on me

Feiyang tried her best to explain it to me, but I couldn’t quite get over how some dude, a pig, a monkey and a horse could really get along with each other.

Disappointment in Chengdu

Ever since first trying “proper” chinese food (according to Feiyang), I had fallen in love with the Sichuan pepper.

As a direct result of this and the allure of seeing pandas where pandas are from, I made sure to extend our route all the way West to Chengdu, despite the considerable length of time we would be stuck on trains.

Upon arriving in Chengdu however, I was unfortunately hit like a train by what I think was probably the O.G. of COVID-19 strains.

This meant we had to sadly cancel our Panda visit, and I spent all day in bed at the hotel whilst Feiyang went cafe hopping, revising for her exams and reading her books.

I did manage to crawl out of the hotel for just long enough to get a proper Sichuan hotpot at a Jay Chou themed restaurant. Boy was it spicy!

Those are tears of joy, and a 50/50 blend of spicy/covid nose running

🇨🇳 Mini-Sabbatical Part 1: Shanghai to Beijing

hello@jamesjarvis.io (James Jarvis) — Wed, 03 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This is part of the mini-sabbatical series. Read more here.

Landing in Shanghai

Looking like a proper tourist, I leave my hotel in Singapore for the last time

My flight is at 8:05 AM from Changi.

A week ago I had bought a backpack just for this trip, 2 days ago I started packing, yesterday I dropped off the rest of my stuff with a coworker to pick up on the way back.

I’m ready. Despite the comforts offered to me in Singapore, I feel well prepared for the next 6 weeks living out of this bag. I have sampled the food, hung out with the locals, I feel like I know what to expect from China, and yet it still occasionally feels mysterious.

My girlfriend, Feiyang (王飞扬), has been travelling from London since the day before, due to arrive in Shanghai Pudong International Airport just after I leave from Singapore, so we’ve planned to meet up at the hotel while she spends the morning with an old school friend.

I board, so eager to land I forget whatever I was reading on the flight.

On arrival, I’m immediately reminded that China is not-quite-Singapore, not-quite-Thailand.

Scammed by a taxi

Stepping out of the international arrivals section, a guy comes up to me in a suit, claiming he works for the airport (with an official looking pin on his blazer to qualify himself).

“Do you need a taxi?”

I still believe taxi’s are “basically free”, from my experience so far around South East Asia and, besides, none of my translation/navigation apps work and I can’t read Mandarin well enough to communicate with anyone. So I say yes.

We proceed to walk towards, and then straight past, the Taxi pickup zone, and towards the car park. “Uh, taxi’s are here?” I point to the queue of at least 15 official taxis, with a matching orderly queue of prospective passengers.

Never mind that, we continue into the car park, where a very fancy looking xpeng electric car is awaiting me.

“How much?” I ask, expecting roughly £15 worth for the 40 minute drive.

“550”. This is in Yuan, so my basic maths of converting to GBP already tells me I’m getting ripped off.

Unfortunately, I have absolutely no idea how much things cost in this part of the world, my first impressions are that this place costs roughly the same as New York.

“I only have 300” I reply, opening my wallet to prove what little Thai Baht or Indonesian Rupiah I had exchanged on departure had afforded me about half a taxi’s worth of currency.

No worries though, the man happily shoves his hand into my wallet, takes the cash (all of the cash I had) and waves me into the Taxi.

Welcome to China!

In the taxi, I test out my esim + Wechat account, thankfully it works. Feiyang helpfully informs me I’ve been ripped off, and that I should have got one of the official taxis, obviously.

The Bund, choking on intestines

We meet at the hotel, but head straight for the Bund to see the sights, and have dinner with her friend.

First time seeing each other for 3 months

The place is so crowded! Every restaurant appears to require a booking (not sure why I’m surprised, London is the same), and the sea of people in and around the Bund is only broken by the occasional Chinese military sentry guard, standing like a statue on a plinth.

At the hotpot, amongst many kinds of meat and veg, we ate some duck intestine. Normally this would be fine, but my recent decision to get braces meant that I could no longer chew very well.

So I swallowed it whole, or at least most of it. The end bit got caught on a piece of my braces, leading me to perform the final act of a sword swallower and pull out the entire 30cm strand of intestine from my throat, with the accompanying gagging.

On this street is a Huawei shop directly opposite Apple, selling totally-not-copied wares

Great first impression with China, and Feiyang’s friend. We went back to the hotel shortly afterwards, tired from the days events!

