Sauntering to Shanghai

Pick of the day: Ok so we forgot the loo shot for this section so this is one of my 'stock' collection from the trip and this was actually from Beijing.

Style: None

Atmosphere: Pun-tastic

Extras: Check out the photo above. Whats the name of the toilet paper? Now Whats it sat on?
Its a play on words/objects. Get it?

06/04/13 – 13/04/13: Pingyao, Xi’an and Shanghai

We arrived in Pingyao at some ungodly hour of the morning but thankfully our hotel did pick up from the train station and we were duly transported by electric golf cart to a beautiful courtyard hotel on one of the main thoroughfares in town. We actually struggled to find cheap accommodation because of the weekend (Chinese people really do live for the weekend and escape their homes in droves at the on Saturdays) but the upside of this was that we had a beautiful ensuite room.

This dude made some weird cakeyflanbread things. VERY tasty

Our room was on the left in this lovely little courtyard yard hotel

Pingyao is famous as being an authentic ancient walled town with the city walls and most of the streets, alleyways and buildings inside being intact from the 14^th century. We essentially spent our day wandering round and exploring as well as laughing at the tourist tat on offer including ‘oba-mao’ tshirts and bags. Also we noticed that most of the stray dogs in the town (there are a lot in china, except for the places that are famed for dog hotpot) appear to be interrelated and virtually all had a massive underbite giving them a permanently perplexed, muttley-esque air which was fairly amusing. We had some wonderful food from the local caff and then a great sleep in the biggest bed in the world (literally about 8 feet wide) before continuing our exploring the next day.

Its so dusty in this town the best way to build is to stack the bricks and wait for the next dust storm to fill the cracks

Even the street signs look cool

The roof tops of Pingyao from the city tower

Another reason way pandas fail to breed. They are far too absorbed in chinese chess

That evening we took the train to Xi’an and when we had booked the train there had only been ‘hard seat’ class available so we expected something pretty bad but were still totally unprepared for the horrors ahead. Hard seat does not literally mean that the seats are hard, it means (as far as I can tell) that it’s hard on your sanity. Imagine a normal town-to-town train like we have at home with 50-100 seats or so per carriage. Then imagine twice the people to seats being put into said carriage, for 10 hours straight. I was lucky in that I got my seat early on but I had my feet on my big rucksack, little rucksack on lap and literally moved nothing except my left arm for the rest of the journey (not even to pee). Ben was less lucky- the dude sleeping in his seat refused to give it up so having got on the train at midnight he spent 5 hours sat on his rucksack in the aisle before finally sitting in the seat he paid for at 5am. Then add in chain smoking from passengers right next to you. Then add in constant spitting on the floor- indoors. Then add so much rubbish that the two times it was swept up the pile came waist high. We came out of that shell shocked and swearing that we would rather walk to the next city than do that again.

Hitting up the food in Xi'ans Muslim quarter

Spicy potatoes. Eat near access to a toilet.

We arrived in Xi’an pretty much screwed but couldn’t really go to bed so instead we headed up the muslim quarter for which Xi’an is well known and managed to get some awesome grub including some pots of tiny little curried fondant potato. That evening we signed up to go on a free tour with our hostel. First they took us to the ‘skyscape’ which is essentially a shopping area that has been roofed over with a massive LCD screen. The screen shows a constantly changing sky from space to changing seasons and even a giant reef view. It was like we had suddenly been transported to Tokyo and was very impressive. We then had a little wander around the local park where plenty of people were out strolling in the warm air. A man playing a violin was attracting a crowd and we suddenly realised that he was playing greensleeves while nearby a crowd of about 100 elderly Chinese did synchronised musical tai chi to some Bollywood tunes. We started to wonder whether our sleep deprived state was starting to make us hallucinate. Then to top it off we watched a huge light and fountain show where the water bursts were timed to coincide with the alternating classical European and Chinese music. Weird dreams that night.

Fried (quail) egg on a stick!

You had to time walking down the street just right to avoid el scorcho

Under the sea in a shopping centre

Flash mobs have been around for a while in china. Or synchronised tia-chi dancing. Amateurs not tolerated.

The following day we took the bus to go and see the iconic Terracotta Warriors which are located just outside of Xi’an. We managed to push our way through all the guides who kept telling us that without them we would see nothing and understand nothing and made it to the 3 pits and museum to have a look for ourselves. The sight was incredible. There are 3 pits that have been found so far and even they have only been partially excavated with a lot of the warriors destroyed but there are thousands of statues that are in perfect condition. For those that don’t know the Terracotta Warriors is a burial  site for an ancient chinese emperor who believed that he needed who have replicas of everything from his life to serve him in the afterlife.  Thousands upon thousands of pottery warriors made, each unique with their own uniform, expression and hairstyle and an entire army was created from the top generals to crossbowmen, archers and cavalry complete with pottery horses. Each was also painted and gilt and placed in battle positions. On top of that an entire pottery city was made which included city walls, sewer systems, everything needed for an imperial court such as acrobats and jugglers and also all the supplies so bakeries and bakers, forges, grocers and animal keepers- all made of pottery. To say it was impressive is an understatement.

Hands posed for comic effect

Pit 2, impressive

Pit 1. Crazy impressive. All these guys are individual. Wouldn't want to be the night guard

Having sufficiently wowed our socks off we then caught the overnight train to Shanghai.

THE Shanghai skyline

Arriving in the afternoon we had time for a quick wander down East Nanjing Street (a classic) to the Bund which is the old riverfront from which you can see the iconic Shanghai skyline. The whole experience (and I take Ben’s word for this but it definitely seemed like it to me) felt so much more like New York or Sydney than an Asian city. We found a great man down near our hostel who sold food from a wok mounted on the bike of a bicycle where we got our first street vendored egg fried rice in China which was amazing! Awesomely enough we also did not get food poisoning and the next day were good to go for a wander round Shanghai’s old town and Yunan Gardens which are a wonderful little haven full of blossoming cherry trees, tiny ornamental bridges over carp ponds and beautiful little pagodas made for an afternoon chill.

Obligatory couple shot to prove we are still traveling together.

We then headed on to the Shanghai museum which was impressive, especially considering it was free (well, excepting the sunglasses that some little shite stole) and then we met up with a couple of friends (Ruth and Mark) from the Trans-Mongolian and headed to the famous French Concession area of the city for some food, cocktails and beers (from the mad dog brewery which is a cool bar if you ever happen to be in town). After a slightly hungover sleep we headed back to the French Concession for some exploring (the area is huge with a myriad of tiny little alleyways that house shops selling everything you can imagine buying and a good few things you didn’t know you needed). We also went to a museum of propaganda posters dating from throughout Mao’s rise and until just after his death. It was a real treat to get to see them as most were destroyed during the various purges and in particular after Mao’s demise and they are completely fascinating (competition with Britain for steel and grain production seemed to be a big thing). Then there was a final visit to the Bund which was a little surreal as since it was a weekend there was a lot of couples who had got married and were getting their wedding photos with the Shanghai skyline in the background, and by a lot I mean in a 20 minute walk we counted 16 separate couples.

The river is swarming with boats decked out like christmas trees.

Then it was time to move on again, this time south to Yushan.