Travelogia

Travelling...cannot get any better than that

[eliskasikulova]

What is it like to study Chinese

I have been studying Chinese for about three years now. I have learned many interesting and valuable things, but to be honest, it is so little that sometimes I hardly believe that „I can speak Chinese.“ This sentence gets a whole different meaning as I progress in my Chinese. Although it still means „I can have a nice conversation with you as long as we talk about weather.“ 

I started with Chinese one  month later than my classmates because it took me a long time to decide if Chinese was the right choice for me. It did not take too long to realize that I did make a right decision but also a terrible decision at the same time as I had to learn the basics by myself. I mean the basics of the basics... and only basics of the basics took me forever to learn. Couple of nights spent by writing the Chinese characters without actually knowing what I was doing and there you go , I somehow managed to catch up and join everyone on a wild journey of studying  real Chinese. At least that is what I thought I was doing, learning the real Chinese. 

I don´t know what I liked more, actually studying the language or talking about it. The reaction on people´s faces when I told them I study Chinese was just so damn satisfying. Like:  „Whoaaah! Oh my God! What? How can you do that?“ made me feel like a freaking superhero! Holy cow, I just loved it, almost believed I really could speak the language after three months of studying it. Then everyone asks you to say something in Chinese and then you go like a pro: „Ni hao!“ which just means hello but everyone starts losing their shit and wants to hear more. You are so full of yourself that you keep on talking in Chinese but the only problem is that you really cannot say anything more, only one useless sentence about beautiful weather that you screw up anyways as you say it but hey, it doesn´t matter. No one understands you and you just keep on saying that messed up sentence that doesn´t make sense anymore. You end up making these weird noises to finish off, hoping you still sound Chinese. Well, heck yeah, you do sound Chinese! Then there  is an applause and you are so proud of your poor skills that you feel like you are already a pro.  

That were my poor beginnings of learning Chinese. Only in the year three of this painful journey I realized I actually cannot speak. That is when I went to China to „improve“ my language skills. It was thanks to the taxi driver I faced the cruel truth. Trying to have a simple conversation with him finding out that not only I understand nothing from the nonsense that was coming out of his mouth but also that he didn‘t understand anything of what I was saying. And I am like: „How do you not understand? I am speaking CHINESE!“ 

I realized that if I wanted people to understand me I have to learn how to speak like them. Really learn. So I started to listen to Chinese songs and learned the lyrics by heart, started to watch Chinese drama shows and wow, that stuff can be highly addictive (if you like that kind of stuff). I started going to the cinema on a regular basis to watch Chinese movies that I didn´t understand so ended up being the only person not laughing at the jokes from the movie. 

It took me a long time to make my Chinese sound Chinese. I still don´t hit the right tone 50% of times, but we all know tones in Chinese are student´s worst enemy. I am very aware that this level is still not enough but I think that it will never be enough. Studying a language is a life-long process, something that you always have to work on,  always have to improve. If you are one of those poor guys that thought studying Chinese was going to be fun, you have all my respect and support. I wish you all the best and don't you ever give up on this beautiful language that drives us all crazy sometimes. Cheers!

[eliskasikulova]

From Xishuangbanna to Yuanyang: Where and how

Ten wonderful days in Yunnan offered more than I would have ever expected. Yunnan, so diverse, so beautiful, wild, dangerous and unpredictable (at least when it comes to weather). The ten day trip started in a warm place called Xishuangbanna. For a while it felt like I was in Thailand, people speaking thai, thai temples everywhere and an amazing weather. Waking up to see the sunrise over beautiful Mekong, taking a walk in the rainforest (rather small one I would say), sitting down with locals to eat shaokao (chinese version of bbq). The only rather dissappointing thing was visiting the Elephant Valley. While we thought we were on a quest to go and find rare elephants walking around the rainforest,we only ended up seeing trained elephants that knew how to kick the ball and stuff...not amusing at all.