China or Europe?

Day 2 we started with a coffee and croissant from the very European feeling old streets.

Shanghai or Europe?

Shanghai in general felt very westernised. It was clear that it was somehow different to the rest of China, but we couldn’t quite put our finger on it. The Bund was famously owned by various European trading companies, and it’s banks are lined with European inspired architecture, but aside from this there was also a slightly different feeling to the people there. It might have something to do with the fact that Feiyang was asked twice if she was a model, so that made us feel quite cool.

Checking out the Chenghuang temple area, we stopped for some lunch.

This was a peculiar mix of very ancient religious temple, with a disney-esque commercial building, with tourist shops, buddhist temples and gold jewellery shops side by side.

Pretty bridge with a tea house in the middle

Continuing with the European strangeness, I had my first experience with the Chinese nouveau riche as we had dinner in Xintiandi. For those who don’t know, it’s basically like the Covent Garden / Mayfair of London, complete with Lululemon, On Running and DJI shops (to summarise our personalities).

Not something I expected in such a recently wealthy country, but then again totally understandable. This would continue to be a theme with all big cities we visited throughout China. Luxury is IN.

Luxury is IN in China

Oriental Pearl

Of course, no trip to Shanghai would be complete without the obligatory trip to the Oriental Pearl TV Tower.

Built in 1995, the city has extended skywards around it. Whilst it used to be a TV broadcast tower (back when TV was delivered by these large broadcasting antennae), it is now purely a tourist attraction, with a rotating restaurant, and weirdly misplaced arcade inside the red balls.

I didn’t realise this, but it is also designed to look very similar to a sort of sugary caramel street snack (balls on a stick). I think I prefer the look of the building to the taste of this snack though.

You can get some great views though! Both looking out, and looking down…

The pollution and skyscrapers extends as far as the eye can see, in all directions

Why can’t all skyscrapers have glass floors?

Day 4, have you settled in yet? Good. Let’s go to the Capital.

Beijing

Trains are quick in China, Shangahi to Beijing in < 5 hours

Meeting the GF’s Family

We didn’t mean to stand in height order

“Isn’t he cold?”

I had packed for a 6 week long beach trip, without first checking the weather in Beijing.

It’s 14 degrees and I look like a complete mug in my shorts and birkenstocks.

The language barrier is quite the challenge, but we seem to get along just fine as they drive us from the train station and around the city (past Tiananmen square and the Mao photo). We stopped for a hearty meal then back to the parent’s district where Feiyang and I checked into a hotel opposite their flat. Still easing in gently.

Awoke to the sound of military training

In the morning, we are accompanied to views of the sprawling suburbs of Beijing. The expansiveness of Beijing drew parallels with Los Angeles in my mind. The benefit to Beijing is that even though the easiest way to travel is by car, it at least has a functioning metro system.

We are roughly 9 miles from central Beijing. A mere 20 years ago this would have been right in the boonies, as evident by the remnants of farms and military training grounds nearby (we actually awoke to the sounds of horns and distant marching beats!)

Nowadays however, this is prime commuter belt territory, and we took advantage of the tube system every day to get around. Weirdly, I had to scan my passport to enter the tube! Why?

Belt and Road Summit

Well, turns out the week we decided to come to Beijing was the week of the annual Belt and Road Summit, with Putin in attendance.

We would later find out that this high profile summit substantially changes Beijing for it’s duration. For one, there was almost no pollution whatsoever (to later change). For another, the security was tight.

The yellow barrier in the background had passport checks

We were happy though!

This was our current issue - if you wanted to get anywhere near Tiananmen square, you needed to scan your identification, and even then you are not actually allowed in the square, designed to hold 1 million people. Since 2021 you have needed to book entrance to the square, to avoid the spread of ~~contrarian ideas~~ COVID.

These guys were more tourist attraction than guards

Given the fact that all museums and typical attractions were closed, we decided to spend the rest of the day visiting some of Feiyang’s favourite districts, and going shopping to get me some slightly warmer clothing.

Getting a few rental bikes was very easy via WeChat, and I must say that Beijing offer some of the most comfortable cycling paths I’ve ever experienced from a major city!

Cycling is fantastic in Beijing

Not much else to note from our shopping trip, but it seems that Beijing may have accidentally hired too many reserve police for the week of the B+R Summit, we kept tripping over police cars and off duty officers.

Uniqlo must be a national security risk

Qianhai

Beijing was all a bit of a blur, but I do remember Qianhai as one of my favourite spots.

