Solo flying up in Nanjing - Day 1

This time I decide to go it alone and have a bit of an adventure in Nanjing. I packed up my stylish (and heavily EF branded) bag and headed to the train station. When I got to Nanjing I headed to the metro station and proceeded to mash the keypad of the ticket machine in a confused way. After trying to put my money into the machine for a few minutes a kind-hearted local pointed out that my note was too large and I had to go to the counter to get some change.

Metro mistakes in the past, I made it to the art district that my hostel was in just in time to get completely lost in the mini-forest it was in. Eventually I stumbled into the back of the hostel and found my way through the restaurant and into reception.

Once I got settled into my room I decided to get some help from the ladies on reception. Cue lots of confusion in a foreign language! We spread my tourist map out on the desk and got down to some serious pointing and nodding with occasional bits of 'I want to go to...' in Chinese. One great thing about being in China is that producing even basic Chinese will result in people saying that your Chinese is fantastic. Positive reinforcement agogo!

The upshot of my little reception romp was that I roughly knew where I was heading. That being said, I did then leave the hostel and get immediately lost...on the plus side I got lost in an amazing little street with old style building and the best starbucks I've ever seen! Not that it was enough to spend that much on coffee!

You'd never even know it was Starbucks!

I didn't understand the name of the street but I'd guess it was 'Awesome Street'!

Wouldn't be China if there wasn't some kind of construction...

From there I continued my wander around the city and headed over to Shizishan (Lion Mountain) to have a look at the towery templey thing. Still not 100 percent on which it was...either way it was an amazing place with carved steps up to the main buildings lined with little stone lions, all with different facial expressions, some smiling, some growling and a couple having a chat. The main building was a masterpiece of lacquered wood housing some incredible pieces of art and historical notes about all of the emperors. I have to admit that I didn't read every single word about them but I did look at all the artifacts that were housed in the lower levels and checked the hell out of the badass throne that was on the ground floor (or as the Chinese more sensibly call it - the first floor!).

Gateway to another world

HIYA!!!

From Shizishan I headed back towards the hostel, getting slightly less lost on the way this time, and made my way to Fuzimiao, the area around the Confucius temple. It was dark by this point but, in China, that generally means an buttload of lanterns and lights - which was also the case here and by no means a bad thing. I wandered around looking at the wide old streets filled with tiny modern shops and dodged the occasional guy in bright yellow dragging a tourist behind him in a little buggy. I decided to duck into a little food court that I found and had some very cuminy and very expensive chicken wings. When I walked in there were immediate cries of 'Hello!' from various members of staff, accompanied by huge grins, which roughly translated as "Eh, you're English. I said an English thing! Right!?" The number of strangers who will say hello does make you feel a bit like you're in the Truman show - do they all know who I am or something!?

Anyway, I headed over to one of the windows to get my chicken and one of the younger chefs decided to try and get my number on behalf of his female colleague, who turned bright red and looked at me in a mortified way. Hilarity ensued, coupled with generous 'Tingbudong's (meaning 'I don't understand) on my part. I actually understood more than I let on, but when in doubt, claim ignorance!

Return to Lingyin

The new leader of the pack...

Okay, so my VPN is working again so I can finally get back to some blogging. In all fairness it's not just the VPN that's been holding me back, I've just been rubbish at keeping this updated. We're jumping back a bit here to my trip to Hangzhou and the visit to Lingyin temple, aparently one of the largest active temples in China!

The day started with some early morning dabing, kind of like an oniony savoury crepe, and a quick ride on Sydney's electric scooter. It was the first time id ridden one and the locals did not look convinced. After the morning's entertainment we jumped on the bus and made our way out to Lingyin temple. The scenic area around the temple, which we walked through to get to it, was absolutely stunning. We went through a big traditional gate and came across Qinglin cave, an amazing rock formation with statues carved into it, representing Buddha and his various cronies.

