Welcome to China, Want to go get some coffee/see art/drink?

NO! Oh sorry... 

As you can tell, I’ve made it to China. 

I spent my last few days in Korea researching and checking out the markets in Seoul, then hitting the town at night. Really nothing event full sorry so ill move on.

I hit China and had the info on how to get to the hostel from the subway, it looked very straightforward. After passing the Chinese immigration, which was funny, no customs, and they took a 2 second look at the passport. I headed to the train. The ride from the Airport to the city was about 30 min on a high-speed train, when I hit the city and transferred I got my first taste of China's Public transport. I have never seen soo many people before. It was more packed than the trains in Sydney during the New Years Eve train ride home... and I had a 30kg backpack that takes the place of 1 person to squeeze on.

The locals didn't seem to care though, they just pushed harder to get on.

Arriving at the hostel after a while of searching, I checked in and hit the city. First off the bank was "Tian An Men" square. Another train ride, this time not to bad as I didn't have my backpack with me, but still massively packed. I arrived at Tian An Men square and had a look around.

In the square you have the Gate to the Forbidden City, National Museum, Monument to the people, Memorial to Chairman Mao, and The Great Hall of the people, then a flag in the middle. The square is heavily guarded with police, and soldiers and secret police (not to secret as when they change guard they march in formation in and out of the square), pictures of some of these people are obviously forbidden.

I had a look around and was taking a few pictures when suddenly I was tapped on the shoulder. "Hi, Where you from, you speak English? I’m traveling to... Want to get a drink somewhere so I can practice my English", I knew before the question was asked that this young lady was after some money and when asked to go for a drink I knew it as a scam... but after the 12th person approaching me asking the same scripted thing, I got fed up with it.

That night I met with a friend some of you may know. Damir (work colleague from Sydney)
was in Beijing on a Uni Study trip, so we hit the town with a few people from his tour group. We ended up in the most western part of Beijing, and tried for some time to find a Chinese food (my first night in china and I have Italian food? lol nah), but we found in a side street some carts which different types of meat on a stick. It was really nice and at 60 cents a stick it was cheap as.... Afterwards we visited the German embassy (a land mark to meet another member of the uni group), then off to the club. We walked off the dinner. Sightseeing Damir Style :) 

Then ended up at a nice club and danced the night away, I left Damir and the others early to prepare for a long day. It was GREAT NIGHT.

The following day, I got up early and hit the Forbidden City.

I entered via Tian An Men Square and proceeded past several large gates. It was like layer on layer of the city, you could pay a few Yuan to get up onto the gates and there was not many tourist groups doing this, so I gave it a go. At this point I was approached again... by someone, automatically saying no thanks to the offer I stood I queue, till he told me. "There’s another ticket box over at the entrance, same price". I took a good look at the price and walked over and checked it again, a few were paying here as well so seemed legit. I headed up into the gate. It really wasn't anything special, there were some historical photos and things, but it was only nice for the view. 

When I got back out the same guy was waiting for me (that told me about the ticket office), giving him the benefit of the doubt I had a chat to him. His name was "Erik", he was from Xi'an Art University, they had an art expo here in the Forbidden City to raise money for there courses, and would I like to see it...? I thought yeah why not, worst that can happen is there’s an entry fee... so before I entered, I checked. It was "Free". Erik spent a good 30 min with me in the small room going though the traditional Chinese paintings and there meaning, all down to what bamboo, lotus, fish, winter, summer etc. etc. mean. It was all really informative. It gave me more understanding to why some paintings are in groups and stuff. After the end Erik posed the question... "So why one you want to buy, only 600 Yuan (100 odd $)". Bang there was the catch, I told him I couldn't possibly look after such lovely art as this in my year long travel, and it would be a shame to see it damaged... Then out came the silk with paintings.. "This no get damaged", 300 Yuan.

Sorry I don't have that much on me, ill give you a donation for your time and effort. So I tipped him and headed out (Short version took me about 20 min to get out). It was truly very interesting but I have no interest in buying the paintings.

Back on track in the Forbidden City, I followed the electronic GPS activated guide I had around my neck. Every time I got close to a new thing it would kick in and tell me about it. I headed away from the major tourist route into the sides of the palace. Visiting a clock museum, with all the old clocks from the palace. Some 400 years of history and several different types of clocks. Then heading back out, I visited a massive marble wall with 7 dragons on it. It was crafted around 1400 AD, and one of the tiles was (according to legend) broken when it was built. So out of fear of the emperors wrath the crafters made one out of wood and painted it white as the marble. Over time the wood has aged faster than the marble and can be seen now. It was quite funny. The wall is one of 4 in existence with 7 dragons in the world, 2 of which are in Beijing. 

