China

Dragonair - If you're ever even close to Asia, fly this airline.  Lots of leg room, awesome entertainment systems in the headrests and....this for breakfast.

*wipes away tear*  Not only do I get to chose my breakfast, but one option has Canadian bacon!  Easiest decision I’ve ever made

China was actually the first country I’ve been to that required a visa in advance of your arrival in the country, as typically you can just get one when you arrive.  For whatever reason when I was obtaining the visa from the embassy in Kathmandu I wrote down 2 weeks as my intended length of stay figuring they’d give me the maximum stay within that bracket (30 days)....instead they gave me 15 days!  Not wanting to fork over $40 for another visa I planned a 2 week adventure that would take me through China starting in Beijing.  Beijing is a staple in everybody’s itinerary when travelling through China.  I spent the first day wandering around the city seeing its highlights and grabbing some local food, pretty standard stuff.  Along the way I bumped into The Forbidden City...this thing is absolutely enormous.

Main entrance

The infamous General Mao – George Kostanza called, he wants his haircut back

One of the larger courtyards...ya it's that big

Some examples of the inner palaces within the City itself – unfortunately you were not allowed to go inside them L

One works up quite the appetite walking around that place, and being in Beijing the only cure for such a thing is peking duck!  The trick is to slow cook the duck over a specific type of Chinese fruit wood...it’s the wood that makes it good.

The chefs expertly prepare the duck right in front of you

The traditional way to eat it, with spring onions, cucumbers, sugar and hoison sauce within a crepe... sooooo gooood!

Or if peking duck isn't your thing you can opt for a different type of local delicacy....

Cockroaches too crunchy for you?  How about centipede?  No?  What about scorpions...oooh the scorpions

Riiight....moving onto the main attraction that Beijing has to offer, the Great Wall of China!  I opted for the Mutianyu section as it has both the original crumbling wall as well as some restored sections.

The Great Wall of ....fog

A LITTLE FOG CAN'T STOP THE CRANE BABY

Probably the best pic of the bunch, you can see the leaves changing which would have made for an awesome pic if there wasn’t SO MUCH !*#$^#@ FOG

Some sections were very steep

My thank you to the fog

Sometimes while travelling you just get unlucky as with the case of the fog, and sometimes you get lucky such as getting an entire row of seats on an airplane to yourself.  When you get lucky, soak it in baby and when you get unlucky realize it and try and make the most of the situation regardless.

Tianamen square was also on my must see list while in Beijing.

Security was tight all around

Apparently cell phone reception is better at 2 feet off the ground..

Chinese guardian lions or Shishi lions

Bonus points if you can pick me out in the crowd

General Mao’s Mausoleum...apparently his body is encased in a crystal coffin inside, but you need your passport to get in for some reason and I didn’t carry it on me that day

Tianamen square had security cameras everywhere, and I couldn’t understand why.  Who would cause trouble in a giant open square?  What’s the worst you could do?  Apparently the odd ‘Free Tibet’ protester makes their appearance in the square to demonstrate their disproval of China’s occupation of Tibet.  When this occurs security picks them up on the cameras and will arrest/tackle/karate chop them on site.  Another fact that I picked up was that a lot Chinese people think that the famous protest back in 1989 that ended in a fatality didn’t happen.  Local tour guides swear up and down that it didn’t happen and it was just a big rumour.  They even go so far as to block content from Google searches and what not in case someone gets curious.  And since YouTube, FaceBook, Twitter and other social media outlets are blocked as well, many people will never know the truth.  I found this very fascinating as I’ve never been exposed to that kind of mass control of information before.

That was Beijing in a nutshell....oh and I was a yellow panda (or Yanda as I was promptly nick named) for Halloween.  The guy ran out of white paint ok?

Mothers lock up your daughters...

My next stop in China was Xi’an, famous for its’ Terracota Warrior army.

The city itself wasn’t the most interesting, however it was completely walled in and you could rent a bike and ride the entire length of the wall....done!

The main gate

The red dragon is back baby....this time with a basket!

