Beijing

 Beijing...Our final destination in China and one we had to travel long and hard to reach over the preceeding three weeks. Our overnight train journey was, surprise surprise, another all night stay-awake-a-thon filled with crying babies, snoring men and the usual 'standing class' passengers that jump into your seat everytime you go to visit the filthy, reeking toilet-joy! It was smoggy and incredibly hot in Beijing but thankfully our lovely friend, Ping, was there to pick us up. This was a surprise so pleasant that only those who know what it's like to get off a train like a sleep deprived zombie will be able to imagine my relief at seeing Ping waiting there for us.


The first things we noticed about Beijing are probably what everyone notices-traffic and smog! The traffic is so crazy it's amazing anyone bothers trying to drive anywhere at all. At anytime day or night the main roads are completely choked with cars, trucks and buses sitting idling inching their way forward. This in turn adds to the pollution which makes the air verge on the unbreathable. Since Guangzhou I had picked up a niggling cough that stayed with me until I left China and I attribute this solely to the poor air quality in the main centres. Beijing only seemed to make it worse and how anyone can live here year after year and breathe the revolting air is a mystery to me but I guess most people probably don't have a choice! Anyway after what seemed like a very long time we made it to Ping's enormous apartment tower. Her's was a flat on the 21st floor and the view across the surrounding area was pretty impressive. To have our own bed in her lounge under the air conditioner was a special kind of luxury for us after so many hotels and guesthouses. I think it's safe to say at this stage of the trip that both Kate and I are looking forward to having our own place again with our own things but for now it's still living wherever we can, so lets get on with it!

Our first night we went to a Peking duck restaurant with another friend we had met in Vietnam, Lan, and a few of her mates. The restaurant was in an old 'Hutong' which is like a really old Beijing laneway where all the buildings are super old and built in the 'traditional Chinese' style. The restaurant was supposed to be pretty famous and just the sort of place you could probably never find as a tourist which was precisely why I was pleased to have some locals as our hosts while we were there. The duck was really good and in true Chinese style there is no part of the duck that goes to waste and I tried the 'crispy duck entrails' which didn't really taste of much. It seems if they have to create a dish from a particularly gross bit of the animal being prepared then they simply just deep fry it so it just tastes like crispy anything. After dinner we went and checked out Tiannamen square and had a look around. It's hard to imagine just what took place here but speaking to Lan about it, she mentioned that the general public don't really care or know too much about the people who had been killed here as nowadays most people are too busy trying to make money and create a better life for their families to worry about politics.
 
We could see Mao's mausoleum and the big picture that of him that hangs above the entrance. The whole area is huge and looks pretty awesome at night. The 'forbidden city' is directly behind Mao's mausoleum and is where the former emperor's lived way back in the day. We visited the forbidden city a couple days later and were blown away by how big it is. This place is right in the centre of Beijing and it's hard to believe that a city like Beijing can still have the space to accommodate it. During the times when this palce was still going the Emperors were not allowed to leave the forbidden city and they lived their entire lives within the considerable confines of it's walls. The enormous old buildings are scattered around the area and in one place there is a square which was able to hold an audience of 100 000 people. Not surprisingly there was an enormous amount of tourists visiting while we were there and it's funny watchng people all jostling one another to try and get a look into the different halls and buildings.


On another day we took a trip 60km's out to 'Badaling' from where you can walk along the Great Wall of China. This is supposed to be the least desirable place to walk the wall due to enormous numbers of tourists and the quality of the wall here. Unfortunately the better part of the Wall that we were going to visit was closed for renovations, so Badaling it was. Actually it was still pretty cool and certainly enough wall walking for me. The wall is really steep in alot of places so in the heat and humidity it was quite a taxing affair. After about four or five hours we were both pretty buggered and we had seen enough of the wall. The sight of the crowds flooding up the wall was pretty impressive and the wall actually looks kind of surreal as it winds off into the distance. Both Kate and my attention span for these kind of tourist attractions is pretty limited at the best of times so after the usual 'yep, there's the wall, righto, seen it, climbed it, time to go...' it was back on the bus to Beijing.

One thing we found about Beijing that was a little unusual was the fact that nowadays the city officials have demolished alot of the old buildings and rebuilt replicas of them in their place! This means that rather than renovating the old traditional Beijing buildings they have knocked these over and built a new version of the buildings that used to be there. Crazy huh? We were expecting to see lots of cool old buildings but sadly these have largely been removed and replaced. In some ways Shanghai had more authentic old buildings than Beijing which was a real surprise.


