Ài mǐ zài zhōngguó (Amy in China) - 艾米在中国
Been back for a couple of weeks now and have finally got round to writing this magical trip up in an attempt at telling you people what I saw, how I felt and what is going down in China right now.
Here are some of my favourite photos - if you want to see more check out my Flickr. (My camera)
For those of you that don’t know – here’s the background; my name is Amy, I have a boyfriend – his name is Seb, Seb has two older brothers Matthew (Maddy) and Raffi. Maddy has been living in Hong Kong for a while working on some Ruby on Rails and he invited Raffi out to HK to stay with him and travel in China for a few weeks. A couple of weeks before departure date, Seb was invited along on the trip and then I gatecrashed. This is how I found myself, in early July hanging with the Jacobs boys, east side. There is an additional member in our party of five (classic Jack) namely Sammi; a pretty Chinese girl who has been recently wooed by Matthew Rudy. After a hellish 24hours of travelling on buses with drunks, getting stranded at the wrong terminal and being blessed with no in-flight entertainment on my journey with Air France (merci beaucoup), I arrived in HK on the morning of Friday 2nd July. By the way – if you ever get a chance to go to Charles de Gaulle airport, do it – it’s stunning.
After dumping my stuff and having a quick refresh in Maddy’s flat situated in the ‘Yes in Space’ building, Kowloon. We spent the day walking around HK, getting on metros and boats and generally feeling quite overwhelmed and sweaty. It was certainly a relief to enjoy a few Tsingtaos on Maddy’s rooftop on Friday evening, despite Murray getting knocked out of Wimbledon by Nadal. Oh well – there’s always next year.
03.07.10 - The plan from then was to travel by train to Guangzhou which is where Sammi lives, a short journey inside the Chinese border. After arriving at Sammi’s we visited an enormous computer mall full of plenty of real and fake techy things, including a very well displayed Wii, cracked in the same way as mine – after all they’re not worth the money if they’re clean. Definitely enjoyed the shameless advertisement of all their ‘copy’ merchandise. We spent the evening in the most colossal karaoke venue you can imagine – hundreds of very excited and loud Chinese swarming down the grand central staircase to mark the end of the afternoon session and the beginning of ours. We sang until we could sing no more, then we slept.
04.07.10 – Lao mien noodles for breakfast – delicious. They are very similar to Ramen noodles and are prepared by pulling the dough out into a long strip, doubling it up and pulling again. Continuing this motion produces some fine tasting noodles I can tell you. We wandered around more shopping areas and enjoyed the tradition of the shop girls standing outside the store clapping and generally trying to get your attention. Seb in particular enjoyed this practice, as you can probably imagine, and proceeded to join in at any opportunity – it’s not like everyone was already staring at us! Despite Sammi living with no Chinese people, all Americans – there is a complete lack of foreigners or ‘Lao Wai’ as we are known in China. This results in a certain ‘Lindsey Lohan’ syndrome...(minus all the drugs and drink driving) when you take a walk to the shop or get on the metro (or stuck outside the carriage like Seb). Today was not all clapping and paparazzi however – we planned to get the overnight train to Guilin and that we did. During the evening we enjoyed hanging out in the buffet cart which was very reminiscent of ‘Darjeeling Limited’ and Sammi taught us some of the background behind Chinese characters.
05.07.10 – We awoke in Guilin and after much negotiation, organised a route to take to Yangshuo which is a touristy area well know for its beautiful scenery. We decided on a boat down the LiJiang river with some lovely Chinese tourists and despite feeling very touristy the 2 or 3 hour journey was very pleasant and somewhat peaceful. Most tranquillity was ruined by the other hoards of tourist boats – sounding their horns, how helpful. We then found ourselves on dry land and trapped in an air-conditioned white room in a Jasper Jewellery store– we were very lucky to be honoured by the presence of the boss of this well known jewellery company. And thoroughly enjoyed listening to him discuss his brand (in Chinese) and the top quality of his Jade for what must have been a couple of hours. After escaping from here our bags were held hostage (damn you possessions!!) and we were forced on a couple more touristy things, which thankfully turned out to be quite enjoyable, up until you reach the maze of gift shops and pushy saleswomen blocking all exits. In the evening we celebrated our arrival at ‘Monkey Janes’ on her rooftop bar with our 75p half litre bottles of Tsingtao and a classic Chinese dice game.
06.07.10 – No rest for the wicked fortunately and after switching rooms in the hostel we spent the day kayaking down the Li River which was nothing other than splendiferously, marvellously, fantasmic. Indescribable scenery and nature with the added bonus of being alone on the water (except some friendly water buffalo and unidentified dead objects in plastic bags...). Paddling away with Maddy and Sammi providing the soundtrack, a Chinese nursery rhyme about some ducks being late for school, which was very enjoyable. N.B. Seb did not enjoy the kayaking much – his arms ached. L Ah well – after walking through a very remote village we caught a bus back and Raff got the beers in on the roof again.