 We carried out and came out the other end of the cave and into a forest comprised of some seriously weird trees. I can only assume they were a bit drunk as they seemed to have forgotten which way up was and just guessed at a direction then grown that way. It was all a bit swamp meets Alice in wonderland in China. As ever on these trips I busted out the dizi and sat on a rock to entertain/infuriate the local fauna for a bit.

Is that a flute in your forest or are you just pleased to see me?

We left crossed a little river and came upon the temple itself, passing through the huge doors and into a courtyard full of trees with people milling around like interested goats. While we were walking towards the main temple building I caught sight of my first wild preying mantis! It was an amazing looking little guy, having a wobble around on one of the little stone walls around the trees - not so graceful with the walking the preying mantis.

The temple itself was incredible and housed a gigantic golden statue of Buddha in the centre. Not long after we got there a lot of the other tourist started excitedly heading towards the main temple building following a steady stream of Buddhist monks in their brown and mustard coloured robes. It turned out that a prayer ceremony was to take place so we perched inside the temple to watch. I don't have any pictures of the ceremony unfortunately as it didn't feel like a very 'please take pictures of me' kind of event but they wouldn't have done it justice anyway. The monks entered the hall and arranged themselves in rows in the central area around the statue of Buddha with a few in the centre presiding over the ceremony. There was one man rhythmically beating on a huge carven wooden frog drum (literally a massive drum shaped like a frog) pounding out like the heartbeat of a whale. This was joined by the chanting voices of the monks and created an atmosphere that just can't be described properly. Members of the public went in to pray in front of the Buddha and make offerings while the chant continued and onlookers gaped.

Pre-ceremony Buddha

From the main temple we carried on up the hill and further into the immense grounds of the temple grounds. We climbed up hundreds of steps, going past halls containing various relics and statues and some amazing carvings, finally reaching the highest hall in the temple where 3 Buddhas sat looking out over the hills. We weren't the only one to have made it up this far either, there were a few local tourists up there too and, hilariously enough, even with the incredible scenery and ornate statues all around them they seemed far more interested in grabbing some selfies with the foreigners they'd just found...us! Even having been here for 5 months, I'm still surprised by some locals' reactions when they see me and other foreigners. Lord knows what they do with the photos but if me smiling big means they do the same then where's the harm?

Another world entirely

Buddha's Eye View

The Buddha's of the top temple

Flute, fatigue and physiotherapy - Huangshan Revisited

As I said the casual stroll up the mountain became a tad more strenuous as the stone steps rolled away beneath our feet. It turns out that climbing a mountain whose summit is over a mile above sea level is pretty tough going, even if there are steps all the way up. This was more than made up for by the exquisite views of mountain peaks towering above us, tree covered valleys stretching out as far as the eye could see and, just for a bit of a change, the occasional group of guys in dress shoes and trendy blazers puffing and panting their way up the mountain with cries of 'Jiayou!' which roughly translates as "Pour some oil on it!'

While we were taking a break part way up the mountain one of the groups of dressed up dudes stopped for a break near us and one particularly snazzily dressed guy saw us and exclaimed to his friends 'Oh! Waiguoren!' in other words 'Oh! Foreigners!' He clearly wasn't expecting us to understand because when we replied 'Yup' they all looked at their friend and then fell about laughing. We carried on up the mountain with them, receiving our very own cries of 'Jiayou!' for a little while until the mountain proved too much for them (or more accurately their wardrobe) and they stopped for another break.

We carried on up the mountain with occasional stops for food, flute playing and being awestruck by how absurdly beautiful the views were. As we were resuming our climb, a man ran (yes I said ran!) past us and on up the steps. We looked at each other in shock as the man belted it off up the mountain. He was soon followed by other mountain running nutters, who all seemed to be wearing similar stuff. It turned out that we were going up the mountain on the same day as hordes of people who had come for the Summit Climb and some of them were just sprinting up there! At one point a young lad came puffing along behind us and then fell to floor grabbing his calf and groaning. It looked like he had cramp so I asked him if he wanted me to help, which received some very enthusiastic nodding and grimacing.  Tip for travellers, if you're camera-shy, don't help a Chinese guy stretch off half way up a mountain, it's cat nip for camera toting Chinese tourists!