1.You can get a driver to take you to all the important places for about 200yuan a day...if you bargain the price of course. 2.If  you do not enjoy looking at circus elephants, do not go to the Elephant Valley, while there might be some wild ones wandering in the forest, the driver and crowds will lead you to the trained elephants. Maybe you will be luckier than us.

From a nice and warm place we took a sleeping bus (SLEEPING BUS!!!) to the town called Jianshui. It was my first time to experience the sleeping bus. I still do not know how I feel about it. The bus was small we barely got to our seats since the corridor was so narrow. We got the upper seats next to two other guys. I was lucky enough to get the place next to the window. As soon as I laid down on my seat I opened it and did not close it until we arrived to the place. Bus was stiiiiinky. Surprise. But I mean that is kinda unavoidable, there was 30 people sleeping without the shoes on, eating, breathing and doing whatever else..and this lasted for 9 hours.

3.If you want to get to Jianshui bus is the only way. And there is only two of them going there a day.

Jianshui was a small town with a beautiful gate at the entrance of it. Town wakes up very late so do not bother yourself with waking up early with the sun. Our hotel, Guilin Inn, was a safe haven we returned to when we froze outside. Unfortunately, the weather in Jianshui was terrible.  When we told the sweet ladies from our hotel we wanted to go to see the Yuanyang rice terraces, they instantly tried to persuade us to stay. ¡°Weather is bad!¡± they said repeatedly...well we did not trust them...and we damn should have trusted them because the weather was freaking terrible. The road there made my heart jump like crazy at some points and then seeing the poor weather conditions shattered my heart to pieces...yup, it was THAT bad. Well ,we decided to reach the destination no matter what so we found one of very few cars going to our hotel...on the way to the hotel car started sliding and we had to get off of it and push it a bit. Little bit more and we would end up in a rice paddy flooded with water.

4.Do not force the trip if the weather conditions are bad, it ended all well for us but I would not do it again.

Somehow, I do not even remember how, we got to the old city Xinjie where our hotel was. We were mad at the hotel staff that they did not warn us that the weather sucked when we called them the day before but there was nothing to do. Everything was frozen in the city, so we took careful steps. It seemed quiet everywhere, almost no people, few chickens and one pig getting some fresh air outside. Our hotel Sunny Guesthouse was situated right next to the rice terraces that we could not see because of the fog. The boss of the hotel guided us to our room and let us kindly know that there is no hot water. Staying in the room was the most despised thing to do as there were only electric blankets to heat us up. In the dinning room there was an old school kitchen stove desperately trying to warm up all the guests. That is where we spent our time, sitting around that old stove, drinking tea, eating fried rice, taking to our newly found friends and looking out of the window from time to time to see if the fog disappeared. Magical, cold, but still very magical, especially when fog let us see at least a part of the magnificent rice terraces. All worth it.

5.During winter, rice paddys are covered with water and when the sun shines on them , water reflects the sun in the most beautiful way, you definitely should not miss it like us, best time to visit is from february to march.

We went to Lijiang from Yuanyang, which I will talk about next time...

[eliskasikulova]

China Summer 2015

[eliskasikulova]

Amazing Shanghai, my temporary home

[eliskasikulova]

Zhangjiajie Part 2- Getting sick in the National Park

After an exhausting experience with the hotels in Zhangjiajie City, we finally got to the national park. When we got to the opening gate, we had heard many people that we are coming late because the park would close in couple of hours. That did not stop us from trying since we only had three days to experience it all. So we came around 4 pm. We only met people walking in the opposite direction, seemed like no one was coming late but us. It turned out later that going late was the best decision ever. Places and lines usually filled with thousand of people were now almost empty. We didn′t have to wait to get basically anywhere.

Tip no.1: If you are ever in Zhangjiajie I reccommend waiting with the visit of the national park until the afternoon when everyone is already leaving. Don′t go too late though.

