Take me home country road, sat next to Ali.

Home time, and last breakfast but I was pleased to head home, back to a world where people do not stop, point, laugh and take pictures of diversity. I always find tours hilarious because it’s very much a group until you get to the final airport and then it’s everyone for themselves. Ali and I wanted to sit next to each other for the first time on the holiday, and 48 people were not getting in my way.

We had yet another delay (story of the trip), and then landed in Heathrow like zombies. Unfortunately we missed our coach so had the get a later one back to Bristol, to pick up the rats, and then back to Exeter. Home sweet home.

Ali is a god!

We visited the Ming Tombs and sat in the sun. Then we went to the Avenue of Statues and Ali and I must have been a bit sleep deprived because we took photo’s imitating the animal. I must admit that my camel is rather good. There was also a large turtle at the end and if you touch the head, it brings you luck. If you touch the head and tail, you become a god. See picture, Ali is a god.

Then the highlight of the tour, we went to the Great Wall at Badaling, walking up the very very steep slope. It’s decepting, it’s so steep. Ali and I made it up 3 towers, mum up 2. and Brigitte did all 4! There is lots of erosion on the wall floor but it was so nice to see the postcard picture of the wall on top of the mountain tops. We sat and contemplated how it was built. I loved the wall. Ali and I also were illegal and had our photo taken kissing. Problem was that I had it zoomed in so I had to take it 3 times ;)

On our way back to the hotel, we visited the Olympic 2008 stadium, the Birds nest and the water cube, the gymnastics and tennis stadia. We had a Peking duck dinner and were shown the duck first, nice.

3000 concubines and I’m sheep

Up at 6:30 again, but it was worth it as we visited Beijing. We started at the Forbidden city with it’s 9999 rooms, and 3000 concubines, many for one night only. People were forbidden to enter the city, and eunuchs worked there.

Next was Tiananmen Square, which was very busy because of National day, which meant that the subway was a big hairy. We saw the Chairman Mao picture and had the obligatory picture.

Next was the Temple of Heaven. As we sat and looked at the Temple, a little girl came over and held my hand, and instructed her granddad to take pictures. She then sang songs on the guides microphone. She was so cute.

On the bus, we discovered our Chinese birth years. I’m a sheep, Olivia, Hayden and Dad are all roosters and Caitlin is a rat. Brigitte is a tiger, mum is a monkey and Ali is a dog.

We passed the Olympic velodrome and Chinese Disney land which isn’t finished because it has ran out of money.

6.5 hour bus journey over a concrete road!

Only 3 hours sleep, and our cases had to be out at 6:30 but we were like zombies. We visited the 3 gorges project, but the security was so tight that we had to leave everything apart from camera. The bus was checked for explosives, then we went up to see the full scale of the locks in daylight and the dam.

We got on the bus to the airport at 10am but the only seat was on the back row but there was no room at all, over a concrete road. I had to take ibuprofen for my back after 10 minutes as the journey was so painful. What was supposed to be a 4 hour journey, which was bad enough, turned into a 6 hour journey!

For lunch, we sat outside an embroidery factory and used their toilets, without buying anything. Our lunch was a chicken breast, egg and cake. I’m not sure the Chinese do packed lunch.

Anyone who does the journey should wear a sports bra, including the men. The journey went on and on and on, but I slept for all 6. 5 hours of it. By the end, tempers were running short and one individual would not swap seats so that Ali and I could sit together. We had not sat next to each other since Bristol! I wasn’t best pleased as their family also insisted to sit next to each other at dinner, and everyone had to move for all 6 of them, but he wouldn’t move for one flight to Beijing.

The feeling as the lock doors opened!

Early rise, early brekkie. Today we travelled through the first gorge which was very window. Due to the rise in water level, the calligraphy on the walls was moved above the water line. Previously, the junks (boats) were pulled up stream by trackers (local people). All of the trackers trails are now going to be under water but we were lucky to have seen the last before it’s submerged because of the dam. Strangely the trackers always pulled the junks naked but no one knows why.

We went on a ferry to the sampans, looking at monkeys and hanging coffins. We had to wear a life jacket on the sampan which always fills you with confidence. The horrid wooden plans to transfer boats as not my favourite.

Ali and I say on the front of the boat as we went through the next gorge, sporting my pashmina on her head to protect her ear. She didn’t love me taking pictures of her.

In the evening, after another not so cheap acupuncture session, we had cabaret and were all shocked that our group was the first act! We got up to sing happy birthday in Chinese and ‘on the Yangtze’ in front of everyone.

