Shanghai August 19th - 25th

Our last night in Shanghai with Jacky and his girlfriend



Fancy buttons on the toilet which you can push.. Pretty interesting... Never know what would might happened ..haha..






A toilet inside the SWFC Observatory with a great view



Looking at the Pearl Tower from SWFC Observatory






SWFC Observatory: Built in 2008 and is 498 meters high



The floor in Pearl Tower was see through.. A bit scary, but at the same time pretty cool


















Looking at the SWFC Observatory from the Pearl Tower



View from the Pearl Tower







Pearl TV Tower: Built in 1994 and is 468 meters high



View from our hotel room






Someone got the laundry back :)



Now we're talking..this is a BED



Two happy faces in the hotel's elevator..



Just got of the the train in Shanghai.. First thing we had to do was to find the rain poncho because it was raining pretty hard..



The beds on ground floor...



Yep, not much space of sitting and moving...haha


Me in the "bed" trying to see the bright side of the train ride..



Joraan sitting by the window in the train carriage.. Notice the narrow hallway..hah..




August 19th we packed our stuff from Bell Tower Youth Hostel and was ready to say goodbye to X'ian city. Our mind was now set for Shanghai. To change location this time we chose to take the train. It was supposed to be cheaper than airplane ticket and we thought it would be a pleasant experience to see China from a different view than from the air. Hah!

First thing first, remember I wrote about the taxi drivers in China..? The "tuk tuk"-drivers (don't actually know what you call the bicycle that looks like a carriage where you just can sit and "relax" and the driver takes you where ever..?) are as bad. We managed to agree on a price with the driver to take us to the train station. We didn't know where the train station was and it was impossible to get a taxi for some strange reason (maybe because of the bad traffic), and we were in a hurry. So the "tuk tuk" sounded like a good plan.. When we sat on the "tuk tuk" we didn't feel safe at all.. It was very tiny so we had to sit with our backpacks on our back, and had no real frames to keep us some what inside the "tuk tuk". For every turn the driver did I thought I was going to fall off.. Haha. But we survived the ride to the train station! It would probably have taken us longer time to get to the station by taxi because of the traffic. The "tuk tuk" could just go between all the cars, almost like slalom.. Haha. The driver stopped like 500 meters from and wanted to get payed, which was fair enough, but now the driver wanted more than we had agreed on.. It was quite a discussion, haha. The driver yelling and waving with his arms, we yelling and waving back..haha.. At the end we just left without paying the amount the driver wanted to cheat from us. We had no time to discuss with him especially when the discussion consisted of him speaking Chinese and we English, haha.. Anyways, enough said about this episode of another "taxi driver" experience..

So, we managed to find the right train that would take us to Shanghai in 20 hours according to the hostel who booked the tickets for us. The type of ticket we had booked was called "hard sleeper" because it was the cheapest one. I immediately understood that we should have booked the ticket called "soft sleeper".. When we entered the train carriage with our big and heavy backpacks it felt like entering a, though I never been in one, cattle carriage. Where the farmers try and fit as many cattle a possible in these some carriages..haha. There were many many people on the train and the "hallway" was really narrow. The carriage had many stalls and in each stall there were 6 beds (3 on each side), which I wouldn't call beds but a book shelf instead. Of course we got a bed in two different stalls and the top bed.. I almost cried.. We were going to take this train for 20 hours and we wouldn't be in the same stall as well?! But then Joraan said that I should just take the other top bed in her stall since no one was sleeping there anyway...so I gladly took it. And no one could ever make me leave that bed! Haha. The top bed was not comfortable at all, the only thing you could do was to lay down, because otherwise you would bump your head in the ceiling, and the beds were hard and narrow.. I remember I thought that it was a good thing we left with the train during the evening, because then we just could go to sleep and sleep for the whole train ride, and dream that you were home in your on comfortable bed instead of the beds on this train..hah.. Think again.. In the ceiling (where we slept) there were these speakers which played horrible Chinese music, and they played it really loud as well.. They didn't turned it of until like 1 am, and then they turned it on again 7 am!! Did not get our beauty sleep that night.. Now I can look back at this train ride experience and laugh, but during that train ride I felt I was in hell..haha. The next morning we got up (my body was sore and aching after the comfortable "bed") two hours before we were supposed to be in Shanghai and sat by the window, because we didn't know if Shanghai was the last stop with this train and we didn't know exactly at what time it would arrive Shanghai. We tried to ask the people who worked on the train when we would arrive Shanghai, but that was not easy to get an answer on, because of the language barrier.. We finally kind of got an answer after asking different people and using the body language.. It turned out that it was 4 hours till we would arrive Shanghai instead of 2 hours which we thought we had left.. So all in all the train ride took 24 hours! Yeeeaaayy! But we survived!