07.07.10 – Today wasn’t a big day, Sebby and I had a nice time together – walking around by the water and through the backstreets of the town while Raffi, Maddy and Sammi did some cycling (maps provided are apparently not to scale). A peaceful day for us – full with lots of pirate DVDs and exciting Japanese finds.
08.07.10 – Today was the day of ‘the Hike’ which turned out to be mostly a day of sitting around, waiting for negotiations. One thing to remember in China – even if you do have a native with you always factor negotiation and mistranslation time into all activities; bamboo boat hiring, walking, getting around and most importantly food ordering. Another important thing to note is that being vegetarian in China is just a stupid thing to do. An impossible task with a translator, I dread to think what I would have eaten without the help of Sammi... a member of the Canidae family I’m sure. We managed to walk to XingPing and all in all it was exhausting but well worth it; blazing sun, dusty roads, stray dogs, corn fields and melted and refrozen road side ice-creams for 10p. Slept all the way back on the bus; thankfully unable to miss my stop this time, unlike many occasions in London. We got back and I took a quick visit to Dr Lily Li and had a bit of ‘hot cupping’. This basically involves you lying on your front and a man who speaks no English lighting some flammable substance inside a cup and quickly whacking it on your back. This is repeated thirty or so times and you end up looking like a blunt porcupine for 20 minutes while your ‘Qi’ centres.... Doubtful.
09.07.10 – Today is the day we returned to Guilin and subsequently Ghuangzhou. After stocking up on a variety of goodies for people back home we got the bus to Guilin, wandered around for a bit, ate some food, made some amazing purchases at the 9 Kwai shop (you guessed it – pound shop) amazing. Then we caught the overnighter again back to Ghuangzhou- it was comfortable as ever.
10.07.10 – Back at Sammi’s we gathered ourselves then went out for a day which turned out to be rather long. We visiting a beautiful temple – in which I felt like I could have spent the entire two weeks at least, we also visited the largest Tesco I have ever seen, a temple to some I’m sure. We saw hoards of American’s with their newly adopted Chinese babies, (very odd) – I got a second hole in my ears from a lady by the road a semi-gruesome experience, we took a boat, watched a light show and sat for a while enjoying a very traditional street side hot pot. After managing to catch the metro back to Sammi’s we found that we were locked out...locksmith called, one rat seen, one fight seen, supplies bought from the shop and two hours later we were in. Long story short – Sammi’s housemate had deadlocked the door and apparently sleeps more soundly than a coma patient.
11.07.10 – After a long sleep we pretty much just hung around all day, little trips here and there nothing major, packed our backs as tomorrow – it’s back to HK ready for my flight home on the 13th.
12.07.10 - We travelled back during the day and rewarded ourselves with a visit to one of HK’s idyllic beaches. Incredible little bays with stunning scenery and very dirty water! Nevertheless once you get past a small barrier of rubbish and unknown objects you can swim out to some little platforms and enjoy the clear sea and sky.
All in all I didn’t spend much time in HK, but didn’t seem to care that much. I enjoyed China far more mainly because of the space I think – having people constantly around you with no end in sight isn’t particularly appealing in the big smoke let alone a city with a population of 7.5million and humidity levels touching 90%. One thing I found fascinating was the obsession with having white skin in China, Sammi would always complain that she was getting too dark and her mum would be mad. Very unlike my own experiences which generally involve being told that I look ill and pale whenever I go home and then being slowly encouraged to get out in the sun and ‘catch some rays’ as they say. Even on mopeds there were built in umbrellas to help protect the riders skin. Generally China seems to be a very paradoxical place, incredibly advanced in many respects but light years behind in others. That great mix of tradition and drive to advance in order to become more powerful has created a beautifully bizarre country full of surprises and treasures. I will certainly return to China as I undoubtedly only touched the surface of this vast country and have a great desire to experience more that the east in general has to offer.
I hope I didn’t babble on too long – I had a lot more to say (I always do) but this is everything that I thought would be especially worth hearing. I would like to end by thanking everyone who gave me money for my birthday or Christmas or for whatever reason over the past few years – every time I receive money I put it in my savings and you alone paid for my flights allowing me to go on this wonderful trip. For that I am eternally grateful and I hope you are glad to know that your money was well spent.
P.S. I will continue to save any cheques or cash sent to me...so feel free to be generous – after all next on my to-do list is Japan!