5 wall pictures is probably good enough eh?  Ok fine one more with a cool lion statue in front

Ok, on to the main attraction of Xi’an, the Terracota Warrior Army.  You can read about it in detail online but in short Qin Shi Huang, the first Emperor of China wanted to take his entire army with him into the afterlife in case he needed protection.  So he had over 8000 warriors, chariots and horses hand made and buried along with weapons and other artifacts. There are 3 main pits in which the warriors were found.  Some in their original position in tact and others in pieces that had to be put back together.  They are still excavating the site and will be for quite some time.  The first of the warriors was found by a farmer in 1974 when he was digging for a well.

Pit 2:

General

Archer (a wooden bow would have been in his hands)

Pit 3:

Horses!

And finally the granddaddy of the pits....Pit 1:

Located in what could easily be an aircraft hanger

Workers piecing together the broken warriors

The painstaking effort involved in creating all of these warriors must have been absolutely phenomenal!  I had been waiting to see the warriors for a while and I’m glad it lived up to my expectations!

My next stop in China was Chengdu which is within the Szechwan province and known for having some of the best food in China.  Arriving in the afternoon I quickly assembled a group of travelers for some dinner.  I’ve heard of the hot pot style of eating before, and Chengdu was known for some awesome hot pot restaurants.  Every person and every guide book has it checked off as a ‘must do’.  Hot pot eating is simple, you have a large boiling pot of oil with spices in the middle of your table.  You also have a pot of boiling water in the middle of that.  Around the pot you have a variety of meat, tofu and vegetables.  The meat and tofu you place in the boiling oil and cook it for however long you want, and the vegetables in the boiling water.  You then have a few small bowls of your own made with light oil, with spices to your liking.  Once the meat is done you take it out and dunk it in your smaller bowl and soak up as much oil/spices as you like.  You then consume....oh do you ever consume.  We had strips of beef, pork meatballs, tofu, bok choy and a type of cabbage...so much awesome.  Couple this with a little (a lot) of rice wine and you have one my favourite meals in Asia thus far.  I personally love this style of eating because you cook your own fresh, whole food with little processing involved.  It’s also a very social style of eating as well, which is always welcoming.  Unfortunately I didn’t take any pictures as I forgot my camera back at the hostel, but believe me it was one delicious and colourful meal.

The other highlight of Chengdu was the Panda Research and Breeding Centre which was located just out of town.  I heard amazing things about this place, most importantly that the panda’s are treated fairly and it doesn’t feel like a zoo.  It’s panda time people....

I swear this isn't a guy in a panda suit

Panda’s are a lazy race, hence this guy who felt the need to eat his lunch while laying on his back...my kind of panda

Baby panda's!!!  

More baby panda's!

Panda up in a tree using it as a reclining chair...fast asleep - my kind of panda

Chow time

I learned that panda’s spend around 16 hours a day eating up to 40kg of bamboo, with the odd rodent thrown in there.  They have to eat so much bamboo because it has such little nutritional value.  Why they don’t have bamboo as an appetizer and real food as their entree I’ll never know. 

The super rare red panta

There is only a few types of bamboo that all panda’s will eat so sometimes they run short and have to import into the research centre.

The problem with panda’s is that they are so complacent with eating and sleeping all day they don’t often procreate.  If it wasn’t for research centres like this, some experts say the race might be very close to extinction.  One would argue (me included) that perhaps that is just the way nature intended for this race, and it has evolved itself to extinction.  Others say they need our help to survive and since we can help them out we should.  The fact is panda’s used to be vicious animals that often ate meat and had no problem breeding, and were sometimes used in combat (similar to attack dogs now).  So there is a natural progression and evolution at hand here...but that’s the right decision?  Leave a comment if you have an opinion.

The last city I visited in mainland China was Yangshuo, famous for its Karst Mountains and lush rice fields.  What I wanted was a few chilled out days before heading to Hong Kong, what I got was my favourite city in China thus far.  Like I’ve mentioned in previous posts, it really is the company that you share these experiences with that makes them so special.  I arrived at my hostel and quickly joined a group of travellers that I shared a lot in common with, and within 10 minutes we knew we had a tight knit group.  The first order of business (other than losing what could have been the greatest comeback in beer pong history in the hostels’ roof top bar) was to go for a bike ride along the Li river.  But before we jump to that, here’s a quick video I took of the rooftop bar with its’ amazing views of the Karst Mountains.  This hostel was known for its views and it surely did not disappoint. 