The City had 12 odd sub palaces on the east and west and the central axis of mayor palaces, which is where the main tourist groups go. The smaller side palaces where 10th the size but no less beautiful. At the top of the Forbidden City are the gardens with Cyprus trees and rock gardens.

It took me the entire day to go through the entire city. Way too much to blog about but the images above show a glimpse of what it was like.

Leaving the city, I headed to the night markets. The night markets are a traditional (Tourist attraction now)

Markets, with various types of things that can be eaten. One of the most famous being scorpions, so naturally I had to try. It was actually not bad. Very crunchy and nothing to it... like a dried piece of bacon.

They also had sea horses, starfish, crickets, spiders... and more.

The market was also the home of all things souvenir and fake.

The following day, I once again got up early as today I was off to the Great Wall of China. My idea was I would go to the less touristy place, which also meant that I had to catch public transport to get there. FUN! Having a detailed set of instructions from the hostel, I was off. The train part was easy, but the bus was more complicated. I was looking for the 619 bus to the city I had on my paper, but every 619 bus I tried to board wouldn't let me on and kept pointing at the kiosk behind me, I asked the poor kiosk owner like 5 times why but language barrier was the issue. 

It didn't help that I had the annoying people saying "Private cab to wall, no big bus go there...". At last I found out it wasn't the kiosk it was the big ugly bus terminal that was behind me. Just the signs were in Chinese so I missed it. 2 hours later and a bus change I was at the Wall.

I took a long chair ride up to the top of the wall, and then hiked the wall up and down. The section I had chosen had almost no tourists on it so, it gave me a good chance to get some nice pictures and take in the surroundings without the crowds. The wall was extremely steep in some sections and slippry. The wall was nice but the smog around the area coming from Beijing downed the experience a little.

After exploring the wall, I got to take the longest toboggan ride back down.

The following day I visited the bird’s nest and bubble (the Beijing Olympics site), it was not as impressive as Sydney’s. The buildings were nice but there was no activity or things to do in the park.

From there I visited the bell tower park, home of the worlds largest temple bell.

That night we learned how to make dumplings at the hostel.

I had one more full day in Beijing and 2 things to see. The Temple of Heaven and the Summer Palace. That day I started early and headed to the temple of heaven. The site was 4 times larger than the Forbidden City; the site was a historic temple to heaven and earth. I visited the temple and had a good look around then walked down the main road to the other sites. The main road had 3 parts, the center was a polished granite road, this was only closed by god, not even the emperor may walk on it, the left was for the emperor and the right was for the priests and the high ministers.

Next up was the Storage area for the pray stones and emperor stones, this was a perfectly round yard with high walls and 3 buildings. The walls were made from granite and when you made noise in the yard it would echo 3 times, and whispers where magnified around the yard. Was funny to test.

The last point was the mound to earth. It had everything to do with 9. There were 9 stones in the center, then 18, then etc.… and 9 doors to the yard. It was something the emperor at the time insisted on and everything had to be made with the multiple of 9.

After walking around and seeing a few other random things like a farsting palace, and a double pagoda, I left the temple of heaven and noticed a market place on the other side of the road.

The market was full 100% of fakes, everything from silk, watches, electronic goods, laptops, phones, cameras, torches and food. All fake and able to be negotiated. I had to get something for the hell of it, so I set my eyes on something I knew no one would ever believe was fake and I thought would be fun… an IPhone 5. Yeap its not even manufactured yet and it’s already a fake in china. So after 20 min I got the price as low as the girl would go, and bought it. $35 Australian not bad for a “phone” I thought. Something I would later regret… The phone wasn’t from apple obviously and it had a cheap $2 java interface (thing the ads that play on websites that’s java/flash)

Pleased with my fake phone I headed to the summer palace. I got there just as it was closing sadly, but enough time to take a look around the lake and gardens. But it would have been better going here with a full day and seeing the lot, but I had plans that evening to meet up with Damir again.

