May 2006

We arrived in Shanghai in the middle of the May Day holiday week where every man, woman, their kids and their dog either go home or on holiday. It seemed a lot of these people decided to head to Shanghai.

The main sightseeing areas and rampant tourist traps are the Bund, Nanjing rd and the new Pudong area. The first night we went for a walk along the Bund only to be put off by the squillions of people, the thousands selling crap and the stench of urine eminating from the public toilets. The view of Pudong from the Bund was quite spectacular though, amazing new buildings in an area that was only open for development since 1990. It now contains the 4th highest building in the world (see highlights) and the Oriental Pearl Tower. In contrast the Bund is all older european buildings built while trade was rampant in Shanghai.

From here we ventured to Nanjing Road, one of the biggest shopping malls in the world. This also was teeming with people and people selling crap, but much worse than Hong Kong. I could have DVD's, fake shoes, fake bags and rolex's up each arm. As you walk up the street the touts come and ask if you want any of these, we just walk and shake our heads, which mostly leads to them asking if you want a "sexy massage? lady spa?" Funny stuff.

Highlights:
Jinmao Tower
4th tallest building in the world, in the new Pudong area. Great view of sprawling Shanghai and the Oriental Pearl Tower

Bund Sightseeing Tunnel
Actually probably not a highlight, this 100m tunnel under the river from the Bund to Pudong contains crazy flashing lights and weird inflated statues

Maglev Train
We hopped on the Magnetic Leviation train to the Shanghai International Airport at a top speed of 430km/hr! Sweet ride and mighty quick.

Whilst in Shanghai we met up with Melon's cousin Simon. Our first night in Shanghai involved us getting boozed with Simon, to be honest we got boozed with Simon quite a bit. He took us to some good bars and some shockers and by shockers I mean crusty euro-trash sex tourists dancing or crusty euro-trash sex tourists chatting with prostitutes. We hit some good places and usually ended up at a second floor Mexican restaurant called "Taco Popo". For the remainder of our time in Shanghai most conversations consisted of us saying "Taco Popo", "Make yourself a dang Quesidilla" or "Chimichanga" (some sort of mexican stuff wrapped in a tortilla, like everything else).

Our last night in Shanghai we hit the train for the overnight journey to Beijing.

Hengel the white giant with admirers after teaching an english class in Quzhou



Chinglish is at a high level as Melon has mentioned

I've not seen Bruce Lee fight Chuck Norris in Enter the Dragon, but I have seen him in a thriving takeaway chain here

A local cop phoning a friend

Partying with local friends in Ningbo, after some dice and jugs of scotch & tea

Melon wasted with friend from Quzhou (going out to you Thommo)

A James Bond set in Quzhou, with Hengel the super villain planning another dastardly scheme

Personal hotpot is the way of the future

A perfect fit

Monkeys are hilarious

Where the hell are we?

Washed

5 people, 3 packs and a 3 wheeled car - clown car moment in Quzhou

Melon wanted this in as an example of his photographic classiness (8 culture points going his way)

Half way through the China leg of our journey now and it feels like we've crossed the globe. We've hardly stopped moving, rarely had anything but a bulging stomach, and been pampered in every city we’ve visited. I didn't have much doubt that the trip would run smoothly from the moment that we said the tough goodbyes at Tullamarine, walked through the doors of no return and straight into Qantas Club for free booze and nibblies with all round good guy Sam Armstrong.

Hong Kong was brilliant. So busy. So tasty. Sooooo many fake things - which could now be the way in which we judge a city, the more fake the better, obviously. Our trip up towards my old stomping ground of Zhejiang Province was just as good but completely different. We passed through industrial cities such as Shenzhen, spectacular mountains like Lushan, funky small villages of 2 million people like Jingdazhen, and we even saw one of the world’s largest rivers, the Yangzi.

This brings me to our time in Zhejiang, which has been the highlight for me. Quzhou was great. We divided most of our time there between eating hot pots, getting massaged on almost every part of our body and driving on the wrong side of the road into on-coming traffic. Morto mentioned in his last article that we had heard legendary tales of the fastest taxi driver in all of Quzhou, who went only by the name of #0437. We were desperate to get the chance to ride with him and amazingly, one morning while in need of a taxi we saw #0437 screeching around the corner on two wheels and managed to get him to pull the handbrake and let us in. We fulfilled our dream and sat in with the master.

After Quzhou we made our way to the site of the famous West Lake in Hangzhou, or as the Chinese refer to it,‘heaven’. I'd be surprised if heaven consisted of thousands of Chinese wearing the same baseball cap, piling out of coaches and following someone with a flag and a megaphone, but the lake is actually quite spectacular. Given that there are Chinese restaurants scattered around the lake and that you can hire bicycles for a small fee, I would not be at all displeased if I died and had to live in Hangzhou.

A highlight of our time in Hangzhou was playing dice based drinking games in a pub next to the lake with a group of my old students. When I come home, we will all be busting out our old sets of Yahzee and taking them to the pub with us. I think it’s worth it.

We're currently in Ningbo feeling a little marooned. We had planned to be on an island called Putoshan today but our attempts to get there yesterday did not bring us there. We have found ourselves attempting to travel through one of China's busiest holiday periods which began yesterday, and yesterday’s bus to the ferry terminal came to a shuddering one hour halt in some really sticky traffic jam on the way. After waiting the first hour out, bailing on the Putoshan trip went from being "not the worst idea ever", to "a taxi to Ningbo please". Things could certainly be worse though. We're staying with one of my students brothers and we have plenty of fake DVD’s to get through, as well as mini lobbies to get through down at the local restaurant. That's right, Ningbo is lobster central and we and we feel as though we deserve the best to accompany our rest. Our self composed "ode to the lobbie" is available on request.

We will brave the holiday traffic and attempt to head to Shanghai tomorrow. A few days there and then it's on to Beijing and the world.

Miss all of you plenty.

Liam

Top 5 Chinglish Signs

1. "Show mercy to the green lives under your foot" – Keep off the grass;
2. "Of Clouse we spoke England!" – Of course we speak English.......Oh, but of clouse;
3. "Please take care of your packages" – This sign was found in the male restrooms;
4. "Away from Paris' uproar, chasing European's fashion, Here is BULEIMA"
5. "No fight and scrap, no rabble. No feudal fetish or sexy service permitted in the park"

Unfortunate to miss out: "Don't forget to carry your thing"