I slept for 20 minutes when there was a continuous banging on the door. Unfortunately, we were supposed to go through the 3 gorges dam at 9am but it was postponed to midnight so we set out alarms, but we had started going through early. I managed to put my clothes on inside out, and couldn’t find a jumper so just went. This has been my dream since Uni, to see the 3 gorges dam.

5 locks in total, but we only went through 4 because it’ currently going through the last tranche of water rise. The screaming was sooooo loud but when the first lock opened, everyone went aaaaaaa, as though it was the first people to see the sun reappear. But of course, we saw one and then we wanted to see another, and another and another. For 3 hours in the cold. There was clapping, but only a handful of us stayed up until 3am to go through all of the locks. One of my dreams had come true though.

Acupuncture lecture followed by an ear infection

Another earlier start, but this time was my choice because I wanted to join Thai Chi. We listened to a talk on the Yangtze, followed by a talk on Chinese medicine including acupuncture, cupping and scrapping. Ali fell asleep, Jo went to the ghost temple but then we had to visit the doctor to try out some Chinese medicine so Ali had acupuncture as well as 12 tablets a day!!!! All for the price of £68.

We played cards with mum and Brigitte and sat on the front of the boat. In the evening we had the Captains reception, but alas I had potatoes, brad and rice, well rounded meal. We had a modelling show of different costumes through the ages and ethnic group. At dinner everyone sang Happy Birthday and I had a scroll, and the biggest cheer.

New shoes, taxi hygiene and live animals

After a chaotic brekkie, we travelled through the traffic of Congquing, a mountain city which uses natural gas in all vehicles because of the hills. The view from the pagoda was lovely, as was the 3 gorges museum, an insight into what we were about to embark on. Ali bought a painting done by someone without arms, he paints with his mouth.

On the way back from the pagoda, we saw a man by the ide of the road poo-ing! It was a taxi driver and apparently it’s common!

At lunch I had a bowl of string beans (with chilli), my now favourite, and then we visited a farmers market, not to be done if you are squemish! The smell was awful, chickens packed up, live ducks in a rack, eels. I stopped to buy some shoes (which I was still superglueing every night), and we lost the guide! Luckily Lillian was with us. Jo went for a foot massage while mum, ali, Brigitte and I people watched in Starbucks.

Before getting on the boat we stopped in a super market and people went crazy buying alcohol and food as though there wouldn’t be any on the boat! There was, but it was more expensive. We went by funniular down to the board, and embarked to the chorus of a marching band while mum and I navigated the rocky steps. We were also greeted by a heat gun pointed to our foreheads. Nice.

And off we went on our Yangtze cruise.

My 30th birthday

I really couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t wait to get up and celebrate my 30th birthday. At 8:45 I opened my door to find balloons and banners had been taped to the door overnight and mum, Jo and Brigitte were singing loudly. I opened my binoculars and earrings and then headed to brekkie where my chair was beautifully decorated with balloons and banners and all of my pressies and cards. The balloons and banners even followed me on the coach!

We went to the hakka community where I was bought a head dress of flowers to wear so I really stood out like a sore thumb. We walked though the long street of shops, with some horrible smells and multiple street ventures with all types of meat on sticks (I didn’t partake alas). Astonishingly, babies do not have nappies on and their baby grows don’t have a bottom, they just go where ever they are!

I only wore the head dress for half a day before it was starting to look a bit drab, but we had lunch and then more shopping but Ali, mum and I opted for starbucks. By now, I hated Chinese toilets because they smelled like mens toilets. Our plane was 2 hours late this time, and unfortunately mum was between me and another big guy so couldn’t move. We watched the coach clock as it turned over to the 21st of September, 264 days until my next birthday. The luggage arrived at 1am (Ali was asleep for an hour by then), then we had just 6 hours sleep.

My last day in my twenties, with the pandas

My last day in my twenties and what a day to spend looking back at the last decade. After a 2.5 hour drive, we arrived at the panda sanctuary. Boy panda’s are referred to as a playboy as they mate and leave. If a panda has twins, one of the babies is abandoned and they only stay with mum for 1.5 years. They are very solitary animals and hate each other, apart from 3 days a year when they can mate, but they are really picky. It makes you wonder how they exist.

We visited Ya’an panda sanctuary as Wolong was hit by the earthquake and being reconstructed. Two pandas died in the earthquake. What’s amazing about the sanctuary is that they aren’t in cages, it’s all open. We watched 1year olds playing in the trees, through tyres, sticking their tongue out and playing with each other. They were just so childlike. We saw the 2 year olds asleep and a 1 month year old in an incubator, they were so cute!

