China + Hong Kong

Hello,

We reached Beijing and as much fun as the train journey was, we were happy to finish and get back to normality and eat proper food other than instant noodles and crisps. We had a hectic start trying to get a taxi from Beijing train station but luckily we worked out that the hostel was only about 1km up the road so we walked! We met some French guys who paid 10 dollars and got a tour of the city before getting the same hostel!

Beijing is really cool! We spent a few days going round on bikes which was funny, the whole city is flat so it's easy to get around but you have to careful not to get run over by the taxis, buses, cars and the other 10 millions cyclists hurtling around! We did the usual sights like Tiananmen Square, The Forbidden City, The Great Wall and the Summer Palace (It has a large marble boat in it's lake!) . The Great Wall was awesome, we did a 10km walk on the wall from a place called Jinshanling to Simatai with a guy we met from Germany called Thom who was going to be our business partner (mail me for an explanation!) and it was pretty impressive! After that we spent the next few days just chilling, shopping and riding our rusty bikes! My mate Rob had a bit of a nightmare, he went to Tiananmen Square to watch the changing of the guard, he locked his bike up, came back about an hour later and it was gone! Apparently this happens all the time though and I've heard that some people have had at least 3 bikes nicked while in Beijing!!

After spending about a week in Beijing we left on the train (again) to go to Xi'an which is where the Terracotta Warriors are, the place itself is an absolute dive but you only go there to see the warriors and that's about it. The Terracotta warriors are a lot more impressive in the pictures than they are in real life! I think we were expecting something a bit more grand but really they are not all that, they are in a massive hanger type building and they kind of look like they've been placed there by the tourist board for the masses. It was cool to see them but I don't think I'll ever go back.....tick that box!

Shanghai was the next stop on our list and again we boarded a train for the uptenth time and also did the usual pot noodle and crisps shopping before getting on! The train was really nice apart from the fact we had the top bunks (they are cheaper!!) and you really don't have much room to move. I had to get off my bunk just to drink a bottle of water! I don't think they were made for western guys! They also turn the lights off at about 10pm and then on again at 6am in the morning automatically along with the TV that you get in each cabin which didn't work properly and played the strangest TV shows / adverts. I don't even think the Chinese got the programmes?? All very funny though!

Shanghai was a nice place but really it's for shopping and that's about it. The Bund is pretty cool at night and we got a boat along the river with these guys (Kev and Rob) that we met in our guest house - I'm still traveling with them now! Across the water from the bund is the CBD of Shanghai, at night all the buildings light up with big screens and it looks awesome! On one of the days I managed to get ripped off with a Tea House scam (will explain another time.....was not happy!!) and we didn't really do much in Shanghai as there isn't much to do apart from shop!

Hong Kong is another shopping heaven but with beaches! We stayed in this big old bulding called Chungking Mansions which is pretty famous in HK. It's basically a maze of about 20-30 guest houses with lots of indians and africans roaming about generally snarling at each other and selling whatever they can. It's got a good atmosphere downstairs, the indians don't change wherever they go and you can also get a great curry which was a nice change from noodles! One of the nights was a bit weird, after trying to find my guest house (took about 45 mins!!) I noticed lots of police walking round the building, suddenly at about 4.30am we got a loud knock at the door, 3 police were standing there and demanding passports! We crapped it and thought we were in trouble but luckily they were only looking for illegal immigrints and had done this to everyone staying in Chungking Mansions!! We heard the next day that they caught about 15 people that night! The weather wasn't so great in HK (as it hasn't been for the rest of the trip either) and we had 3 days of typhoon!! Bit of a bugger as we had planned to spend some time at the beach! We did get one day at a place called Repulse Bay but the weather was pretty dire and it started to rain again at the end of the afternoon so we had a little dip and that was it!

All in all China was great! I just wish I had more time to explore the more remote parts of the country but it's such a big place you need lots of time to see it all!

Laters and speak soon!

Richard