I'm dreaming of a Beijing Christmas. Pt 1

A bus on Tian'amin Road

Forbidden City

 

So, Christmas in Beijing?

At first glance a stupid and idiotic idea, first Beijing gets a little chilly in the winter and second it gets really bloody cold in the winter. Yet despite this Beijing is somewhere that I will always love and as I also love Christmas, why not spend it in Beijing. (That and mam and dad were flying into Beijing to visit.)

I finished work on the evening of the 23^rd and flew early morning 24^th, a short 3 hour flight and I arrived! Met mam and dad in the airport with only a little wandering about, and jumped into a cab heading back to Sanlitun hostel (where I used to live with Clare). It had been 18 months since I last saw Beijing and it felt like a homecoming, well it is the closest thing to home for me in China.

One of Dad's hats 'borrowed' for the week

We were put in a room in the hotel across the courtyard, which was not ideal but a perfectly nice room, plus every day we got business cards for hookers posted under the door so it had its advantages. So much had changed from what I remember from living in the area. Things I thought would be gone were still there and things I thought would outlive us all (dumpling lady) had gone. It was hard not to be disappointed with some stuff, the silk market for example, used to be a huge fakes market where you could get some great bargains, but what was a market now looked like a mini shopping mall type centre with doors and glass walls where a table and an old lady once were. It was much nicer looking but had lost its chaos charm and the atmosphere had completely changed. Luckily the other market nearer to the hostel seemed to have picked up the slack and was now very cheap where it used to be a little on the pricier side. Generally, it was a case of looking for the relocated shops or restaurants that I remembered. Gave a treasure hunt feel to any shopping days we had.

Christmas dinner was a Beijing roast duck served with a multitude of other dishes and was a beautiful meal. Duck is one of my favourites anyway but definitely better than dry turkey and sprouts. Presents were exchanged Christmas eve which was mam and dad just unloading there bag of clothes and shoes onto my bed, they had brought out heaps of stuff and just as I needed them too. I cannot buy clothes in southern china, as the people are annoyingly short, so when I find trousers they are always several inches too short.

In the first week, we did most of the normal touristy things; WangFuJing and bug street, a few parks, a lot of shopping, the local bar area and much more. Plus we found a new local bar to go to as my one had changed into something not so great. The weather was freezing cold but with enough layers and a hat we were able to walk around and visit places without suffering too much and getting uncomfortable/miserable/cranky. Dad bought a hat in almost every place we went and left China with the hat count in double figures! No idea how he plans to wear them all, maybe an elaborate rotation schedule and double layering?

My favourite food, some big pancake crisp thing.

 As all of us had been to Beijing before we were not left with the need to go to see all of the “must-see” places, which meant we were able to just wander round and never felt like we were missing anything. We did a few but generally; we walked all day every day and crashed in the evenings, slowly eating our way round the city.

After a week in Beijing we went to Xi'an, the plan was to get the train but I couldnt get tickets. so back to the airport and a 2 hour flight to Xi'an on one of the bumpiest flights i have ever been on. Wasn't pleasant!

 

Stand by for New Year in Xia'n

And I am back!

To cut a long story short, I was not able to gain access to this particular blog site due to China and someone falling out for some unknown reason, but after a few complicated emails and a couple of hours on one of the world's more confusing websites I managed to get an upgrade for my VPN and VOILA here I am again.

So like I say, lengthy gap between posts so I will only report on the more interesting and exciting aspects of the last year aka the holidays, and gloss over the less interesting and slightly mundane (work) parts.

So.....
1. VIETNAM

My bedroom in Ha Long Bay

 When the October holidays rolled around last year we realised there had been a slight lunar calendar fluke, in that national day and mid-autumn festival were within a few days of each other. This lead to the school closing for ten whole days. It took me all of about three seconds to decide I was leaving China and returning to Hanoi for a further week of relaxing and generally avoiding doing anything even remotely taxing. Something I can definitely say I achieved!