I thought it would be possible to climb up but it turned out that there is a better way up- elevator. Huge glass elevator. We got to stand next to the window since there were almost no people in the line and we got to see the most amazing view ever. I was squeaking and screaming while looking down, totally terrified from the height. It took no time and we were on top of the Avatar Mountains.

Zhangjiajie left us totally speechless and I was suddenly regretting we didn’t come a bit earlier because there was not a lot of time left to stare at the view. And that was all I wanted, just to sit down and stare until the sun goes down. Instead, we were kinda jogging through the park since we knew time was running....okay at some point we were running for real -_-

After we ran through the wonderful park, we had to hurry to catch the bus which leaves from an unknown place. Fortunately, we met a group of Chinese tourists with the sweetest guide who took us with them, called the taxi, bought the tickets for us and showed us our bus.

The next day I woke up with a terrible stomach pain. What I thought was just the result of overeating some sort of Chinese dried beans, was actually a serious virus that I ignored the entire day as I was ready for another adventure at Tianmen Mountain (Heaven′s Door Peak). I had had no idea it would be the most challenging day of the entire summer. Getting to the Tianmen Mountain is easy, you just have to take a bus...So easy when you have a stomach of steel and enjoy high levels of adrenaline. That day I had none of that. Who would have known that the what I thought would be a chill ride  would turn into a nightmare. An antiquated bus riding on a zigzag bends with me sitting at the front, holding on thight onto the seat, about to cry and trying to find a polite way how to tell the driver to slow the fu*k down. Until this day I am angry at the drivers there, I believe they were playing some cruel game of who is going to get to the top faster while trying to make people cry from fear. That day we woke up super early and planned on sleeping on the bus. Sleepiness went away as soon as the bus started. I was wide awake and ready to jump off the bus anytime. I can’t remember how long the way was... all I know is that we drove on 99 zigzag bend to get to the top. After an enternity ride I finally used the throw up back the driver politely offered me during the ride.... stupid beans.

Tip.no.2: Don′t eat the dried beans! :D Kidding, if you feel uneasy it is always better to sacrifice the plan then to go and suffer all day long, making it even worse. Even if you are in Zhangjiajie

After the fun experience, I tried to collect all of my remaining power to climb up 999 stairs (what′s up with all those 9s?). Collecting power took me some time so we sat at the table with a group of Chinese people. They tried to secretly take pictures of me as I was sitting with a zombie face waiting for my coke to come. I pretended I don′t see them. They were really cute while taking it and then sharing this small happiness, pointing at me as if I could not see them. Once again I was proved that Engish sayings on shirts make no sense as there was a man with the shirt that said, let me quote: “Love poust travel on the way walkers fish.” Yeah, no matter how many times you read it, you won′t get it.

Tip.no.3: If you are not feeling like taking a death ride, opt for a cable car. Just beware that will be more expensive.

So we started climbing, taking a break every 15th step I take to get some breath. In about a half was we stopped at the waterfall. I thought I was going to take a picture with it but instead I ended up on the other side throwing up again. Suddenly it seemed that some Chinese tourists don′t care about taking pictures of a wonderful waterfall but prefer taking pictures of me hanging from the side rail doing the stuff.

From this point on it was just a struggle to be there, but since I am so stubborn I wanted to continue. We got to walk on the glass walkway which wasn′t even scary since I could barely look down as there were so many people stuffed on it.

After entire day of walking, we got to the cable car that took us to the city. At that point I was already having a fever. Fortunately, I found a doctor (?) at the opposite of the street who gave me an infusion right in his living room which also happened to be the pharmacy store and his office at the same time. So I lied down on his sofa and watched the TV with the kids around. At some point I closed my eyes but I got waken up by the hit from an air-inflated ball right into my face.

On the way home to Shanghai we had to take the hard seat since there were no sleeping places left. We met two nice doctors of Chinese medicine in the coupe where we were seated. I shared what happened to me in Zhangjiajie and they immediately reached for their suitcases and started taking out Chinese medicine for me. I had to make some kind of a “magic potion” out of one of the things they gave me and drank it. Let me tell you, it was disgusting. I could barely drink half of it but then again I could not because whenever I stopped drinking they stared at me pushing me to finish it. Under their pressure I finished the entire bottle and then went to sleep.