I was really glad that we decided to book a hotel room (City Hotel Shanghai) for two nights in Shanghai before we took the train! It was like coming to heaven when we entered our hotel room. We also decided to use their laundry service.. Ooooh...our clothes smelled like flowers and was soft as...?...they were soft! :D The two days/nights in the hotel we just stayed in, because we were tired and it was bad weather.. Which was okay, it was nice to just relax as well.

For the rest of our stay in Shanghai we stayed with a friend (Jacky) of my Chinese friend (Aileen). He lived in an apartment with his brother and his girlfriend. Both Jacky and his brother were pretty busy during our whole stay in Shanghai because they were taking these driving license classes. So we spent a lot of time with Jacky's girlfriend, who could not speak English but she was really sweet though. And also it was mostly bad weather during our stay in Shanghai so it was not easy to find something to do. And first Joraan got a cold, and then I got mild cold so we didn't have much energy as well...haha.. And Joraan got some bad news from back home as well which made it a little bit difficult to enjoy and relax the time we had in Shanghai..But I must say I'm impressed of how Joraan handled the news and what she decided to do and make the best out of it. She's a strong person. So all in all, I think Shanghai would have been a better experience if the situation would have been different. And we were also so tired of China during this point, and could not wait to get to Japan and start fresh again in a new country.

During our stay in Shanghai we got to do some sightseeing the last day though. Got to see the Pearl TV Tower and SWFC Observatory, and after the sightseeing we ate dinner with Jacky and his girlfriend and then we went out to a club. We couldn't stay out long though because we had to get up at 5 am to take the airplane to Japan. We didn't get to bed before 2 am, but we didn't get much sleep though because Jacky and his girlfriend were fighting over something really stupid.. Then Jacky left to take care of something and we could sleep the few hours we had before we had to get up.. Woke up suddenly of Jacky storming in the apartment and started to throw all of his girlfriend's things in the hallway.. They were arguing big time over nothing.. We were kind of uncomfortable over the whole situation so we decided to pack our things and get ready to leave, it was almost the time we had to get up anyway.. When we were done packing we tried to say "thank you for having us" to Jacky and his girlfriend but they were so busy arguing and barley noticed us, so we left.. Nice ending to our stay in Shanghai/China. But despite the love quarrel, they were nice people who welcomed us with open arms and let us sleep on their couch. Thank you :)

When we arrived the airport we were both kind of nervous that they wouldn't let us on the plane because of the swine flu hysteria because we still had our cold and cough, but it all went well. We got on the plane, both being really tired but happy to go to a new country. We both fell asleep instantly, or at least I did..haha.. Night night China.. Japan next..

P.s.
Reading through what I wrote about China it made me realize that it might seem like China was a horrible place to visit.. Which is not true at all.. I'm really glad I went to China and got to experience both good and bad sides of it. I do believe that if you choose to travel to other countries you do that because you want to experience different cultures and so on.. Which is the reason why I travel.. It was just a bit though and rough for me (and Joraan..?) to start with China on our ever first backpacker trip. I mean, first dealing with the way of living like a backpacker and on top of that living as a backpacker in a country where you have no communication at all.. But all in all I did have a great experience of China. There were many nice people there as well, and we did manage to get used to live as a backpacker and dealing with peeing in a hole on the floor..haha. And we got to learn some of China's interesting history and to see interesting places. So China was definitively worth to visit! :)

Xi'an and the Terra-cotta Army August 15th - 19th

...but before that I had to put on some MYGGA (mosquito repellent), my best friend during this trip :P Hate mosquitoes, but they seems to love me..



Time to go to sleep...


Our night at the empty club.. Yeah, we ruled the dance floor...haha.



This big Terracotta soldier was in the opening -or closing ceremony of Beijing's Olympic Games.





This carriage have gold and silver in it which are melted (don't know if I use the right English term) together. To melt gold and silver together today you need electricity, so it is a big mystery on how they managed to do that back then.









The soldiers were buried in bright colors, but when they are dugged (sorry, don't know the right English word to use, but hopefully you get what I mean..haha) up their color fades away completely after just a few hours.





Some Terracotta soldiers that just have been dug out and are going to be rebuilt









The Terracotta Army


I joined the Terracotta Army :P



Here is a picture of the main tomb were the emperor is buried, and which we climbed. Inside the tomb they put mercury so no one could get in and rob it.


