China - outskirts escapade ep 3

Continued on from Chengdu, we were off to another city in Sichuan provice: the Jiuzhaigou Valley. Part of the Min Mountains on the edge of the Tibetan Plateau, it is famous for its beautiful lakes and numerous waterfalls.

Jiuzhaigou

So according to Travel China Guide, we can only catch the bus to Jiuzhaigou from the main bus station. But, Tony (our super helpful landlord in Chengdu) booked us a bus that left from width alley which is (I assumed) another tourist attraction area near our accommodation. Turned out it's actually a tour bus, which was the same price as a normal bus but with a Chinese guide and stops along the way on our 7 hours bus ride.

And on this bus trip, I experienced the infamous 'true traditional Chinese toilet'. It is not your mere squat toilet, it's on another different level. It doesn't have doors, the wall only covered up to my tummy (so if you're taller than 180 cm you're doomed), there was not even a toilet per say inside this 'cubicle'. It was just a concave tunnel, in the middle of the tiles, running along all the toilets. My advice; if you ever fall into a misfortune to experience this type of toilet, it is wise to go to the FURTHERMOST toilet available. I didn't know any better before, and I shall not repeat what I saw. It still gave me nightmares - in fact I think I am scarred for life.

We stopped on a couple of places but I am not quite sure where and what they were, since the guide only spoke Chinese. But thanks to Google, here's what we saw (I think):

Fortress village of Qiang people (minority Chinese) composed of 30 to 100 households. It almost looks like a massive apartment block but with all your extended family living together. Imagine the chaos!

Fluffy yak

Songpan - the fortress city

Inside the wall

We got into Jiuzhaigou unscathed, and found out that taxis and unmarked cars would 'beep' us whenever we walked on the street. There were lots of them looking for business, and we found about ¥20 was the flat rate wherever we went regardless of distance, as they were allergic to using their meters.

We settled in at Jiuzhaigou Mingya Hotel,  slightly out of the way from the entrance park. There was no one at the reception when we got in to check in so we didn't know what to expect - but after struggling with our 'mandarin' with the staff, we found the bed was comfortable and clean, and they even gave us some fruit. After the toilet saga on the way to here, I was just so overwhelm and happy when I saw a Western style toilet in our room! The breakfast was Sichuan type of breakfast which we couldn't really eat (basically just ate the boiled eggs), but overall it was ok for what we needed.

There are prayer flags everywhere in the city

So, this national park is famous with the local tourists. And turns out they are not keen walkers. So, there are hop on hop off buses running on the main road in the national park where it dropped people on the 'main sights' along this massive park. There is a wooden footpath which snakes around the national park running parallel to the bus routes. We headed straight to the pathway just to be stopped by the park ranger warning us the walk is FAR (10 km) to the point we wanted to go. When we said we wanted to walk, she looked at us like we're some sort of aliens. I am glad that we walked it, because we were the only souls walking from the beginning of the park.

It was incredible

Gorgeous reflective lakes dotting the park

This place is ridiculously beautiful

We were originally to camp in the park as part of their 'Ecotour' available to mainly foreign tourists looking to hike the national park. But after an extremely long and painful chain of broken communication with the tour organizers, accompanied by horrible reviews online, we decided not do it. So instead, we decided to stay INSIDE the park. It turned out to be pretty much some local guy's house. There were random socks in the bathroom, the shower was just a trickle of water, and we had to pay an additional ¥20 for a towel (non absorbent and hand sized). When we were to pay the guy he pretty much asked how much are we willing to pay 😅 In saying that, we had decent meals in the house and good night sleep in the comfortable bed.

The hotel 'reception'

Me having breakfast at the hotels illustrious restaurant!

We were told to leave the house later in the morning after 10.00 am the next day. It is 'discouraged' to stay inside the park, and the entrance ticket was supposedly only valid for one day and not two. We managed to sneak back to the tourist bus line and blend with the other tourists, and there were countless tourists. I never seen any national park THAT busy in my life!

The day before our flight out we stayed in Songpan where the airport is 2 hours drive from Jiuzhaigou. We stayed in this Tibetan style accommodation the night before. As for most places in the country, we found the hosts so friendly despite the massive language barrier - they drove us to the city centre for food on demand and dropped us off to the airport at 6am the next day free of charge!