I flew from Kunming's new international airport, which although huge didn’t have a direct flight to Hanoi, I had to fly 2 hours in the opposite direction to Guangzhou  and then 2 hours back to Hanoi, not too much of a problem as it still was faster than the train but a pain none the less. I left Kunming when it was starting to get chilly, and landed into humid hell. Although not too hot the humidity was killer, I was taking 3 showers a day and the 30 meter walk to the nearest food vendor brought about a nasty sweaty sticky feel that really never went away. Needless to say I was not prepared for this and went off immediately to buy some cooler clothes. 

Would just like to point out the book was a
 present for Karina.

Hanoi is still one of my favourite places and I really cant say why, there is just a relaxed friendly feel to the place that is really nice after the stressed out parts of Chinese living. Of course living there is most likely a different matter but for a week for holidays its great! I basically did the same holiday that Tom, Karina and I had done in January just a little warmer, and I was on my own so I could do or not do anything I wanted. I spent days just wandering about the old quarter or sitting by the lake (with various ice creams) and people watching. I also found a book shop in the basement of a bar and was there for a few hours at least.

Of course I went back to Ha Long Bay, I was a little disappointed to discover that the hostel didn’t run the Jolly Rodger party boat tour anymore but instead offered the Castaway Island experience. Intrigued I signed up and passed three days two nights on our own private beach on a private island deep in the heart of Ha Long Bay. We slept in bamboo huts on the beach with no beds just a mattress and a mosquito net. But honestly what else do you need, the water was 15 meter away and the bar about 30 meters from my bed, and that was all there was. The island offered rock climbing, canoeing, wake boarding (which I am not good at) and a long sandy beach. All three days were bliss and at the end of our time there, no-one wanted to leave. Ha Long Bay is still bar none the most beautiful place I have ever been lucky enough to visit, the place that takes that crown has its work cut out for it.

The only guillotine in Asia

 I finished off my trip with a last 2 days in the city before having to head back to real life. I visited the Hanoi Hilton, which is actually the prison where American Pilots who had been shot down or captured in the city were sent.  The museum was only small and took less than an hour to see everything but was interesting, it turns out it was the prison where the French had  held the Vietnamese during French occupation. I have to say I now appreciate the reasons behind the anti-French feel. Compared to their treatment of the Vietnamese, the Vietnamese were hugely hospitable  to the Americans. The Americans were even allowed a small patch of garden in which to grown vegetables and were competitors in a local football league.  

All in all a perfect holiday (not counting the unbearable humidity) and I will certainly be going back to Vietnam in the future, just maybe it is time for a change of destination.

Back at school things are still plodding along in their usual manner. I have now been teaching some of these kids for 18 months and I am getting  a little scared by how fast they have grown up. I found pictures from one of my Kindergarten classes and was amazed at how much they had changed. i suppose that is what a year does.

The next instalment will be Mam and Dad in Beijing for Christmas. Stay tuned....

A Fistful of Dong

As was to be expected new year started with a bang! Fireworks exploded all over the city making almost every car and ebike alarm scream. Having spent the last two new years in Beijing I was expecting Kunming to be a slightly less chaotic affair. I was wrong, if anything the noise was worse and lasted longer than I thought possible. So when Monday came around and it was time for my holiday I was thanking every god I could think of. A short flight (not even an hour flight time) and we landed into the disappointingly cold HaNoi airport. After a brief mess about with transfers we made it to HaNoi backpacker’s hostel.

HaNoi is an amazing city or at least the old quarter where we were staying and the surrounding areas. I am hugely taken with Vietnam, the food is much more ‘Claire’ friendly as there is almost no spice it’s all flavour and loads of seafood. We spent almost every meal at this little street food place by the hostel where I bought the best seafood fried rice I have ever eaten for about 10Y. I found Vietnam really cheap, even in comparison to living in china. Karina and I did lots of shopping (her much more that I) and am average handbag costs about $7. The only problem we had was the money! 26,000 dong is about £1 or 10RMB so we were frequently dealing in 500,000 dong or a million. The numbers were astounding and made it so much easier to think in US dollars, which we then had to translate into pounds and back into RMB. Needless to say our buying calculations took some time and often a piece of paper to write it all down.