The day after, the sickness was gone. No signs of pain, no signs of fever. Nothing. Chinese doctors were smiling at me, and I gave them a huge grin and thanked million times. For the rest of the way we spent time talking to them and they shared their lifelong knowledge. We will definitely not forget these two wonderful people.

Tip.no 4: Trust the Chinese doctors

[eliskasikulova]

Zhangjiajie Part 1 - Trouble with the hotels

The end of summer was getting closer and so did our journey. Still tired from the journey at Emeishan, we challenged ourselves and decided to chose a hiking area again.This place was supposed to be the grand finale of our summer...and it surely was grand.

We arrived to the Zhangjiajie city in the night. After the arrival we found out that our hotel reservation was for an unknown reason cancelled. There was nothing we could do but to look for a new hotel that has a room available. We found McDonalds right next to the station, sat down ordered some delicious unhealthy somehow western tasting food and started our search for the hotels on the mobile app. Thank goodness, we found one. 

There was no time to waste, it was getting really late and we were terribly tired. We took our stuff and got on the first taxi we saw. When arriving to our hotel, the owner who was having a night chat with his friends started shaking his head as soon as he saw us getting of the taxi right in front of them. Without being able to explain our situation, we got rejected. “This place does not take foreigners.” Um, well that is just great. Luckily, there was another hotel right on the other side of the street so we went to ask there. They had rooms available, but one night at the hotel would take away all the money on my account. So we just sat at the reception trying to figure out what to do. Honestly, I was not trying at all, I was far too tired to think so I just stood around like a ghost while Rojvan was trying to get us another place. The hotel seemed to know one place that was definitely available but they warned us ahead that this place might not be the best option. At the time I thought nothing can be worse than not having a place to sleep. We asked for directions and left. 

After some time we arrived to the street with no lights. We were close. We got a Chinese family to accompany us on the way so it all felt little better while we were passing the street where I could not see anything and the only light that was shining was probably the moon light. Maybe it was better we could not see. We arrived to a huge house. It looked ok. Inside we met the young receptionist, her kids and her parents sitting on an old fashioned sofa watching TV. “No room available” Soon after that we were sitting on a sofa with them. Receptionist was calling her husband, the boss, asking what to do with us. “There is one room, but we don′t let visitors there.” It turned out the room was not in its best condition, bathroom under the reconstruction, no proper windows, basically no nothing. It was already 2 am and I felt like this was our last chance so we took it. They gave us new bed sheets and fixed the air conditioning. I thought I was finally going to sleep, but I was proved wrong as soon as the bats started flying right above the roof window, hitting something, making a lots of noise. That left us restless. Rojvan could not take it so around 3 am I had to leave the bed, pack my stuff again and leave the room. He was determined to find another place. 

We did not want to let the receptionist know that we are leaving, because we thought she would be offended. At the reception, we noticed grandma and grandpa sleeping on the bed behind the sofa. We tried to be as quiet as possible but the giant door woke everyone up, on top of that the door was locked, so we just made a lots of noise, woke everyone and did not even manage to escape. Receptionist came out of her room and asking us if everything was ok, meanwhile we already managed to position ourselves into a sleeping position on a sofa, ready to pretend sleeping. After all, we explained the problem with the bats. They were all staring at us as if our fear was totally unreasonable. Grandma was muttering something to herself as we were trying to persuade them that we could spend the night with grandma and grandpa on the sofa. Receptionist did not agree with us staying there. She offered their family′s private room. We tried to refuse many times (you all know I did not feel like refusing that offer) but the receptionist insisted we take that room. So we ended up in half kitchen, half bedroom, half storage room. At that moment nothing mattered to me, just the fact I have a place to lay down and dream sweet dreams of beautiful five stars hotels with spa and all you can eat buffet.