In happier building news, for some reason, the American skatepark creators 'Woodward' decided to build a huge indoor and outdoor skatepark some 50km's outside of Beijing earlier this year. Luckily as this place is not serviced by any kind of public transport that I would be able to negotiate, Ping happily volunteered to drive both Kate and I out there and wait for five hours while I skated-what a champ! Although this place is not quite as large as SMP in Shanghai it is still significantly larger than anything in New Zealand or Australia. The indoor park is simply amazing and unbelieveably well made. The outdoor section isn't too bad either but unfortunately it rained whilst I was out there skating it but who cares?? Back to the world class indoor area it was! Woodward Beijing is undoubtedly the best skatepark I have ever been to and I dare say it would rival the best facilities anywhere in the world. Once again there was a noticeable lack of skaters and I had the place almost to myself. That would never happen at home! If you're reading this and you skate, get there. Seriously, get there, you will not be disappointed, I'd stake my last red hair on it.
 
The remainder of our time was spent looking around the city and dining with Lan and Ping at various yummy restaurants far off the tourist track. Six days was not really enough to see even a fraction of what Beijing has to offer but it was still a good introduction to the city, especially having locals to show us around. I think I would need to visit Beijing again with a little more time available to get a real feel for the city. Beijing is supposed to be roughly the size of Luxemburg and with a population around the 22 million mark it's easy to see why a week just isn't long enough. Overall Beijing had a markedly different feel about it to Shanghai but it wasn't without it's charms. Due to the massive population and poor air it's easy to find things to complain about but the reality is that there's a lot more to Beijing, and the Hutong's and the food are simply spectacular, especially the food. Even the smallest unassuming restaurant can have some of the best Chinese food you can imagine and it was great exploring the laneways and chowing down on a host of local delicacies. I have to say a huge thank-you (even though this blogsite is blocked in China and they'll probably never read it!) to our affable and endlessly patient hosts, Lan and Ping, that showed us around some of the best Beijing has to offer and who even drove me to the skatepark! Thanks guys, you rock!
 
So after a month of ups and downs, insane scenery, never-ending train trips, amazing food and good friends, it was time to once again drag our packs to the airport and take the short flight over to Seoul, South Korea. I think I have to go back to China one day with a more structured itineary and maybe a few more flights between places rather than trains! The sheer size of the place is overwhelming and the mass of humanity is something that we just don't have at home. If you want to see a lot of people in one place at the same time just go to a train station in China and be swept away in the human tide. I must say I was looking forward to getting to Korea in the way that it is a place that is already familiar to me and I can read the language and even speak a little so no more ordering food by pointing and acting things out! Three weeks in 'The Land of Morning Calm' seemed just like what we needed after the heckticness of China. Find out how it all goes next time. 'Til then
 

Beijing and it's highlights.

   I thought this was our duck so I made the waiter pose for a photo but afterwards I found out it wasn't. It was for the room next door.

Lan, me and her friends with the yummy food on the lazy suzy. Yummmm

Tim, Lan and I.

Lan and I.

Outside the restaurant.

The ducks are hung above the open fire to be cooked.

In front of fake gates on an 'ancient' street. I think they must have created this street for the Beijing Olympics. It is filled with high-end shops in ancient looking buildings.

Another pic.

There is Mao's mausoleum.

This is what the public toliets look like - so when you are doing the number 1s or 2s, you may just have an audience! There are millions of public loos throughout China because many of the older buildings were originally built without toilets.

Ping negotiating with the old lady on the price of the watermelon. These are supposed to be the tastiest watermelons in Beijing - I think this must be because they use poo as fertiliser.

View of Beijing from Lan's apartment. Below are some older, single storied (business?) buildings with what looks like a junk yard but actually is a lot of stuff for recyling (plastic and glass bottles, and cardboard). Yes they do recycle things here. You often see old ladies collecting bottles from rubbish bins and cardboard from stores.

Another view. This has been taken on a very, very, very good day in Beijing. Normally you cannot see about 1km a head of you.

More apartments for the millions of people.

And more.

Me.

Tiannanmen Square. At night time it is sealed off to the public.

The entrance to the Forbidden City. Of course we have to have the beloved Mao's picture on the gate.

So touristy.

I was more fascinated with the mobs of people in the Forbidden City than I was with the buildings. I never found out what everyone was taking a picture of.

Handles from these HUGE brass drums which used to store water which was used to extinguish fires within the Forbidden City (Some of the buildings have been burnt down at least twice).

A wall within the Forbidden city.

A lion playing.

More sites, more people.

View of the Forbidden city from above. And a view of the Beijing smog.

View of some old looking buildings.