Jolly Rodger Booze Boat

I spent three whole days in HaNoi before going on the hostels organised tour to HaLong Bay. The tour was called the Rock Long Rock Hard tour so I was fairly clued up about what kind of cruise I was going on. However I was not counting, at 23, to be the oldest person on the boat. I was on a cruise with about 50 19/20/21 year old gap year students! We drank almost solid for the whole duration of the cruise and played constant drinking games. Even our canoe ride about the bay was beer filled which sadly lead to us being towed back to the end as we were not really getting the whole parking thing. Myself and the guy I had been paired up with were then basically dragged out of our canoes as it was just all too difficult climbing out! I can also now say that I have bought a beer at the bar Top Gear went to on their biking adventure of Vietnam.

HaLong bay is like nothing I have ever seen. It was easy to try and draw comparisons to Guilin and my travels last year but it was just blown out of the water! Even in the nasty and bitter cold of January I managed a swim in the bay, which actually wasn’t too bad. We ate the food out of the bay that the Vietnamese staff on the boat had caught during the day and sat up watching the sunrise. Despite the horrid hangover and the sick feeling looking at a beer caused me for about three days after it was an amazing tour, one that I shall defiantly be aiming to do again at some point in the future.

Halong Bay just before sunrise.

Back in HaNoi, with my remaining two days before we were heading home all I had to do was some souvenir shopping and the war museum. I made the mistake of going to the war museum with and already sulky American Tom who when her realised it was all very anti America basically sat on the curb waiting for me to finish looking about. We did get to play in various helicopters and tanks and watched a crazy film in Chinese about how horrible the Americans are. Which made me giggle and tom sulk some more.

Our journey back was long but relatively painless and stress free. It’s an overnight train journey to Nanning stopping at several check points along the way; the first one was about 2:30 am at the Vietnamese border, the second twenty minutes later at Chinese customs where our bags were scanned and passports stamped again. Finally we got to Nanning at about 11am the following morning where it was a short 5 hour wait for the next train to Kunming. I think three of these five hours were spent sat in McDonalds as it was warm with a steady supply of food, as long as one of us was eating or drinking something we didn’t really think the staff would complain. There was no complaining just bucket loads of dirty looks! After that it was a short 14 hour train journey back to Kunming and a bus journey home. Like I say stress free but so long!

Merry Christmas!

Family meal.

Christmas in china was just the chaotic and unusual event I was expecting.

Xmas Dinner!

It all began with the weirdest dinner I have ever had, followed by the activity night and then a short holiday to Lijiang.

So dinner, or what we thought was going to be dinner, turned out to be; a turkey, an un-openable can of cranberry sauce and something  white and pasty in a jar of Miracle-Whip. Unfortunately we had no cutlery to carve the turkey with so we attacked it was some spoons, chopsticks and hands. Despite the limited variety of food and lack of cutlery the food was good, but was by far the weirdest dinner yet. This was followed by the activity night, which was a nightmare, but not quite as bad as I was expecting. There were 120+ kids spread between 4 teachers and 4 activity stations; songs, games, movies and arts and crafts followed by an all in the hall sing off mayhem! (which lived up to its name). The weekend was made even more hectic by the full day of lessons we had on the Saturday, of which I planned for about half a one, but don’t tell my boss.

My attempt at Artistic!

 Somehow we all made it through Saturday without too many temper tantrums and onto a train bound for Lijiang. One tedious overnight train later we arrived and made our way to ShuHe, a small village outside of Lijiang itself which, although pretty and graveyard quiet became tiresome.

My second Christmas dinner was in a Tibetan restaurant in Old Town Lijiang where we ate Yak in so many different ways that we must have eaten a whole one, but Yak in my new favourite meat so I really didn’t care.  

Just for you Mam.

