1st week in China
so to start... lets just preface everything with the fact that its fucking cold here... most of the time... but indoors it's hot so you can imagine that the body get's a tad confused.... which makes people sick - I've so far been ok, but it's hit all my traveling companions... (touch wood)
NOW!
arrived in China 7 days ago (6?) (I find it hard to count properly - I blame the cold again)
Cindy was waiting for us at the airport and we got in a taxi and went back to her and Ben's house. It was so nice to see her again after all this time (mind you, it's only been like 6 months or so, but still....). Their apartment is TINY... I'll post pics as soon as I can figure out how. You MAY have to wait till I get home....
then the next day we went to Tienamen Square and had a look around, and Mao's Mausolium... standard tourist sites that I have to admit I found a tad bland... I don't know what I was expecting - but..... yeah.....
that afternoon though we went to our first market - which was CRAZY. I tell you, shopping here is quite an experience. Everyone yells at you to come have a look at their stuff - and it's no good expressing interest in ANYTHING unless you have a definite intent to buy it cos the people start haggling with you and shoving it into your hands and grabbing your arm and yelling at you as you walk off down the street. I'm getting a little bit better with the haggling... but I'm still a little scared of it all. Basically, it's best just to pick a low price and stick with it. If it really is a fair price 7 times out of 10 they'll call after you as you walk away and say ok. Like I bought a wallet for 20y, after they offered it to me for 160y... these are the kind of mark ups that you're dealing with... :) or, my friend Jess was buying a fake louis viton bad and some other fake wallet and they were asking for 1600y for them both... she ended up paying 200y, which Cindy said was even pretty pricey really for what they were...
1 yuan basically equalls about 20 cents or so.... so sometimes I feel petty haggling over the difference of like $1 or whatever... but sometimes it's just the principal of the thing - cos they all want to get as much out of the foreigners as they can.
Cindy is just AMAZING to have around... I don't know what we'd be doing if not for her - I just wouldn't know what to do... or where to go... or what to say - or things like how much things should cost and all of that... Jess Gareth and I went into the city for the first time without her yesterday, and we did ok - but then when we wanted to come home we were too tired to deal with the pub trans (3 different trains and a bus) and wanted to get a taxi - so we had to call cindy and handed the phone over to the taxi driver so he'd know where we wanted to go.
I felt kinda sorry for her - cos she wasn't feeling great for a while, but I think she felt like she had to come out and stuff just for us.... I wish I knew a bit more of the language just to spare her the effort some times. It must be hard when you have to order food for a whole table cos they can't read the menu. :)
We went one day to this Taoist temple, which was fascinating and beautiful. I can't wait to share photos of that too. I could have spent ages and ages just wandering around and looking and taking photos.... it was just amazing. It was funny too - as it had all these 'departments' that you could go and worship at, or make wishes or whatever. Some of them were quite funny, like, there was the 'Department of The Hell', 'Department of 15 kinds of Horrible Death', 'Department of the Animals', 'Department of Justafyable Wealth'... I bought a wish, but I didn't make it when I was there, I'm going to bring it home. I figure I can make it when I get home (oh, they're these red talisments that you write your name on the back of and hang in the appropriate place)...
We also explored the Hutongs - which are these little old alleyways in amongst Beijing City... we got on these bike/cab things - basically a little carriage for two people to sit on while a guy pedals the bike in front - and they took us around to look down all these different little streets. It was amazingly beautiful. And odd. I felt stragne - cos I was witnessing such extreme poverty in some places - cos while some of the houses were abandoned, some of them were still being used, and everything was so old and run down.... it should have been sad. But I couldn't stop myself from just thinking about how much character everthing had, and the history to it all, and how long it had been there, and how just plainly beautiful it all was. I felt like a spoiled, superficial westener..... but I guess who am I to judge how people should live their lives? And if they're happy, which most of them seemed to be.... why shouldn't I think of that as beautiful? Or is that just another lame justification.... ??
We went to the Forbidden City yesterday - which was... 'nice'.. It was such a touristy place - even though it was freezign yesterday, there were still hundreds of people there... We got an audio-tour thing which you can listen to as you walk around... which was really good and interesting, and I think without that it would have been much worse. I don't think it was as beautiful as some of the otehr places we've been so far - it was huge and magestic, and I did have fun imagining it filled with people from 500 or more years ago and what it would have looked like and all that, but after a while all my photos started looking the same... The gardens out the back was my favourite... but by then they wanted to clsoe and we didn't get as much time out there as I would have liked.
I just can't wait to get some photos up here!!!!! I want to share the china-love!!!
I'm going to have to go soon - but remind me to tell you all about my AMAZINGLY COOL WONDERFUL BEST NEW YEARS EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER!!!! and share with you the EVIL evil evil drinking game we learnt that night!!!!! or, I'll remind me.... or whatever...
next time I'll bring my diary so I remember more stuff....
keep warm for me!!!