The stairs we had to go up to the top of the actually tomb were the emperor is buried. It was too many stairs for a hot, hot and humid day.. When I reached the top I thought I was going to die..haha.






The red colored trees is were all the concubines to the first emperor was buried alive. The color red means woman.





Put some pictures of information of the first emperor's tomb that you hopefully can read so I don't have to write so much.. :P






X'ian's Bell Tower by night



The bathroom


The hallway



Notice the nice art on the wall



Our laundry hanging in the cord of the air condition in our "cell"



Relaxing with a beer in the common area of the hostel



The entrance of Bell Tower hostel



Relaxing and enjoying the comfort that a hotel provides...haha






Me in the lobby of Gloria Hotell



Leaving Lama Temple Youth Hostel... And are ready for X'ian and new adventures.




After the great walk on the Great Wall was our next stop X'ian. We had booked plane tickets and was ready for the two hour flight from Beijing to X'ian. We decided that since we had been such good troopers (we thought) walking on the wall and stayed in a dirty hostel, that we deserved a treat; ONE NIGHT IN A CLEAN HOTEL. Haha.. And oh it was so good, I felt reborn. I know we were supposed to go on a backpacker trip, but hey...It's our first time doing something like that, not used to that kind of a life style, so one night in a hotel is okay.. ;P

After a good night sleep it was time to check out and go back to the backpacker life style...back to reality...haha. Our hostel , called Bell Tower hostel, was in the middle of city center of X'ian right next to the Bell Tower. I think I liked this hostel, though our room was kind of small. It had no windows, nothing on the walls, just some writings from people who stayed in the room before us, two beds and a table. It felt like a prison cell..haha. But the hostel had it's own bar and served food, it had a pool table, and it had the right backpacker/hostel atmosphere.. Okay, the
Lama Temple hostel in Beijing wasn't too bad either if you think about the atmosphere.. The first night at Bell Tower hostel we just stayed in, had some beer and played some pool, because the next day we had to get up early to go on this tour to see the Terracotta army, which was the main reason why we chose to go X'ian. Have to admit I had not heard much about the army before Joraan told me she wanted to see them..

So here are some facts about the city X'ian and the Terracotta army:

The existing city wall is from the Ming dynasty and it is 14 km long and is from 1300 century, that same as the Bell Tower and the Drum Tower of X'ian. Outside the existing city wall there is another city wall from the Qin Dynasty, which are 36 km long. X'ian was often chosen to be the capital city because of its location. X'ian is surrounded by 8 rivers (2 in each direction) and mountains, which gave good opportunities for hunting and trade transportation. It was a wealthy city.

China was divided in 7 different parts. The first emperor (13 years old) united those 7 parts to one China. At the age of 14 years old he started to build his own tomb. Over 700 000 people worked to build that tomb and they used 37 years...crazy.. The first emperor died at the age of 51 years old. The tomb is bigger than a small city, and the Terracotta Army is just 3% of the tomb.

When the first emperor united China he also united the currency, which made the currency stronger, and he united the written symbols. During the first emperor's rule it was bad conditions for his people, because of his big building projects, but for the other emperors after him and their people they lived a good and wealthy life because of his building projects and vision. Still to this day China can thank the first emperor's vision, because of the Great Wall and the Terracotta army (2 wonders of the world) he started to build, China lives good on tourism.

The Terracotta Army is made of terracotta clay. They are buried strategical with the thought of a real attack. Those who made the soldiers had to sign their name under the foot of the soldier so you could see the difference of a good or bad made soldier. Those who made bad quality soldiers were in worst case killed. The soldiers were shaped differently according to which rang they belonged to. The Terracotta soldiers had a lot of details on them. During the Ming dynasty some of the army was robbed and destroyed. It can take up to 5 years to rebuild a soldier because they only use the original pieces. There has been 1500 soldiers that has been rebuilt. They believe that there are 6000 soldiers in total.

To see the Terracotta Army was quite a sight. Thinking of how many that was actually made and buried, and many many years later they were found by 11 farmers in 1974. Of the 11 farmers it is only 3 that are still alive today, and one of them works at the museum just signing books.

The next day, which was our last day in X'ian before we were leaving for Shanghai, we just went for some shopping and tried to find a club during night.. We found one close to the hostel, but it was totally empty..haha.. But it was fine..we had fun anyways.. We were too tired to go far away from the hostel to find a better one..