To be continued...

[eliskasikulova]

Mt.Emei, kingdom of monkeys

The reason we decided to go to Emeishan is simple - monkeys. We have heard Emeishan is the place full of them which immediately got our attention. Obviously, apart from monkeys, there is many more things to see in Emeishan.

After arrival to the destination, we bought two bamboo sticks which everyone was carrying around. It was supposed to make our hiking tour a lot easier. We were serious about our hiking tour, bought lots of snacks to have the energy on the way. (I found out later was not necessary cause there is food being sold everywhere at a pretty reasonable price considering it is 3000 metres above the sea level.)

Tip no.1: Get the bamboo stick! Unless your hotel provides it for free, you can buy it everywhere for 2 yuan.

Tip no. 2: It is really unnecessary to buy a lot of stuff for the way. All it does is to take space in your bag.

Tip no. 3: Do buy a lots of water tho. Water in the mountains is expensive.

First we decided to go and see the Golden Summit hoping for the best view ever. Had to wake up at 5am which was painful but we somehow managed. We had two options. We either take the bus or we walk 11 hours to get to the top. Even though we already bought the bamboo sticks, we still did not have the confidence needed for such a long tour. So we took a bus. I was holding tight onto the seat while being on the bus. I think the bus driver was playing some kind of a nasty game. Game of making scary turns at the full speed while driving on the cliff sides . I was uncomfortable but I after couple of minutes I fell asleep anyways. We ended up getting up safe. From the point where the bus stopped we got a chance to use our bamboo sticks to get to the Golden Summit. There is stairs leading to the top and climbing it took us little more than two hours. At first, we climbed with many people around. Some of them were even running up the stairs, which I could not understand but it all made sense after couple of minutes when we got to the cable car station. At that point 95% of them disappeared. The stairs were steep but we managed without any problem.

Tip no.4: DO NOT take the cable car. It is a waste of your money and time. Walking to the Summit is a great experience with almost no people around.

After arriving to the top we realized that no amazing view was happening that day. It was very misty everywhere and the sun came out only for a short while. I ended up little bit sad that I did not get to see the view but there was nothing we could do about the tricky weather. So we just sat down and ate our instant meal (which by the way tasted horrible and that made me even sadder.) At least the walk was nice.

Tip no.5: Make sure you check the weather forecast.

Coming back to the hotel, we got a regular meal of beef noodles as usual ( the cheapest on the menu and the only one we could really trust). I have also tried other meals like stir fried eggplant but I would only recommend it to those who like their eggplant drowning in oil.

Next day we decided to challenge ourselves. We walked to the monkey zone. The whole trip took us like 7 hours of walking but it was totally worth it. On the way to the monkey zone we had several stops meeting various people that were also challenging themselves. From old men, to families with kids, to little chinese ladies climbing in their high heels. (more power to those wise ones who chose high heels as proper hiking shoes )

At lunch time, we stopped at the little restaurant to get refreshed. I guess it is totally obvious what we ordered. We ate our noodles while watching ladies dressed in white practising some kind of chinese martial arts to a peaceful music infront of a buddhist temple. We almost felt like staying there but the desire to see the monkeys pushed us to go further. As soon as we saw lots of people infront of us, we knew we were close. From the crowded place on, it was only one hour of walking. We walked along the river, small waterfall, walked on the bridges, under the rocks. The view was amazing.