Off to Xian next to see my beloved mother!

Extra

After this leg of the trip, I felt I had thoroughly erased the stereotypical perceptions of Mainland China. Yes, they drove like frantic chickens about to get slaughtered (most Asian countries drive like this), spit whenever they can (Koreans do it as well), and have complete disregard for queuing. However, they’ve been very helpful and accommodating despite the language barrier. I couldn’t imagine the reactions of most English-speaking persons if a Chinese lady jumped into a taxi and started speaking Mandarin. That’s what I did here, jumped into a taxi and told the driver in English our destination. Indeed, most of them were quite patient and helpful. We are very impressed with Chinese urban planning, infrastructure, the battery-operated motorcycles (careful when crossing the road, they are soundless!), and the general cleanliness of all the places we went (discount the toilets!).

Tipping: we didn’t really tip in China other than our guide in the tour.

China - outskirts escapade ep 2

Continued on from Guilin, we had somewhat recovered after 3 days; the landlady managed to get us a car transfer at 5.00 am to go down to the foot of the mountain. Turns out there was a rough muddy road that is just wide enough to fit a jeep about 5 minutes’ walk from her B&B. The journey down was bumpy and took about half an hour for ¥150. We took the 1.5 hours flight to Chengdu; located in the Sichuan province, it is the native region of the adorable pandas.

Chengdu

Have you ever heard of Sichuan peppers? They are these eye watering spicy peppers that numbs your tongue. First couple of bites you wouldn’t taste its potency. Eat several of them and your ass would be on fire. Literally EVERYTHING in Chengdu is RED coloured and truly spicy. Probably not the kind of food one looks for after being sick for 4 days, but we were up for the challenge!

Not very helpful to our already slightly upset tummies

We stayed in this panda theme studio. It's a very spacious, clean, comfortable studio located near the People's Park. When we went for a wander to the park, the 'marriage market' was on! Parents came here to find a suitable partner for their child with their information and what they're after written on a piece of paper. They walked around chatting to other parents to gauge whether their children will be a good match.

It was very entertaining, somehow felt like tinder meets farmers' market, with the parents being the farmers

Typical 'Profile Pictures' from the dating market - surprisingly not too many photos attached to the profiles

Tony, our landlord was extremely helpful. He booked our bus tickets to see the pandas and our onwards tickets to Jiuzhaigou. He also recommended the Sichuan face changing opera and booked the tickets for us, all in Chinese for local prices.

The actors could change to different masks in nano seconds!

He also pointed out all the attractions and the main highlight of Sichuan, its hotpot.

These type of hotpot restaurants are EVERYWHERE.  That red soup was crazy spicy

Jinli Fair

We went to a smaller version of Shanghai's Old Town with a market full of traditional Chinese houses selling trinkets, some food stalls and numerous stores selling all sort of chili (dried, fresh, in oil, cooked, etc etc)!

Would you like some meat with your chilies? 

Bifengxia

Breeding ground for the endangered pandas, Bifengxia was a real trek from Chengdu. First we had to catch a 2 hour bus ride to Ya'an city, then another half an hour bus to Bifengxia - I am not quite sure it was worth the trip since you can see pandas everywhere in the zoo in China, though this place has a lot more. We saw approximately 10 pandas, and they were so cute!!

Mama panda

Panda cubs - they're adorable!!

We caught the 10 minutes shuttle bus inside the park to see the pandas, then we saw a sign saying that we could walk down to the exit. When we saw the map, it didn't look that far - there was no notification of how long or far the walk would be instead of catching the bus back up. After walking for about 2 hours, I started getting worried. Where the hell is the exit?!?! We sped up our leisurely walk upon realising the map was NOT TO SCALE and at last after 3.5 hours we reached the entrance 😑

At least the scenery were beautiful along the 15 km walk!

More beautiful scenery to come in Jiuzhaigou!

China - outskirts escapade ep 1

After Shanghai, we were off to China’s lesser known cities. I really didn't expect how mind-blowing these cities would be in this massive country!