On the way back to the hotel, the whole coach was taught how to sing happy birthday in Chinese and Bob and I were sang too.

I tired to use the internet in the hotel but alas, facebook and blogs are banned in china.

At the local restaurant, the lights were dimmed as a very large cake came out and mum started crying. She had arrange it with Lillian. The whole group sang to me and Bob in Chinese, and even the Chinese were singing. We cut the cake, had a cocktail and that was it, my last day in my twenties.

Roasted peas and a pop idol

A late start, we had a 7:30 wake up call. Croissants for brekkie, and a visit to a jade factory where Brigitte was in here element. Mum and Brigitte bought things, ali and I bought a hot choc. We drove through the horrendous traffic to the airport where I quizzed our guide ‘Tiger’ about environmental things. We had a full Chinese meal at the airport, and then flew to Chengdu (delayed again). On board, our in-flight snack was a bag of roasted peas but they were gorgeous. Quick loo stop, in the disabled toilet again because I refused to use Chinese toilets and didn’t for the whole trip. However, the sign on the door said ‘deformed man end place’. Me thinks the translation was wrong.

We arrived in Chengdu to a heat camera monitoring our body temperature. Anyone would think that we had loads of diseases in England! However, we couldn’t get out of the airport because the pop idol winner was coming home at the exact some time as us, so we followed her out with loads of teenagers screaming and taking pictures.

Chengdu was just 50 miles from last years earthquake epicentre. What I didn’t understand was that when it struck, people then lived in tents during the aftershocks! This doesn’t make sense to me. However, people now value love and family over money as they lost so much, but gained too.

We had a lovely hotel with dubbed tv, even though the original tv programme was in English. We ate at a local restaurant and I found my favourite meal, chicken with nuts and chilli, a local delicacy.

Terracotta army

Today we visited the Little Wild Goose pagoda in some gorgeous gardens, we watched Tai Chi, people dancing while balancing balls on bats, twirling flags in preparation for the national day, and 60 years since new China was formed). We walked along the city walls, and then visited the Terracotta Warrier factory and then went onto the Terracotta Warriers site. Concubines and animals were all buried alive, and the booby trappers so that they took their secrets with them. The first emperor prepared his tomb from age 13. The heads, hands, body and legs of the warriors are all separate and no two warriors are the same. What’s amazing is how broken the pieces are, and how patient people must be to put them back together.

What I do find amazing is that the Chinese are so patient. There is mercury running as a stream in many of the tombs, and if they open them, the artefacts will most certainly perish so they are waiting until technology is available to open them! So unlike westernised views of ‘I want everything…now’

Only 1000 warriors are exposed, 5000 left underground. The horses ad chariots were in formation under the aircraft carriers.

After a quick change, Ali, Jo and mum went to the Dynasty show while Brigitte and I drank 4 cocktails each!

Showercap protection

Our 21 month anniversary! However, it wasn’t so lucky because our cases had gone to the airport before breakfast, and the strap on my sandal completely broke off! So I had to try and do a blue peter job with sellotape but it so didn’t work. Another train journey, this time on the maglev which can reach 400km per hour on magnetic levitation. However, not after 11am and we were late so we only got p to 300km/h. At the airport we had the delights of our hotel packed lunch, cheese square in stale bread and a banana, yummy! On the plane, Ali did her normal trip of sleeping head down on the table. I don’t know how she does it!

We had arrived in Xian, visited a mausoleum which had miniature naked bodies but I was so scared of the glass floor that I completely missed it! We did have blue plastic on our shoes though, nice and sweaty. On the bus to our new hotel, we noticed that all fruit on trees were bagged up, even though they were still on the tree!! To stop pests apparently, but I think it was pre-wrapped. We spotted my favourite too, lots of bamboo scaffolding. In the evening we had western style again which was disappointing. We had a drink in the bar and I superglued my shoes after the bellboy got me some superglue from outside somewhere (I tipped him 3 times the cost of the glue, I was that grateful!). Picture this though, I never ever use superglue, my dad does things like that. Ali had a great suggestion to hold it though, shower caps so I superglued my sandals while wearing 2 shower caps on my hands for protection.