In the video I’m talking about a recent haircut I received and the other guys are setting up for beer pong....I believe we had just come back from a late breakfast....I think it was a Tuesday

Getting back to the bike ride, if you remember my post on Amsterdam (I hope you do because I don’t remember posting it) one my highlights of Amsterdam was the bike ride through the country side.  Although the scenery was different, the awesome feeling of cruising through a foreign country’s beautiful countryside was still apparent in Yangshuo.

A quick stop at another hostel for a beverage along the way

The mountains seemed to defy gravity at times

This was awesome to watch, it’s a type of fishing called cormorant fishing, where the fisherman tosses these birds in the water and they go grab a fish in their mouths and bring it back....so cool to watch.

My buddies crossing the river....if it looks like the bamboo raft is sinking, it’s because it was

PEKING DUCK BUFFET BABY, ARE YOU KIDDING ME

I’ve quickly learned something about myself that my parents probably figured out by the time I was 5.  If it’s climbable, I want to climb it.  So being around these mountains for a few days, I was itching to climb one and see the view of this city from the peak.

Random temple on top of one of the peaks...how anybody got up there was beyond us

Shot taken from in town

West Street, the main drag within Yanghsuo...awesome restaurants, bars and touristy crap

 I mentioned awesome restaurants; our favourite by far was The Clay Pot.  If you look at this picture and don’t immediately get hungry, something is wrong with you

Rice, bbq pork, sweet bamboo shoots, chilli peppers and awesome sauce...one of my favourite meals in all of Asia so far, hands down.

I could have stayed for another few weeks in this quaint, yet vibrant town...but I would have been quickly fined and deported for overstaying my visa......  So instead I opted to catch a train to Hong Kong via some city that I can’t remember...I think it started with a 4.

Hong Kong is massively different than mainland China.  It’s 1^st world, has its’ own currency and is a democracy, it also has sit down toilets which were a welcome change from the last month or so that I spent squatting....it’s just as bad as you think people.  The only upside is that you can’t get yelled at for leaving the seat up! (boo ya!)

One of my good friends from back home lives in Hong Kong and I had the privilege of spending a week with him and his fiancé in their home.  The plan was to not be a tourist for the week, and to just ‘live’.  I spent most of my time hanging out with my friends, eating great food, sleeping, partying and watching movies.  It was a great week to say the least.  I barely scratched the surface of what HK has to offer, but I quickly learned that it’s a very diverse city with a lot to offer.  If you took New York, Dubai and Toronto and threw them in a blender, you’d have a delicious Hong Kong milkshake (what?!).  Here are a few pics:

The same skyline as in the movie, this time from the other side (Victoria Peak)

Classy beverages for classy people....with my friends Janet and Elsdon

Scotch scotch scotch....the 3 columns are age, percentage and price in HK dollars

China...what a fascinating yet special country.  I didn’t mention that being a foreigner here, is like nowhere else I’ve been to thus far.  The majority of tourists within China are....Chinese.  Not many people travel to China compared to how many locals stay within the country.  On many occasions I was stopped to have my picture taken by curious locals, typically in their 20’s, even at super touristy places like the Great Wall.  I had a 40-50 year old man watch me eat an entire meal without looking away on a night train.  He was absolutely fascinated with everything I did, it was embarrassing yet it piqued my curiosity to no end.  This happened to me a few other times as well, I would catch locals just staring at me or the other travelers I was with at the time.  When we looked back they would just continue staring and not look away.  It was like this was their opportunity to see a foreigner in the wild, in their natural habitat doing whatever the hell we were doing.  I spent a total of about 50 hours on trains in the 2 weeks I was there, including a 26 hour monster from Chengdu to Yanghsuo.  Although it tested every ounce of patience, as well as my ability to sleep on beds made for people half my height it was worth it.  I had conversations with a few locals who just wanted to hear me speak, and try to teach me their language.  I was playing chess one night with another traveler, we literally had a crowd of 8 watching us play.  While riding my bike through Yanghsuo we had kids running after us trying to keep up, laughing their heads off and yelling ‘hello’ the whole time, probably the only English word they knew.  It wasn’t like I was in some remote village in the middle of nowhere either, these are well known Chinese cities but for whatever reason, not a lot of foreigners travel here compared to other Chinese people.  Communism is evident everywhere you go, yet I felt safer in these cities then most.

A country that will always stick out in my mind as unique, China really did surprise me.  Onward I go however, to South East Asia!  Next stop Bangkok!