NOW!
arrived in China 7 days ago (6?) (I find it hard to count properly - I blame the cold again)
Cindy was waiting for us at the airport and we got in a taxi and went back to her and Ben's house. It was so nice to see her again after all this time (mind you, it's only been like 6 months or so, but still....). Their apartment is TINY... I'll post pics as soon as I can figure out how. You MAY have to wait till I get home....
then the next day we went to Tienamen Square and had a look around, and Mao's Mausolium... standard tourist sites that I have to admit I found a tad bland... I don't know what I was expecting - but..... yeah.....
that afternoon though we went to our first market - which was CRAZY. I tell you, shopping here is quite an experience. Everyone yells at you to come have a look at their stuff - and it's no good expressing interest in ANYTHING unless you have a definite intent to buy it cos the people start haggling with you and shoving it into your hands and grabbing your arm and yelling at you as you walk off down the street. I'm getting a little bit better with the haggling... but I'm still a little scared of it all. Basically, it's best just to pick a low price and stick with it. If it really is a fair price 7 times out of 10 they'll call after you as you walk away and say ok. Like I bought a wallet for 20y, after they offered it to me for 160y... these are the kind of mark ups that you're dealing with... :) or, my friend Jess was buying a fake louis viton bad and some other fake wallet and they were asking for 1600y for them both... she ended up paying 200y, which Cindy said was even pretty pricey really for what they were...
1 yuan basically equalls about 20 cents or so.... so sometimes I feel petty haggling over the difference of like $1 or whatever... but sometimes it's just the principal of the thing - cos they all want to get as much out of the foreigners as they can.
Cindy is just AMAZING to have around... I don't know what we'd be doing if not for her - I just wouldn't know what to do... or where to go... or what to say - or things like how much things should cost and all of that... Jess Gareth and I went into the city for the first time without her yesterday, and we did ok - but then when we wanted to come home we were too tired to deal with the pub trans (3 different trains and a bus) and wanted to get a taxi - so we had to call cindy and handed the phone over to the taxi driver so he'd know where we wanted to go.
I felt kinda sorry for her - cos she wasn't feeling great for a while, but I think she felt like she had to come out and stuff just for us.... I wish I knew a bit more of the language just to spare her the effort some times. It must be hard when you have to order food for a whole table cos they can't read the menu. :)
We went one day to this Taoist temple, which was fascinating and beautiful. I can't wait to share photos of that too. I could have spent ages and ages just wandering around and looking and taking photos.... it was just amazing. It was funny too - as it had all these 'departments' that you could go and worship at, or make wishes or whatever. Some of them were quite funny, like, there was the 'Department of The Hell', 'Department of 15 kinds of Horrible Death', 'Department of the Animals', 'Department of Justafyable Wealth'... I bought a wish, but I didn't make it when I was there, I'm going to bring it home. I figure I can make it when I get home (oh, they're these red talisments that you write your name on the back of and hang in the appropriate place)...
We also explored the Hutongs - which are these little old alleyways in amongst Beijing City... we got on these bike/cab things - basically a little carriage for two people to sit on while a guy pedals the bike in front - and they took us around to look down all these different little streets. It was amazingly beautiful. And odd. I felt stragne - cos I was witnessing such extreme poverty in some places - cos while some of the houses were abandoned, some of them were still being used, and everything was so old and run down.... it should have been sad. But I couldn't stop myself from just thinking about how much character everthing had, and the history to it all, and how long it had been there, and how just plainly beautiful it all was. I felt like a spoiled, superficial westener..... but I guess who am I to judge how people should live their lives? And if they're happy, which most of them seemed to be.... why shouldn't I think of that as beautiful? Or is that just another lame justification.... ??
We went to the Forbidden City yesterday - which was... 'nice'.. It was such a touristy place - even though it was freezign yesterday, there were still hundreds of people there... We got an audio-tour thing which you can listen to as you walk around... which was really good and interesting, and I think without that it would have been much worse. I don't think it was as beautiful as some of the otehr places we've been so far - it was huge and magestic, and I did have fun imagining it filled with people from 500 or more years ago and what it would have looked like and all that, but after a while all my photos started looking the same... The gardens out the back was my favourite... but by then they wanted to clsoe and we didn't get as much time out there as I would have liked.
I just can't wait to get some photos up here!!!!! I want to share the china-love!!!
I'm going to have to go soon - but remind me to tell you all about my AMAZINGLY COOL WONDERFUL BEST NEW YEARS EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER!!!! and share with you the EVIL evil evil drinking game we learnt that night!!!!! or, I'll remind me.... or whatever...
next time I'll bring my diary so I remember more stuff....
keep warm for me!!!
posted by ekstasis at 7:29 PM
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