Not so bullet train

Another earlier start at 6:30 (the time of the morning when it’s not advisable to speak to ali). To encourage people to talk to each other, everyone had to move 2 spaces which added a lot of confusion in the bus and was the main talking point for the following 2 weeks! We went to the train station to board the bullet train which wasn’t so much a bullet as we broke down half way. There was smoke, there was an awful smell, a very sweaty driver was running up and down the train turning the computers back on and we didn’t have a clue what was going on as it was all in Chinese! All we knew was that people kept running up and down, and mopping the floor over and over again.

We reached Suzcho and went to the gardens of the humble administration which did have flowers in it this time. We had western style lunch but to be honest, we were missing Chinese food. We visited a silk factory and learned how silk is made, by 10,000 silk worms to make a top and 100 to make a bra!

We had a canal boat ride, and back on the bullet train that was more like a bullet this time. For dinner we went to a very large convention centre for sloppy Chinese food (we were used to westernised Chinese food). Ali and mum went home to bond, while Jo, Brigitte and I went up the Jinmao tower with a lift that flew up 88 floors in 40 seconds. The tallest building was next door and the view of the lights was amazing! We then walked about the waterfront and had hagen daz.

We were papped in Shanghai

There is a first time for everything and today was the first time that I had fried rice for breakfast. We took our bus to Jo Yian gardens which didn’t have any plants in it which was bizarre. We went through the old town, walked in the famous tea house and then walked out again when we found out that we didn’t have enough time. Coy carp were everywhere, called lucky lucky fish because it’s one of the few things that Chinese people don’t eat. We went shopping, and then were handed a panda card by Lillian to count us back on the coach. Jo of course had the rude one of the pack!

We then went on a boat trip to see the Bund and Pearl Tower that has 22 honeymoon suites!. For lunch we went to a Mongolian restaurant whereby you pick whatever meat, veg and sauce, and it’s cooked for you. Attached to the restaurant was a cashmere factory but window shopping was enough for my salary. We went to Nanjing road to hop, where we saw a parade of people wearing chicken costumes, followed by people doing kung Fu on a stage which was amazing. However, we had the paparatzzi around us, constantly taking pictures of us. Brigitte waved and smiled to the camera. They were even trying to be discreet about taking them, but it was obvious! The number of walls that we must now appear on!

After a little rest and watching the amazing view outside of our window of the worlds tallest building, we went to an acrobatic show which had lots of ooooo, eeeee, ahhhhh. How do people learn to balance on shares and a huge plant pot on their heads? As we left, my oh such adorable family left me on the other side of 4 lanes of traffic.

12&13th September 2009 – Do you have flu? Yes or No!

Our adventure actually started on the 11th with a very rushed drive to Bristol, to drop off 2 rats, one of which had an operation a few days earlier and couldn’t go to the person who was looking after them. Bit stressful, but oh it didn’t end there. After leaving Bristol coach station, we then had the worry of whether we were going to get there in time so every traffic jam made our faces drop even more. But, we made it, on time! Hooray, but our gladness was short lived when we were told that as we were on a group booking, only two of us were allowed to sit together! But our mums met for the first time in Heathrow airport!.

I’m a nightmare on planes, we were supposed to sleep as we would arrive in the morning, but that would mean that I would have missed out on 3 films so sleeping was out the window (I later regretted this decision). When we arrived in China, we weren’t allowed off the plane and were handed health questionnaires asking – have you got cold symptoms? Who would write yes!!!! We were greeted into China with a whole entourage of people wearing masks, nice welcome!

Due to visa requirements, we also had to line up in visa order number, almost 50 of us! Luckily, I was number one (of course!) However, that did mean that when we went through baggage claim, I had to hold up a sign saying Lillian (our tour guide), who was visa number 49! This of course meant that everyone then decided to ask me questions about the trip.

We had a long drive into the centre of Shanghai, a city of 3000 sky scrapers! It also ha the highest building in the world. We went straight to see the jade bhudda but everyone was so sleepy that I really couldn’t say anything about it. We had some relax time but I’m not one to sleep in the daytime so I went for walk with mum (always eventful as she was wearing her complimentary slippers that didn’t come with her when we were walking around as it got jammed in the floor and sent her flying. But that wasn’t the eventful bit, mum thought it would be a good idea to go shopping so out we went, took our lives in our own hands by crossing 6 lanes of traffic to then go the wrong way! Funnily enough, we were the only westerners doing this.

Dinner was a family style 10 person table with a lazy susan, and chopsticks. After dinner we went to the coffee juice for ice creams and snow pear juice (never to be drunk again, it was horrid). Our guide in Shanghai was ‘fun fun’, or mini vica as mum and I called her.