 Finally, we arrived to the monkey paradise. I slowly started to look for a banana that we bought in the village. We wanted some close shots of the monkeys, so we came prepared. These little monkeys are impatient though. As soon as one of them saw I had a banana in my hand , it just got closer and closer and started to reach for the banana. Obviously, monkey was not willing to wait until I close my bag and I got terrified from a possible attack from it. So I just gave it the banana straight away totally ruining a chance of having a good picture or video with it. Monkey took the banana away within couple of seconds. Surprisingly for me, it did not know how to open it. (isn’t it supposed to be their natural skill or what?) The guide (or whoever it was) told us we should not give it bananas (like seriously?) This person offered us to take a picture with what seemed like a trained monkey. He gave us some nuts, we gave him 20 yuan and the monkey immediately became our friend. Later on I realized that this was not a trained monkey. Just a monkey that liked peanuts. Like any other one there. Unfortunately, we had no peanuts, but that did not stop monkeys from jumping on us. I had the monkey smell all over my face and upper body. That did not matter though, I washed the monkey smell off in the river on the way down from the mountain. (It was clean and fresh!)

Tip no.6: If you want to befriend monkeys, make sure to have some peanuts in your pocket.

Tip no.7: Make sure you watch your stuff, monkeys usually take everything that is not safely hidden in your backpack.

Tip no. 8: Do not use your bamboo stick to scare them!!!! We saw a lady doing it while she was trying to scare the thief monkey away and she got bitten by it. (Their teeth are terrifying)

If you are looking for an exciting adventure then Mount Emei is the right choice for you!

[eliskasikulova]

Chengdu- Spicy Hotpot and Cute Pandas

I think we ended up at a suburb part of Chengdu because the houses did not look their best...more like scary. The path was muddy, not many people were walking on it, some rikshaws were passing inviting us for a ride. If it weren't for the expensive cars parked in front of the houses, I would have assumed no one lived there.

Our hotel (the cheapest one in the entire city) was situated in a kind of similar environment. We even felt proud of ourselves finding a cheap place like that. Entering the hotel, we met the receptionist, really nice guy trying to help us as much as he could. We had to face a difficult decision. Choosing a room with no air conditioning but private bathroom or a room with AC but no bathroom. There was one public bathroom for the entire floor with three toilets. First one was impossible to enter because of trash standing in the way, second one had a cat inside that was "meowing her lungs out" (supposedly she wanted to eat). So that left only one toilet available for all of us. Seeing this I made a decision of choosing the room with no AC. Private bathroom was a little room with a squat toilet ( more like a squat hole). The shower head was right above this hole. It was definitely something that I was not accustomed to, but I did not expect any luxury for 30 yuan per night.  After thinking for a while we decided to change the hotel...It broke my heart seeing the faces of people at the reception  when we told them we wanted to leave but we had made up our mind and nothing could change it.

TIP no.1: Choose a hotel that is close to the center lr at least subway or bus station...paying for the taxis all the time is a pain in the butt.

TIP no.2: When in China, always make sure that you have the hotel address written in Chinese, otherwise taxi drivers don't recognize the place.

TIP no.3: Never go below 90 yuan per double room.

TIP no.4: If you are ordering a hotel onlie via some asian travel service, make sure you don't fully rely on what you see. Rating 4 out of 5 does not necessarily guarantee you an unforgetable experience....oh wait, actually it does.

We had heard before that Sichuan was famous for its spicy food. I had always thought that Chinese food is very spicy in general but I was proved that it can get a lot more extreme after trying hotpot in Sichuan. We got the spiciest flavour they had but we soon realized it was not a wise decision. Luckily for me, I told them that my hotpot should not be too hot. Rojvan got a regular one...he struggled. His mouth got three times bigger compared to its regular size. He had to go and get some watermelon to put on his mouth. It was a perfect opportunity for me to tease him for having to switch to a milder non spicy flavour.

TIP no.5: Unless you are crazy about spicy food, do not get the spiciest flavour while in Sichuan. Pleasure from eating good food turns into a torture.

While in Chengdu, we decided to see pandas. It was a rainy day so I was scared pandas would not get out. Fortunately, it was not the case. Pandas were out and doing what they usually do. Which is basically just sleeping and eating. The panda base is a very beautiful place with bamboo trees everywhere and people everywhere. Whenever there was a panda out, we all ended up squeezed in a human ball with one hand sticking out only so we could take the cool pictures of a panda. One man seemed to know the pandas by name and he started screaming those names out loud calling them to come out. This seemed to work perfectly because there were pandas coming out of their panda houses, sitting in front of us, posing for the picture. Unbelievable.