We got to the top of the mountain after about 4 hours of walking and I celebrated by busting out the flute again!

Other Hangzhou adventures

Architecture on the lake, but what's that round the corner!?

Forget Where's Wally...Where's Hagen Daazs?

 So here are just a few more snap from my travels around Hangzhou. Not the last post from Hangzhou though as I still need to tell you all about LingYin Temple! But first here's a look at some more pretty things:

As I was walking along the river I saw a beautiful looking building, which I could only assume was of some importance as it could only be reached by passing a huge stone tablet on a stone walkway. I walked the stone slabs to get to the building only to find that, while it was indeed stunning, it also had a dirty little secret. Just round the corner from the grand entrance a western ice cream shop peeked out from behind the shutters. On the plus side, at least it wasn't immediately visible, unlike in some places where lacquered wood panels are bedecked with shiny plastic signs proclaiming the wares of Starbucks and the like - it can be kind of a mood killer...

Keep your chin up, leafy!

From there I kept a-wandering around the lake and saw these amazing trees swan diving into the water, or at least giving it a damn good go. They were held up by what looked at first like large roots growing from the middle of the trunk but turned out to be concrete posts carved to look like part of the tree. If Dali made trees...

I carried on round the lake and watched the reflection of the sun setting over the mountains, as you do, before heading to a little restaurant to find something to eat. I ordered some beef and rice and was soon tucking into some spicy tofu - not even a little bit what I had ordered but hey. It was vigorously unpleasant so I paid my bill and headed, head bowed in shame, to the safe neon glow of KFC. In my defense I was tired, as I'd walked all over the place and...shut up!
I decided it was time to catch a taxi back to meet Sydney, which turned out to be much easier said than done. What seemed like hundreds of taxis streamed past me with their little red lights shining, meaning they were not taking me anywhere.

I finally managed to get one of them to stop for me but when I showed the driver the address on my phone he started saying things that, even though I didn't really understand them, were clearly going in the direction of 'No'. I asked him why not and he said something along the lines of 'mei you dian' which I understood to mean 'There's no time'. I didn't really understand and so, seeing as my phone's battery was about to die and it held the only record of where the hell I was trying to get to, I begged my balls off!
On the way home we randomly drove into an underground car park and stopped next to some huge green shelves that said national grid on them. On the plus side, I didn't get chopped into little pieces and fed to koi carp - it turned out the 'dian' he was talking about electricity, not time. Yup, they're the same word...oh China!

Is it really Google's fault?

Well, I like to think so, yes! 'What is Google's fault?' you say...read on and find out.

My alarm went of as 5am reared its ugly head and I woke Sydney so she could take the first shift in the shower (meaning I could go back to bed for 10 minutes, safe in the knowledge that "boys get ready faster"). I had spent the last week badgering Brian from work about his trip to Huangshan, AKA the Yellow Mountains, in preparation for this trip and roped Serena, one of the local teachers at my school, into helping me to book the bus tickets and sending me the address of the bus stop.
We were all set, just a quick journey on line 9 of the metro and we arrived in good time at...the wrong bus station! Here's where the Google blaming comes in: so, upon typing an address into Google that it doesn't recognise, you get a list of alternatives (unbeknownst to me) one of which, in this case, was a bus stop close, but not close enough, to the one we needed to be at.
We sought help and the poor woman at the ticket desk finally managed to decipher what we were attempting to ask about and directed us to the other bus station - the one we were supposed to be at already...we arrived just in time to be 10 minutes late for our bus, which was happily on its way to Tunxi. The woman at this ticket desk informed us that there were, in fact, no more buses that day and asked is whether we wanted to book tickets for the following day. We went into a two-person huddle to rethink our plans, all the while being watched by a group of locals, who had been gathering to watch the show, so that when an English speaking employee was ushered forth to help the little lost laowais, she was joined by about 10 interested faces. She told us that there was another bus we could catch that day and that we should follow her. It was all a bit unclear really as there was a lot of swapping back and forth between English and Mandarin with occasional contributions from the local audience but we ended up boarding this huge bus that she led us to, with no tickets and no other passengers on the bus and only a vague idea that it was probably going where we wanted to go. We ended up at another bus station in Shanghai, where a man came and all but carried us off that bus and onto another bus. I asked whether it was the bus to Tunxi and received some waving accompanied by "Tunxi, Tunxi, Tunxi...!" So there you have it. A bit of luck and some can do attitude and missing your bus means nothing.