So I had to meet Damir at his new hotel, which was on the other side of town. This time I decided since we were going out clubbing to leave my bag and things at the hostel as last time I couldn’t check my bad into the storage as it had my camera in it. So I headed and arrived at the station on time that I was SMSed but there were some problems with the directions and I left my only map of the city in my backpack so I was lost…. After close to 1-½ hours finally met Damir and the others at the original hotel (a few other issue in between like phones running out of credit and miss hearing directions.)

That night we hit the town and had a ball again. Was my last night in Beijing and great way to finish it off?

The next mooring I started writing this blog, I had a few hours to kill so though why not… however 10 min into it I pulled out my lovely fake IPhone and decided to upload some music from my Mac to it… plugged it in and my Mac went crack, sizzle, pop… The phone had fried my Mac, and the power supply. I packed up my things and headed to the only REAL apple store in China. 2 ½ hours on standby queue and explaining to several people that I had a train at 6pm I must catch.

I ended up having the laptop back with 1 hour till my train left, rushed to the train station and boarded as the gate was opening… talk about cutting it close.


And thus ends my trip in Beijing, I was off to Xi’an. 16 Hours train trip shouldn't be too bad?

Cheers Steffen.

No Posts till Taiwan :(

Hi All,

Just a little note to say I'm still here and all is well. I have not been posting my normal blogs as the internet in china is stupidly slow, even compared to Australian internet speeds. So uploading photos and a blog takes hours, and I'm just not willing to sit for 3 hours to wait for the upload.

But i have the blogs already formulated and once i have left china ill release them slowly.

So far i have visited Beijing, Xi'an, Chengdu, and Chongqing (Great wall/Forbidden City, Terracotta warriors, Great Buddha and now the 3 gorges).

China is vastly different to Korea and Japan but still interesting to see.

Ill report back in a week or so when I'm out of China.

Cheers,
Steffen.

City to the Bush – Daegu to Sokcho

I left Gyeongju a day early, there was not much more I was overly interested in seeing and then things that were left were a hour+ out of the city. So I boarded a bus and took a 1 hour bus ride to Daegu.

Daegu is the 3^rd largest city in Korea, and a working city. There is a few touristy things to see but not much. The first day there I spent the entire day shopping. I was after a new camera. After 2 hours of walking around looking for the shop and going through markets (all quite interesting) I found 3 large department stores. Like Westfield’s or something but the company owns all the stores inside. I had my eyes on a SLR camera that a few others had been using while I was in Jeju and Busan. After another 2 hours I had screwed the price down to as low as I could get it, plus a 12gb card, plus bag and a spare battery. The shop manager was not a happy chappy, I’m sure he said some colorful words in Korean at me J.

Armed with my new camera I was ready to keep going on my trip and snap some nice photos up.

That night the guesthouse I was staying at had a party to say farewell to a guest, the IAAF 2011 was being held in Daegu and finished the day I arrived. The guest had stayed at the guesthouse for several weeks, so we went to the markets and bought lots of local food and soju (a Korean alcohol, its much like a vodka shot but weaker, and its drank often), we headed back to the hostel with more meat than necessary and had a great time. I’m not use to shots and drunk on this scale so it was a “interesting” evening for me.

The next morning, I really wanted to go hiking and climb a mountain. I hadn’t been hiking in a few days and the weather was lovely. I headed for a mountain that had a 1600+ year old stone Buddha on at the peak. The bus out took a good 1 hour. The climb was nice as well, the trail put us past a hermitage where the local monks had recreated the temples and painted the temples new. I was not permitted photos however. The path also took us past a tall statue of Buddha that seemed to come out of no where, and was quite surprising at the time.

At the peak we had a 365 degree view of the surroundings and this old stone Buddha with people praying in front of him. It was enough to make you feel as a traveller at peace with the surroundings as well.

I descended via a different path, the way I came up was all stairs, but the way down was a smooth path, the fast pace walk turned into a run and 30 min later I was at the bottom, fast considering it took me 3 hours of none stop walking to get up.

The next day I was up at 6:30am to get to the bus depo by 7:30, I had to catch a bus to Sokcho National Park my next stop.  The bus ride would take me along the coastline of Korea and take 7 hours!

From looking at the things to see at Sokcho, it was all bush walks and things, I was surprised to find out it was a port town when I arrived. I checked into the guesthouse (which was more like a hotel, as I had my own private room and bathroom. Nice for a change actually) and got a quick tourist information layout of what sokcho had to offer from the hostel owner.