Guilin

Yangshuo 

We flew 2 hours from Shanghai to Guilin with Fabs’ parents, where we said our goodbyes and went our separate ways. The drive from Guilin airport to Yangshuo took another 1.5 hours where we had our first glimpses of the limestones’ silhouettes soaring up on either side of the road at night.

Yangshuo pedestrian road on the main area

Small but very vibrant local tourist town

View of this beautiful lake in town first thing in the morning

The next morning we got ready for our mountain bike tour which would take 3 days. As Fabs has recently competed in triathlons, he’s no stranger with a bike. For me it was a little different, as the last time I rode was probably 10 years ago and it was only to supermarket with my sister; even that only took 10 minutes which ended with us both exhausted in her house drinking beers. Needless to say, this was going to be a struggle. BIG time. As it turned out, I was alright with the downhills, and even the off-bumpy-as roads; but the uphill almost killed me.  And there were many of them!

One of the many hills on day one

In hindsight I could've fallen, destroyed my face or superman'd straight into the abyss

There were five of us, 2 couples and 1 guide. I felt quite bad for the other couple in our tour, as they were awesome cyclists and patiently waited for me whenever I was facing my darkest hours in my uphill battles. A few times I even had to get off my bike and tow it as I couldn’t conquer the steep hills. Our guide was surprised (“WHY DID YOU TAKE A BIKING ADVENTURE TOUR?!” was her reaction when I told her when was the last time I rode) and impressed in the same time when we finished the tour.

Always in the back 😅

Everywhere across China, card games seem to be the favourite past time

Crossing the river with our bikes

I had seen some vlogs about Guilin, but I didn’t realise how gorgeous it actually was until I saw it in person! Especially while we were riding and when we hiked to the TV tower in Xinping!

Looked familiar? Avatar was filmed here!

Xinping town centre - dead after 5.00 pm when hordes of day trip tourists departed

We did about 2 and half days of riding and half day of rock climbing. Who knew, apparently, Guilin is world famous for rock climbing?!

I enjoyed climbing. I'm the little ant about halfway up the mountain

Fabs – not a natural

In total, we rode for 115 km. My bum was sore, my legs were so tired, I had spasms on my arms. I was in pain generally. But, it was SO worth it.

Unfortunately on the second day whilst we were riding, the guy from the other couple (John) got a bit sick. Seemingly nothing too bad to worry about, until the next day, his wife started throwing up about an hour before the end of the tour. They couldn’t make it to our last dinner, but then Fabs started to get sick during dinner!  It was imminent it would hit me. True enough, we were both up at dawn vomiting our guts out.

Beer fish - Guilin traditional dish. Maybe be the culprit! 

Dazhai Rice Terraces

Yangshuo is approximately a 4.5 hour car ride south of Dazhai. Our guide told us to repack before Dazhai, and to only take 3 nights’ worth of luggage in a small backpack whilst leaving our big bags in the ticket office. This would have been smart, but we were so crook the night before we couldn’t really think straight. I was so glad we organised a private car transfer as the bus would have taken much longer despite the significant cost saving. Somehow, we made it to the ticket office about 3 hours in (entrance to the national park); Fabs gallantly volunteered to wobble out of the car to grab us the tickets, some bananas and crackers. After the treacherous car journey which felt like eternity, we finally reached the bottom of the rice terrace mountains.

We were greeted by the Yao people, the first minority Chinese we saw in our trip (majority of Chinese is Han people).

It could be the next hair fashion - forehead bun

The whole area is seemingly only accessible by foot with stone stairs hugging the mountains. I threw up half of the banana along the way – I hope no one slipped on it and fell down the slippery slope. Lucky we had these lovely old aged local women to help us with our heavy luggage.

For ¥50/piece the 60++ years old ladies carried our bags for us; the city youngsters, up to our accommodation 40 minutes uphill

We stayed in this B&B for 3 days, with the most jovial landlady that cooked our meals, gave Fabs some Chinese medicine for his tummy ache and pointed out the viewpoints. We didn’t do the planned 8 hours’ round trek to Ping'an, which was highly recommended by Lonely Planet; instead we only went out to 1 viewpoint which was 30 minutes’ walk from our accommodation. The rest of the time we just played with her gorgeous dog, or holed up inside our room in the fetal position being sick, sore and useless.