Brother? Cousin? Related maybe? Their eyes look very a like.

They're just waiting for the bus.

These green banners were all around the city. It says "Actively support the population census and cooperate fully to reconcile  household and population records."

A nice green haven amongst the city.

I love this t-shirt. It says "ObaMao".

The city at night.

The Great Wall.

More of the Wall..

and more people....

Skating

The Beijing blog cannot be complete without some skateboarding photos.

The entrance.

The indoor park.

Me looking absolutely thrilled! Yes another day stuck at the skatepark was just what I wanted to do!

Broken board! No more skating today. Boohoo! Did I mention that me (Kate) has been carrying his skateboard on her backpack since Vietnam?!!! (and my 'Suicidal Tendencies' Vans Hi-Tops, can someone please nominate Kate for a sainthood please??!!)

Skating.

Another photo, another video..all in the day of being a skater in China.

A video of Tim at the skatepark.

Shanghai

Shanghai...Alright now, Shanghai is a pretty damn cool city, what else can I say! After the serious missioning we had to endure to reach Shanghai it was a huge relief to finally arrive. It was also stinking hot and stayed that way for the duration of our stay. Nothing like sharing the heat and humidity with 19 million other people to really get a sweat going. The average daily temperature was around 38 degrees and as the main reason I had come to Shanghai was to skate then I knew I was in for a bit of a rough time of it. The city itself is amazing with ultra modern skyscrapers towering over old traditional Chinese buildings and, surprisingly, many tree-lined streets and avenues. The old French Concession neighbourhood near the city centre is full of colonial era buildings now remade into super cool shops, bars and restaurants. Foreigner bars are very common here and one western sports bar even had the All Blacks/Wallabies game-stoked!

We wandered around the city centre and the famous shopping strip of 'Nanjing Road' gawking at all the shops and edging our way through the throngs of people. It was unusual to see so many foreigners again and in Shanghai, as opposed to many of the previous places we have visited, no-one gives you a second glance. It was refreshing to not have 'hull-ro' called out at us everytime we walked down the street and you can tell Shanghai is now a truly modern city filled with people from all around the globe. We checked out the architectural mis-mash of buildings that is the 'Bund' riverside area and took a trip on a gondola that runs through a tunnel under the river to the Pudong financial district on the other side. This tunnel was actually pretty cool and it had a flouro light show that you pass through as you make your way from one end of the tunnel to the other. There were crazy inflatable flailing-arm men and words like 'heaven', 'hell' and 'paradise' would flash in front of the gondola and then disappear to be replaced by other lasers and lights. It was very weird but also so bad, that it was actually good, if you know what I mean.

We also were able to catch up with some friends, Johannes and Laura, that we had met in Tioman Island, Malaysia back in February. Laura was working at the Shanghai World Expo which was undoubtedly the biggest show in town with some 35 millioin visitors through the gates at last count. Although the expo had almost tripled accomodation prices during our stay it was, in some ways, a good time to visit the city. As the Expo was in full swing there were volunteers throughout the subway stations and city area to help hapless tourists who can't understand a word of Chinese. Due to Laura working at the Expo, her and Johannes lived in the official workers village inside the enormous Expo compound. This meant they had a sweet apartment on the 12th floor of their riverside building overlooking the Expo site and the city, including the impressive Pudong financial area skyline. The view was incredible and the apartments after the Expo will no doubt be sold to those who are rich enough to afford such a view, so it was nice for us to be able to sneak in there and take advantage of Laura and Johannes's good fortune.

The Shanghai skyline at night is mind-blowing and on the night of my birthday we ventured up to the 87th floor of the Shanghai World Financial centre to have a drink at the Grand Hyatt's 'Lobby Bar'. Although it might have been the most expensive beer I have ever bought - you basically pay for the view and get the beer for free. Window side tables are highly coveted so it was a pleasant surprise to find that after only a short wait we were ushered to our seats next to the glass overlooking the vertigo inducing Pudong skyline, the Yangtze river far below and the Bund, in which all the buildings are lit up like Christmas trees. Pretty spectacular and not a bad way to toast another year above ground.
 
Anyway as most of you will probably know the main reason for visiting Shanghai was to finally have a skate at the concrete behemoth that is SMP park. For the non-skaters I shall try to keep this section brief but for the benefit of those who haven't been yet but that might like to, I would like to say a few words about my expeditions out to this place. Well as it is the world's biggest skatepark it was, predictably, rather large. The thing about this place is that I can't for the life of me understand why they built it in the first place. Each time I visited it there were a maximum of two other skaters in an area about the size of three football fields. It costs about 60 yuan ($10AUD) to skate and this seems to be more than most of the local skaters can afford. There is also not many skaters to begin with so how this place can still manage to keep it's doors open I have no idea. No matter though as it was great for me. It was incredibly hot but one area did happen to have shade sails over it so this was where I spent the majority of my time. The bowls themselves are mind-bogglingly massive and just too gnarly for your average skater, especially the local ones. I had a crack in the largest of the bowls but to be honest, with no pads a slam in here on concrete would be a seriously hazardous experience, but I gave it my best!