The following day was spent drinking, relaxing, eating and aimless wandering about the labyrinth of endless and identical alleyways across the southern part of the town.

 Our final day was the highlight of the trip; we all piled into a mini bus and drove off over the mountains to the first bend of the Yangtze River (above), and true to its name it is an almost complete loop and the river is a nice blue-green and not the shitty brown of the Sichuan province part from last year. We stopped on the way at a viewing point from which we could see the Yangtze River down below and the magnificent Snow Mountain in the background, the place was amazing and amazingly impressive. (below)

Yangtze River and Snow Mountain (and me)

All in all a good and only slightly drama filled trip (no trip is complete without a Chinese person throwing a hissy fit and making everyone uncomfortable) in which I ate my fill of Yak and thoroughly enjoyed.

Next weekend is new year and I have 4 days off work, still trying to think of something to do, so stay tuned.  

I'm dreaming of a Chinese Christmas

So I know it has been an absolute age since my last post but I have several very good excuses lined up.

Anyway, tomorrow is my six month anniversary living in Kunming and teaching at Shane, and I am still really enjoying myself.  Life at school is crazily busy at the moment as we have to hold all sorts of Christmas related activities, which when you work with the Grinch and three of Scrooge's (pre-hauntings) clones, getting into the spirit is a little tricky. Regardless I decorated four trees and draped every cupboard, shelf and sleeping TA in tinsel. So we are getting there, ish. My house on the other hand looks like Santa personally appeared and threw up Christmas spirit; I even decorated my fish tank.

Which reminds me, I now have two new residence of my little house; Ahab and Floozy. They keep me company and basically sit on the cabinet looking fish like and cold, the house is so cold that I am a little worried about the tank freezing over and coming home one night to an ice cube with two little fish-ice-lollies with surprised expressions on their faces.

With Christmas looming and having been given all of our holiday dates for the next couple of months I decided to sit down and plan various excursions.  Christmas Eve Karina and I are going straight to the train station from work for a few days in Lijiang. Having been there already (with Mam and Dad) I know how pretty the place is and am very much looking forward to a weekend in the lights and streets of the ancient city, and a day climbing a mountain to the north of the city. It’s going to be a different type of Christmas but one I am very much looking forward to.

So like I say, good excuses. Well maybe only OK excuses. I have had Mam and Dad invade for a full two weeks, which was nice but bloody hectic! It took me weeks to catch up at school and even longer to get over the weird effects of having a small piece of England with me in China. Then there was….well that’s about is actually. I have just been really busy.

I now have Chinese lessons every day and spend large chunks of my day completely baffled and trying desperately to remember if the character for water is the one that looks like a star or a little man holding a fish. Chaos!!

Well that’s all my news for now, I will be updating with pictures of very cute Chinese kids singing Christmas songs next week, and with any luck Lijiang too.

Wishing everyone at home a very merry Christmas and a drunken new year, and when you look at leftovers of turkey remember me over here slowly turning into fried rice.

Lots of Love and Festive Kisses,

Claire xxx

"Square one, we meet again!"

Hong Kong: half way between China and home.

 I spent three days there and saw very little of it, this is because of the VISA office and its ‘once in you’ll never leave’ horror film style of dealing with people after working Visa’s. Sadly I was held captive for a grand total of two of my days out of Kunming and on the third I had to return to pick up my shiny new tourist Visa.

The nut shell version is; I didn’t have all the right documents and the school weren’t able to Fax them so, I had to get some kind of Visa or I would get stuck in Hong Kong with no-where to go. I was very lucky, I had been hounding all of the miserable gits in the office for two days about getting a working Visa and then had to turn around and get a tourist one. I was insanely lucky and the shifts changed literally a couple of numbers before mine was called. Not sure what I would have done if they hadn’t got a tourist one. Panic and drink I suppose.

So I have to go back on the 4^th of September, at least this time though I shall be going with someone else and not on my own. Hong Kong is the sort of place I think I would have enjoyed a little more with a little more company, so anyway. Take 2 is imminent!