Rice terraces stretch out as far as the eye can see

Our cure, Hoppu

Our China adventure continues - Chengdu next!

China - Shanghai

After our whirlwind tour and meeting the parents in Taiwan - the four of us flew to Shanghai with Air China. I checked us in the night before, and to say Air China website is challenging would be an understatement. I almost gave up, but after a grueling 1.5 hours of trying, all of us were checked in. Woohoo! I dragged Fabs' parents down into economy class with no TV, no food, no 180° flat chair and they handled it all with the utmost grace!

Accommodation

We stayed in a two bedroom apartment in Green Court Serviced Apartment near People’s Square subway station. Unknown to us at the time, taxi is really (like really) cheap in China. So we took a subway from airport to the subway and with all our luggage AND I got us lost in the middle of massive shopping street, the Nanjing Road. With the help of Fabs' mum, we managed to find our accommodation by asking locals where the hotel is located.

Nanjing Road, where we roamed around aimlessly with all of our heavy luggage (not recommended)

The apartment itself is centrally located, spacious, it has a washing machine which doubled as dryer, iron, comfortable beds, everything one could hope for an accommodation. The staff were its downfall. They were extremely unhelpful. When asked for recommendations for the area they said 'we can't give any' (huh?!), when asked to order a taxi for us, they also refused to do so (we went to a restaurant that had called a taxi for us) and told us to just hail one from the street in the rain. Maybe we just unlucky and got the crap staff on shift when we stayed there.

Sights

The Bund

Shanghai most famous waterfront and regarded as its symbol for hundreds of years - really took me by surprise how amazing it was! The buildings lining from the west side of the Bund are gorgeous with different architectural styles including Gothic, Baroque, Romanesque, Classicism and the Renaissance since the area was a British Concession back in 1800's.

Some of the buildings reminded me of Town Hall in Sydney

We visited the Bund at night and on the East of the river the lights of all Shanghai's major buildings were on display. It was stunning. We took a cruise along the river to appreciate the view better and experienced first hand (and many more instances whilst we're in China) the 'tourists rush'. Where everyone just cut lines and RUSH IN AS SOON AS YOU CAN ELSE YOU MIGHT DIE  type of rush. Because we were travelling with parents, we paid ¥100/pp to sit in the VIP area where we didn't need to rush and could enjoy peace, quiet and snacks. If you take the cruise, it is 100% worth it to pay the extra ¥100 to sit away from all the raging tourists. Trust me.

Captivating - the picture don't do it justice

Fairmont Peace Hotel

This hotel was hailed as the most prestigious hotel before the 1949; it was closed for renovation from 2007 and reopened in 2010. It has an old glamour to it, and where the Old Jazz Band performs from 8.00 - 11.30 pm every night. The band was founded in 1980 and once recorded in Guinness Book of Record as the oldest Jazz Band in the world.

I thoroughly enjoyed it, the lady was singing old Chinese classics that I actually recognised, since my mum used to play the songs when I was little. There was even a dandy old guy had a bit of a jive with his missus on the dance floor!

Huanghe Rd

Lonely Planet called this street 'food road'. It was one block away from our hotel and true to its name, it was filled with delicious food. We frequented this road often!

Shengjianbao at 小杨生煎馆

A Shanghai classic, these pan-fried soup dumplings are filled in thicker slightly sweet bao. It was crunchy and the soup kept dribbling down. A bit messy but omaigad, they were delicious.

If this shop comes to Sydney, it will give New Shanghai a good run for their money.

Xialongbao at Jia Jia Tangbao

These dumplings are ridiculously cheap and honestly the best xialongbao I ever tasted in my life. We went here twice in our 3 days in Shanghai and if I lived here I would go every week, even though the lady at the counter was the grumpiest lady I ever encountered.

My favourite: pork with salted egg. Sydney get on it!

Xin Tian Di

A fashionable pedestrian street composed of Shikumen, a product of Chinese and Western architecture styles houses. Previously used as residential, this area was rebuilt in 1997 changing the typical Shikumen into shops and restaurants. Walking down this area, I was (again) really surprised of how beautiful this city is!