A short cycle away from Tiananmen Square, it is a little region surrounding Jingshan park and Qianhai lake, where you can get lost amongst old traditional houses-turned-shops, before eventually winding up around the lake for unbeatable sunset views.

Secluded canal walk to the lake

A great place to have a cocktail and watch the sun set

We met up with another of Feiyang’s old friends here for hotpot, this time I didn’t make a fool of myself, but some fascinated locals seemed to want to try out their broken English with me - they say they hadn’t met a white person before. I called bull, even as I realised I also hadn’t seen another westerner since leaving Singapore.

Traditional Beijing Hotpot

By this point in the trip, we’ve finally hit the weekend and Feiyang’s parents have promised they would take us on a trip out of town! So we hop in the car for a few hours drive. I’m starting to worry about Feiyang’s Dad’s driving. She gets her good eyesight from him, and he was making full use of the hard shoulder in each traffic jam. We eventually made it though.

I’m completely clueless about what to do around here so I didn’t even know the name of the place, but later found out we would be spending some evenings in Gubei Water Town!

Gubei Water Town

Traditional looking entrance, with a Starbucks inside. Highly recommend the Black Tea Soy Latte.

Gubei Water Town was probably one of my favourite places I visited in China.

I know, that’s a bit of an uninspiring statement, since it’s all quite artificial, but there was something about it I really enjoyed. As far as I know, the town is not actually a historical water town, but a replica of the Wuzhen Water Town from the south of China, and only around 500 years old.

But it’s not just some quaint old village. The whole place has been converted to house discreet museums, tea houses, restaurants, activities and hot springs in amongst the ancient streets. Maybe it was more surprising for me since I couldn’t read any of the maps.

Willow trees enchant this village

Not least, I loved it because it was just so beautiful! We were visiting in Autumn, and the red leaves and crisp air yielded some great sights.

Never did end up hiking to this tower, but I think it was smaller than it appeared

The Wangs

Me in Gubei

We even found some smol cats

Cultural Site

Once we peeled our eyes away from the colourful trees, we ended up stumbling into a few of the town’s cultural heritage sites.

Yongshun Dye House was 90% instagram hotspot, 10% museum

A bit ashamed to admit I took almost no photos of the ancient textiles factory, alcohol distillery, replica villagers house or the public traditional chinese theatre. You just have to trust me that they existed, and were really interesting, I promise.

I do however have this one sick photo of me surprising everyone at archery.

If you look really closely, you can see my concentration face. If you look even closer you can see my opponent on the left was not impressed

Whilst I’m not actually much good at it, I at least wasn’t useless, which can only be a welcome surprise for the people who have watched me choke on hotpot and fail to converse in basic sentences with them for the last week.

Great Wall

長城

It’s been looming over us since we arrived in Gubei.

長城, Changcheng, Great Wall.

You hear about it so much, “it can be seen from space”, “500,000 people died building it”, “the locals dismantled it to build houses”. It feels like it should be a pilgrimage, an arduous trek up a mountain to touch this world wonder.

Nah, turns out you can just take a cable car right to the top!

The views were incredible, but this stretch of the Great Wall (Simatai) is not particularly long. You find yourself cut short, unable to go beyond a few of the towers, beyond which the wall returns back to a ruinous state.

I stared at this view for ages, trying to sear it into my memory

Hot Springs

In the evening, we returned back to Gubei and decided to visit one of the Hot Spring baths. By this time the temperature had plunged to ~3 degrees.

I had been to a few of these places before, I remember the Széchenyi baths in Budapest, a vast hot pool to fit hundreds of people. When I last visited, the air was -15C, with the steam from the baths causing my towel to freeze solid.

These baths were much smaller and, calmer. There were maybe 10 small pools indoors and one outdoors, all at varying temperatures between 33 and 46 degrees, with varying mineral content.

I’m less used to this, so whilst Feiyang and her family jumped straight into the hottest one, I took my time to work my way up. I don’t want to feel like the boiling frog!

The view from the outside pool was mesmerising. I don’t know how, but these city planners had managed to cram an LED into every single nook and crevice of each stone wall of Gubei. The results were astonishing, with the already-too-good-to-be-true town transforming into a movie set overnight!

I wish I took photos, but my phone was dead by this point, so you’ll have to do with what everyone else has already taken.

It might seem a bit touristy (and it is), but I’d recommend giving Gubei a visit if you have a bit too much time in Beijing. It’s a remarkably calming place.