Despite the Visa issue it was just a fated journey, my plane was delayed leaving Kunming so I spent hours in the airport where there is very little to do, and so by the time I arrived at the hostel (if it can be called so) they had given away my room. It’s about 3 am at this point and I was pointed at a chair and told to sit for 30 minutes until someone was checking out and so I fell asleep in the chair. When I was finally told I had a room, one which they said had just been cleaned, I found I was sharing it…. With the biggest cockroach I have ever seen! This thing was so big it had had to book into a hostel for the night, think Men in Black bug size! Oh and a dead rat in the bathroom. Once these little oversights of the cleaning staff had been addressed I collapsed onto the bed only for my alarm to go off only a few hours later. The Visa office on a Monday and Tuesday is stupidly busy and so I was in there with hundreds of other people. And thus began my troubles.

In other news….

I have now finished Phonics and can go to my regular schedule! I woke up on Thursday in a panic as I thought I had overslept through some o f my lessons until I remembered and rolled over to go back to sleep. Best feeling ever! Although it was very weird not having to start work until 5pm, found myself wondering what to do with my time and how Tom could say he is so busy?

Its also 4 weeks until mum and dad are over here so I have been booking hostels and trying to decide on things to do with them, thinking park in a bar will do.

Right I have to go and plan some lessons now, stand by for more from the fated world of Claire’s Travels in China.

                                              Modesty?---------->

How many Chinese men does it take to cut one persons hair?

It would appear it takes about 10 Chinese guys to wash and cut my hair as well as about an hour. I walked in at 9 pm with long and unruly hair and walked out an hour and a bit later with still unruly but now much shorter hair. Language was a problem as it always is and so the collection of gay Chinese Cruella Deville look-a-likes all pushed each other towards me and very generally very blatant about the fact they didn’t want to have to deal with a Westerner, something that still really bothers me regardless of how many times I see it.

Anyway one of these idiots finally lost and came over so I wowed him with my limited Chinese and my hair cut routine (pick up scissors and take a chunk out of my hair and say everywhere-has worked several times now) and my hair was then cut. It’s much shorter than I planned but it is much better.

Other than that my week has been the start of the second batch of Phonics kids, some of which are alright and others are a bit of a nightmare. Tracy and I see to be coping OK but we still have 2 weeks to go. I have ten kids this time round which makes most games more of a riot than a game, 6 was much easier to handle. Big bonus being though I have no Helen she is now in Karina’s class. Tonnes and tonnes of self restraint were employed to stop the pointing and laughing impulse when we worked that out. It would seem that I am in fact a good friend. So I am back to A B and C and thoroughly knackered again, pay check was very nice though, nearly £200 of over time pay! Roll on next month!

I also found out when I am going to Hong Kong too. 21^st of August which is annoyingly after phonics as I really wanted to make Tom cover one of my lessons. Lucky git gets away with it and still has the nerve to say he is tired and has no time to which Karina and I hurl things across the office at him!

Also I finally got my bike from Cath and sadly the gears died as the handover ceremony was being completed. Lucky for my still nameless bike I am a modern day McGiever and managed to stick the gears into the top gear with the aid of a teaspoon and some string. I feel Grampy would have been proud and to quote Dad "blind man would be happy to see that!" it worked perfectly anyway, until I played with some screws and sort of fixed it. It will last until Dad comes out anyway!

So it is about 8 weeks until Mum and Dad come out here (with oodles of stuff for Karina, Tom and me) and I have managed to get myself a little under two weeks off. Lizzy (our Chinese boss) suddenly sadi that I could not have holiday time as it is a national hoiday, despite having said yes a week previously. So I implied that I would not be working these days anyway and she might as well be warned and arrange cover. It would appear I have found a way to make sure we don't get screwed by the Chinese staff. Threaten to leave our already stretched to the limit school. Handy!

Right I am off to see Harry Potter with Jenny and Karina, fingers crossed not in Chinese again. Stand by for Tales of the traveller in Hong Kong.