Fuxing Park nearby - urban planning has been done well here; with its many parks, tree line avenues, pedestrian streets, many one way streets to hinder traffics and gorgeous architecture!

Tianzifang

On the way to Tianzifang we passed by Former Residence of Sun Yat-Sen, so we checked it out. It was quite interesting to learn how China evolved from Imperial ruling to how she is today. 

Where Xin Tian Di gave expensive, trendy and posh vibe - Tianzifang felt more hip and young feeling with its narrow alleyways and lanes zigzagging into restaurants, tea houses, cafes and shops selling random novelties.

We had juices here and continued on to Shikumen Open House Museum, just to found that it only opens every Saturday. Things started going down hill here as Fabs and I started bickered from here on at expense of his parents 😞. This what happens when you see your partner everyday 24/7 for 2 months straight!

PuLi Hotel

I asked the taxi driver to get us to French Concession, unknowingly to me we already in 'it'. Hailed as Shanghai's first 'urban retreat', this boutique luxury hotel has a garden bar supposedly overlooking a pool - which was more like a 'pond' in real life. Drinks were nice and expensive (just like Fairmont Hotel, around AUD 20 for a glass of wine!) and we continued on walking around the area to get some food nearby. We settled for a burger restaurant that I couldn't recall the name and honestly not worth visiting if you are in Shanghai.

Green Massage

To let off steam, I went by myself to get a massage one subway away from our apartment. It was a really nice experience - and for AUD 80 in 90 minutes it has the same standard as Sydney's day spas' massages with all you can eat dessert after the massage!

As it was Fabs' mum's birthday the next day, Fabs went along East Nanjing Rd to get a cake for her. Lonely Planet warned about the offers of massage along this road - apparently he was offered at least five times for 'massages' by really pushy aunties 😆

Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition Hall

As we were impressed by Shanghai's urban planning, we thought we should checked out this quasi museum. Inside, Fabs and I bickered again and I had my pouty face for a while until I was over it somehow 😅. We knew there would be some testy times during our trip and this was certainly one of them!

Sprawling model of the city

Yu Garden

Also known as Yuyuan Garden, it is located in the Old City of Shanghai. The surrounding area was the only area that felt like the old China (or the one that I expected most of Shanghai to look like). I was obviously mistaken.

Very crowded and full of tourists such as ourselves

Lots of food sold in the Old Town with long queues 

Shanghai Tower

The second tallest building in building in the world at the time of this writing, this twisting tower is magnificent. On the other side of the Bund; it's surrounded by other tall buildings such as Oriental Pearl TV tower, Shanghai World Financial Centre (fifth tallest building) shaped as bottle opener and many others to complete the super-metropolitan look of the city.

View from the observation on the top of the tower

He just had to pull a face 😏

Kathleen's Waitan

As it was Fabs' mum's birthday, we went to this rooftop fancy restaurant in Shanghai. To our dismay, we were seated inside without view when we first arrived. An hour later, we seated on the terrace overlooking the beautiful Shanghai lights. It was a gorgeous place to celebrate her birthday and a perfect ending to our Shanghai adventure! As it was slightly raining and we were enjoying dinner, we forgot to take a photo of the view, but it was truly magnificent.

Off to China countrysides - next up Guilin!

Extra

As you might have known, Google doesn't work in China. Nor Facebook. Nor anything that relates to these two main applications Western society uses. All my data/knowledge/connections/everything really, used Google or Facebook related apps. Fabs alleviated this problem by subscribing to VPN Express prior arriving in Shanghai. I am not IT savvy, but (I think) it supposed to 'mask' your IP address so to be seen as if it is based in another country other than China; enabling use of Facebook and Google. HOWEVER, my location in Google Map still wasn't 100% accurate sometime - which caused us to get lost several time in China 😅

I also managed to get a sim card in Shanghai, which proved to be quite a challenge. We were lucky to have Fabs' parents with us, so the process was less painful. It took almost an hour of me sitting there with a blank face and nod once in a while when Fabs' dad translate what was going on. For ¥200, I got 9 GB worth of data valid for 6 weeks. Whoop!

FYI - 1 AUD equate to approximately 5 RMB.