On my birthday I managed to convince Kate to come along so I could get some photos of yours truly having a jam, for future reference you see. I must admit she was very obliging and her committment was admirable given the soaring temperatures. It was a pretty sweet way to spend a birthday and I felt lucky to be able to finally make it here. I did wish a few of the boys from home were there to help me skate this place too though! It was simply too much skatepark for just one ginga but I really enjoyed my visits to this place. The continuous sweating wasn't that great however, although it did have an unexpected bonus. As I was so soaked after each skate it basically looked like I had peed my pants and this meant that on the subway home no-one really wanted to sit next to me which meant more room for me! As soon as we got nearer the city again though people would invariably try sitting next to me, though they would lean away from me at about a 45 degree angle the other way. Ha, it's only sweat people! I had them fooled good and I did appreciate the extra room on Shanghai's sardine can like subway trains.

Nine glorious days were spent sight-seeing, eating out with our friends Laura and Johannes and indulging in the skateboarding smorgasboard at SMP park. I should mention that the shopping in Shanghai is something else but I'm sure most of you would not be too surprised by that. It's hard just to know where to start as there are more shopping areas and malls than you could possibly hope to visit. By the end even Kate was struggling to make it out again day after day to look around the shops as there were just too many. All in all we had a fantastic time in Shanghai and it seemed all too soon that we had to lug our by now very heavy packs down to the train station to board yet another 'cattle-class' train to Beijing. Thankfully it was to be the last long distance train we would have to take in China and you have no idea how happy this thought made me.

In Beijing we were to stay with friends we had met in Vietnam, Beijing natives, so we hoped to be able to see the city a bit more as locals do rather than just the usual tourist places. It also meant we had free rent for a week-bonus! Anyway it was with some sadness that we bid our friends and Shanghai farewell in order to board another 14 hour train ride to Beijing. As Shanghai is known as a super modern city and Beijing is supposed to be more 'traditional Chinese' we weren't sure whether a week in Beijing would compare to the awesome time we had had in Shanghai. Did it all work out for the best?? Find out next time. 'Til then.
 
 

Shanghai and it's lights.

A colourful, big fish pond.

A lovely shot of us with the rainy-misty city in the background.

We went on this touristy gondola underpass from the Bund to Pudong, the financial district. We didn't know what it was so we thought we would have a look.....

and this is what we got - a light show!

It was funny, strange and weird all at the same time.

Tim looking rather happy in the gondola.

The Oriental Pearl (the 'junkie needle with balls' as Tim calls it)

The Oriental Pearl at night.

The Pearl again. There is an elevated pedestrian path above this roundabout which is fantastic as you don't have to worry about the crazy traffic while gazing at the lights.

More views of the city from the roundabout.

I do like the lights!

On Tim's birthday we went to the Hyatt lobby on the 87th floor of the tallest building in Shanghai. I had a lovely mojito and enjoyed the view for only $10 - bargain!

The view of the city from 87 stories high!

Below are a few pictures we took from Johannes' and Laura's apartment. View of the business expo section of the Expo.

The city. The red building has a thermometer on it. The temperature in Shanghai 'never' above 40 degrees otherwise everyone can leave work. Most days while we were in Shanghai the temperature was reported to be 39 degrees but it never hit the big 40! I smell something fishy there!

Another photo of the city because I loved the lights and the city! To the left of the picture is the Expo. No, we never went to it - we were too busy shopping and skateboarding.

A big bridge.

Me trying to pose like a Barbie. This shop has about  5 floors of barbie dolls, accessories, clothing and a barbie cafe!

I will name this barbie, Kate.

The staircase was surrounded by barbies. I think Tim was more excited than me! He found a Deborah Harry (Blondie) barbie which must be the coolest Barbie ever-surely!.

Skateboarding

We couldn't finish our blog on Shanghai without some photos of Tim skating the infamous SMP park. On his birthday, his lovely girlfriend had to spend a day at the skatepark taking photos of him and of course she loved every moment of it.

Tim took a picture of himself on a train trip back home - no he hasn't pissed his pants, he has just sweated HEAPS!

and he even took a close-up!