I then grabbed a free bike from the hostel and went riding around the city, up to the local lighthouse. Which gave a nice view out over the ocean and to a pavilion.

After checking out some local fish shops (it’s a port town so seafood is very fresh), I hoped on the bike again and just rode, I end up riding around this large local lake and taking a few pictures of a sculpture of a dragon that was there. The bike was terrible, so old and rusty but in the end I had ride some 30km on it. Was nice to ride a bike again.

The next morning I was up early again, I had lots to see today as I was heading into the mountains.  I boarded a local bus and headed 45 minutes out of town to Seorksan National Park. The guesthouse had given me some rough times on how long the walks would take, so I had a good idea on where to go to see it all. After entering the park I headed towards my first hike,  Ulsanbawi Rock was a 5 hour hike to a peak of 875m, the path took me past easily the largest statue I have seen thus far and some lovely temples.

 

The path was nice and well made, after about 2 hours I arrived at a temple rock (Heundelbawi Rock). It was founded in 600~AD and features several words inscribed into the rock bed. It was also a great place for a photo of the peak we were about to climb.

Leaving the rock the climb got steam fast, and before I knew it we were walking on a iron staircase. The staircase made me extremely worried, some of the fittings to the rock face were very rusted and only had what looked like centimeters actually holding it to the wall. The wind had also picked up so what wasn’t permanently attached to you was gone… several people lost there hats (not me though).

 

The rock was in all shapes and formations so beautiful, and the view out over the land was likewise. The view down though would make most people dizzy. The remaining of the climb to the top was very straight forward, once I reached the top a south Korean flag and a 360 degree view of the landscape was my reward for the effort.

The climb down was significantly faster, it was said to take 2 ½ hours but I cleared it in around 45 min, I didn’t have time to waste on walking slowly.

The next thing on my agenda was the cable car climb to that mountains peak. The cable ride was cool, it was a good 10 minute ride up to the top and gave a nice birds eye view of the area.

At the top, I started the 10 min walk to the peak. The wind had really picked up now and the peak had no guide rails or stairs. They even had the Korean Red cross mountain rescues team were training today and watching all the silly people mountain climb without equipment to get to the peak. I started and got about ½ way up and thought that it was far to stupid to continue. I turned around and took a few snaps of people climbing down and then headed back down myself.

 

After checking out the temple at the peak I headed down and to the waterfall, it was a quick hike and it wasn’t that special (or maybe I got lost).

With the day over I was exhausted, and as soon as I got back to my room I crashed.

Im now back in Seoul now, preparing for my next jump to China!


Korea has been great!, The people that I have met along the way and the places I managed to visit have been amazing and fun. 


As for China, Im not sure if I will be able to blog in china or have access to my email because of the famous Chinese Firewall, but will see.

For now I have 3 nights left to party in Seoul! Wooooooo.....

Bugs, Temples and Friends, it must be Gyeongju.

Peace Bell to cleanse the soul

From Busan, I met some new Korean friends (Youngbum Hong, Soyeon Park and Ji-Hye Kim) we all found out that we were heading to the same place next,  Gyeongju. So why not see the sights together.

We took the train from Busan to a small town called Gyeongju, about 2 hours out of Busan by train, I had already booked my accommodation before hand so was in a different hostel to the others, but that was ok.

After checking in we all met up again and started seeing the sights.

3-Story Pagoda

Gyeongju is an old Korean capital city back when the Korea today was split into 3 kingdoms some 1100+ years ago. It is full of old king burial sites, temples and artifacts from the past.

Lotus Flower

We all started out at one of the oldest temples in the town, some 20 min walk out of town. It had a 3-story pagoda, which use to be 9 stories but was destroyed during Japanese occupation in the past. The site also featured a large peace bell, which we could ring to cleanse out soul.

Old Prison

Photo Op with Friends

From here we walked a few KM and got lost but managed to find our way again to an old storage mound and prison. 

Unfortunately my camera was playing up and I could not change the settings to take a decent photo, by turning off the flash. 

Observatory at dusk

We past some mounds which were burial places of old kings, there was so many of them, then past a old observatory used back in the ages of kings. It was just on dusk and getting hard to take decent photos with the camera, it was starting to play up even more... 

We found a place where the flowers had grown high and played around in them for a little while, taking photos and laughing. It was fun. Before moving on to find some dinner.