The bus dropped us of in Tunxi and the driver pointed over the road and said something in an encouraging tone of voice. We headed over and asked about buses at the information desk, after having spent 10 minutes furiously tapping symbols into or dictionaries to try and make sense of the timetable on the wall. She pointed us the gate eight and another women ushered is onto the bus after we asked her "zhe ge qu Tongkou ma?" AKA "This one go Tongkou?
We wedged offshore on the back seats, bags on laps, and settled in for the spine-rattling journey, all the while being regarded with curiosity by the other passengers - I guess the art house film I made was big out here too? The ticket was 19元 or £1.90 to you and me and took us to what appeared to be the front of a restaurant on a random road through Tongkou. We got off the bus and called Mr Zhang, or host for the reneging and he sent one of his lackies to pick us up.
Since leaving Shanghai, Sydney has been on the lookout for a memory card for her fancy-ass camera, as she'd forgotten hers (like a boss) and was hoping to find one here. I didn't gold or much hope as we were at the foot of a mountain but when we got to the hostel Mrs Zhang hit the phones and in no time we were loading into her car to go to a tiny shop that looked like someone's kitchen with an assortment of camera accessories in a class case. No luck there though. We went back and had dinner consisting of some of the spiciest green peppers and pork I've ever eaten, smoked ham and salami with mushrooms and tofu and egg fried rice. It was outrageously good and the spiciness definitely helped keep the cold of the mountain out - the red wine helped too.
After dinner we popped outside so Sydney could have a smoke and I could play my flute at the mountain a bit. Of given up smoking about a month before and was still going strong.

The next day began with another 5am start and a lift from Mr Zhang himself to the bus stop. Another 19元, apparently the going rate for all four-wheeled transport, saw us to the entrance to the track up the mountain and another 230元 each saw us on the path. We strolled casually up the stone steps through the trees and marvelled and the stunning sight of the mountain above us. The causal nature of the stroll was not to last...

Why can't the seals at Hangzhou lake swim?

So, here I am, travelling at over 300km an hour on my way back to Shanghai after a weekend (well, Tuesday and Wednesday) in Hangzhou. I realise there's a bit of a gap between what was happening in my last post and this one but if I wait until I'm caught up with everything to write about what's happeneing now, you'll hear about it when I'm 40. Not to worry though, I'll keep dropping in little time capsule catch-ups every now and then to fill you in on what happened in the intervening months.

I spent the last 2 days in Hangzhou, about an hour's train ride south west of Shanghai, looking at temples, strolling around forests and generally getting down to some serious culture soaking up. I arrived in Hangzhou later than I had planned as I got food poisoning the day before I was planning to come - don't drink lukewarm chicken soup from tiny restaurants. It's delicious but deadly! Fortunately I felt better by the next day and headed over to Hongqiao south railway station on the metro.

I booked my tickets using the phrase I had cherry-picked out of the dictionary app on my phone, all the while being watched by an incredulous local, who had decided to join me at the ticket window to enjoy the 'laowai trying to book a train ticket' show.I walked away with a ticket in hand for the 1030 train and possibly a greater sense of acheivement than was necessary after booking a train ticket. Trials of Hercules? Pah! I spoke Chinese to a ticket vendor!

As there was still about an hour before my train, I headed to a restaurant for some early morning chicken and noodles in a restaurant called Tomato Girl and got my breakfast on while the creep anime logo stared me out. I arrived in Hangzhou at about 1130 and was met by Sydney, a teacher who'd trained in our centre for a while before coming to Hangzhou. We grabbed a taxi to her school, located in a shopping centre, adorned with images of Doraemon because of some expo.