Ssambap with friends

Gyeongju is famous for Ssambap, a dish where you get lots of small side dishes, rice and lettuce. There was pork, smoked fish, mushrooms (Asian type they are so nice), sardines of various marinated flavors, 3-4 different types of kimchi and a whole host of other things. We truly ate like Kings and Queens, it was sooo nice. All finished off with local Barley cakes.

Pond at night

Once we had finished off dinner we moved to the palace ponds and gardens. It was night now and the pond had lights on which lit up the lake. The Palace was destroyed several hundred years ago but is in the process of being reconstructed from documentation and models. But the pond is still alive and well and the buildings around are now built. It gave a realistic feeling to what it must have been like in the middle ages.

That night my hostel had a party (actually they have one every night but first night so yeah always good), we all decided to go and have a few drinks. Sadly the others couldn't stay long as they were in a different hostel but we organized to meet the following day to see more sites. I drank on with the new hostel until the early hours and met some great new people.

Temple Complex complete with rain coats because
I left mine at the Guesthouse

The following day as planned, we all went to a large temple complex. As it was a active temple with there was several restrictions on photos, not that it mattered as my stupid camera was not able of taking photos much anymore, one of the buttons was now stuck and the battery was being run flat within the 1/2 hour. It was also bucketing down with rain... *Sad face* so the photos were not only poor quality but also limited. The temple was extremely beautiful though, it had several complexes and sections. 

Bug soup, Yummy!

When we finished walking though the temple I decide to try a local delicacy, butterfly cocoon soup. It wasn't the tastiest thing I have tried, it wasn't crunchy, and it was soft. The center tasted like stuffing from a chicken. But never the less I tied it, and finessed 1/2 the cup before I had enough. From here we took a shuttle bus to the next temple, it was located high up in the hills. 

Seokguram Grotto

The world heritage listed temple, Seokguram Grotto was a giant stone Buddha that was carved out of granite stone and a tomb with several guardians and followers also carved into the stone. It was extremely beautiful, however we were not permitted to take photos, as it’s an active temple. So I will link a photo from another website instead (Just have to trust me I was there).

Farewell, see you later!

The weather was still shocking, so Youngbum Hong, Soyeon Park and Ji-Hye Kim decided to head home back to Seoul. 

That afternoon I still had some time to spare so I went to the national museum and walked around for a few hours, it was interesting as it explained the history of the area and why there is so much stuff here. Unable to turn off the flash on my camera I was not able to take any photos :(

World Cultural Expo 2011

The following day the weather had cleared, I was on my own travelling again *sad face* but I had a few more things to see, I hopped on a bus and headed out of town. Unfortunately I have a tendency of falling asleep when I'm on public transport (I sleep on way into work in Sydney as example every day), but this time it wasn't such a good idea.... I woke up 1 1/2 hours later at some random town in the middle of nowhere. I had missed my stop and connecting bus. So after a quick walk around what I can only describe as shacks and a bite to eat, I said hi to the same bus driver that had woken me up 30 min before and headed back in the direction I came. Now eating lunch tends to make to sleepy so guess what happened. Zzzzzzzzzz

Back in Gyeongju and thought it best to hop off at the world cultural expo that was being held in Gyeongju this year and see that. 

Play poster

The Expo was a mixture of plays, dances, religions and cultures from all around the world, with the main focus being Korean culture. It was a really neat thing to see. They had a tower with a cut out center part in the shape of a 13-story pagoda, a circus, dancing stage, and a theatre. I visited the theatre first and watched a play called fly-ing! It was basically a mix of martial arts, cheer leading, break dancing, and gymnastics. It told a story of a martial arts contest in the middle ages summoning a demon and then a hero having to save his friends, but then getting sent into the future to the local high school and him teaching traditional martial arts to a bunch of teen ages (basically). 

It was so funny and cool to watch. 

I walked around the park and watched several other plays and visited a fossil museum, I ended up spending a good 3-4 hours in the park before heading back to the guesthouse.

That night we had a big party at the guesthouse, I had decide to head to daegu early to meet a friend and buy a new camera. My old one was well and truly busted and from reading online forums it was not uncommon. 

I had a lot of fun that night socializing with the guesthouse staff in particular with "Soyoung Yoon" and a guest from Swaziland. It was a very long night and a lot of interesting discussions.

The next morning, I boarded a bus and headed to Daegu, get me a decent camera! 

Next post will be from Daegu and Sokcho,

Cheers Steffen!