The Rooftop, complete with view

The wetlands from the roof

Sydney headed to class and I headed to the roof, armed with my KFC - nothing like a bout of food poisoning to make to revert to the state of 'Wimpy Westerner' when it comes to food. The view from the roof was fantastic. If Bilbo wanted to see mountains again, he had no need of Rivendell, just a couple of escalators to the roof of your friendly neighbourhood shopping centre in hangzhou. From the other side of the roof you could see the wetlands stretching away to the distant highrises of the city but here I was right in amongst the greenery. Admittedly on the roof of a huge shopping complex

Hangzhou West Lake

Old Folky Karaoke

Hangzhou Water Taxi

 From there (not the roof) I caught a taxi to 杭州西湖 or Hangzhou West Lake and walked along the water, feeling greatly relieved at being away from the grey towers, sparkling lights and incessant beeping of Shanghai as I watched Chinese tourist being ferried around the lake in little water taxis and old folks busting out some serious outdoor 'Karafolkie', which is the best word I can think of to describe the singing of traditional Chinese songs being balsted out over the mic at volume by the pensioner brigade. After a little while, and some oggling of old tombs and statues, I came to the Xiling seal society, part of the 'State Protected Intangible Cultural Heritage' - fancy. The place was phenomenal! Winding paths with etchings and carving on any piece of stone that had stayed still long enough. I wandered around the hillside, surrounded by bamboo trees, up and down the little stone steps, occasionally stopping here and there. I had a chat with the man in the museum of seals and managed to discuss the fact that I was from England and he was from Hangzhou, he liked the English, and that being from Cambridge (well kind of, right?) results in being awarded the knowing smile and nod of approval. I also ran into a young shaven headed lad doing some painting with a calligraphy brush and he said he was happy for me to take a quick snap of him in action - go tourism!

From there I headed up the hill to a small courtyard hewn out of the rock of the hill. There was a stunning view over the lake and I got a picture taken while I was there, favouring the work of the friendly artist over my selfie taking abilities. I also encountered the laziest Koy Carp I have ever seen. Apart from the odd twitch here and there, they could have been props. The pace of life out there is a tad slower - even the fish have figured it out.

Here' a look at what I saw:

Su Xiaoxiao

Wu Song's Tomb

Su Xiaoxiao's Tomb

Building in the trees

I can only assume this provides information...cool though!

Look at the nature!

Hangzhou West Lake

 

Casual Hillside Painting

It's Me!

Nature's Grotto

Erm...amazing tower?

Look, I can do a photography!

Lazy fish!

I'll take that one...

Weird bread, cloud cake, bottle of coke - okay the day has begun. Another bus trip with my new best buddy, Jake Chai, and we arrived at headquarters again. This time for a beginners Mandarin lesson. We walked around a lecture theatre pointing at pictures of vegetables and summoning phantom waiters to order what should have been broccoli but probably in fact suggesting that we build a log cabin on the ghost waiter's navel - the tones used in Mandarin are tricky and the same word means something different if you saiy it a different way. For example:

Be very careful if you want to ride someone's horse...

 Destruction of a foreign language done, we waited for our new centre managers to come and collect us to take us to our new centres. When they arrived it was like people picking puppies out of a box at a pet shop. "I'll take this one, he's got bright eyes!"

XuJiaHui centre is lucky enough to be the only centre in Shanghai with actual windows that open, or so I am told. A fact that I am very grateful for. It's on the 8th and 9th floors of an office building overlook the XuJiaHui cathedral and takes up about a third of the 9th floor and the same on the 8th. It is apparently home to over 1,000 students but not at the same time as that would defy the laws of physics more than clown cars (seriously, how do they get all those clowns in the car? It's tiny!)

The furthest left of the three big fellas is my building

The last thing on the list for the day was to find my apartment. I'd spoken to a guy after seeing his ad on Craig's List so I went to check out the apartment and...boom! Found a place to live on my second day in Shanghai.Not bad for a rookie.