TIP no.6: It is better not to go to Panda base when it is too hot outside. Might be that Pandas won't even get out.( and I totally understand that)

Chengdu was an exciting experience from the very beginning to the very end.

[eliskasikulova]

Home of Terracotta Warriors

Just one word. HOT. Weather in Xi'an is hot and it makes you want to stay in your little hotel room entire day…but then you think of all the cheap food you can get at the muslim street “Huiminjie” and you just decide to get out anyways. In order to save some money we tried to walk from our hotel to the Huiminjie which left us totally exhausted and not wanting to do it again. Huiminjie had a lot to but the only problem is that we really did not know what to choose so we just went to the line where most of the people were standing and got the traditional bun filled with meat called “Roujiamo”. Afterwards, I wanted to explore some other foods so we took a long walk and went to every little shop that offered free samples. Out of politeness I always acted as if I was about to buy it but then I changed my mind. That went on for about an hour.

TIP no.1: Definitely a must. Huiminjie is very famous for its good and cheap food.

We noticed the sign showing the way to the Xi'an mosque. We got there and paid the reasonable price for the entrance. I asked the old grandpa to give me something to cover my shoulders with. I ended up entirely covered in black scarfs, feeling as if I was about to melt in it. We entered and took a peaceful walk with almost no people around. (“almost no people” happens really rarely in China). Rojvan got a special apparel for muslims as he wanted to enter the mosque. He looked funny. They did not allow me to enter, supposedly I was not covered enough. ( whaaaat?)

TIP no.2: If entering the mosque, make sure your head is also covered, ladies.

While in Xi'an we visited the Bell and Drum tower but ended up enjoying it only from the outside. It was still very nice. We sat on the square right next to the Bell Tower and enjoyed the concert of one young boy on the right side and the music performance of an old man playing the traditional Chinese instrument “Erhu” from the left side at the same time. There was a remote control aeroplane flying above our heads and a person dressed as a monkey king jumping infront of us. Surprisingly, I did not find any of this disturbing and I felt like this was all very magical.

We got to the City Wall with the hopes of riding a bike on it, but that would not be a good idea considering the huge amount of people already riding a bike there or just taking a walk. So we just took a walk and enjoyed the view while listening to music coming from the open theatre within the City Wall.

TIP no.3: If you want to take a ride on the City Wall, go there early before lunch, that way there is less people and the weather is not too hot.

After the walk on the City Wall we got to the park where there were Huimin people dancing the traditional dances. I got invited to join. I knew I would not do well but I went for it anyways. I had no idea what to do, but people seemed to appreciate me trying.

The following day we decided to go and see the Terracotta Army. The sun was shining like crazy, the bus ride was long. We had to walk for about a half hour to get to the place. We got jealous of the Chinese people because they obviously got prepared for the walk in the heat. Some of them were covered from head to toes, wearing huge hats, huge umbrellas or wet towels that they put right on their head. We had nothing but tears (more like flows) of sweat on us. Direct sunlight made me look like a tomato for couple of days. After the painful half hour we got to the final destination. We entered the building where the Terracotta Army was and suddenly the temperature outside with the beaming sun that fries your skin did not seem that bad. The place was crazily hot, everyone covered with sweat but still squeezed tightly trying to get the sight of this wonder. We got to the front where we got the full view of it and then just stared at it. Every statue was special. Every one of them had different facial expression, different clothes and hairstyles. It felt so cool to be able to see this with my own eyes. I even stopped thinking about people leaning on me from behind trying to get to my place. This place is definitely a world wonder.

TIP no.4: If you come in the summer, take lots of water, possibly an umbrella or a wet towel.

We finished off the trip in Xi'an by the great hot pot with our friends at the restaurant “Fat little sheep”. Oh my goodness, that tasted so good. This place definitely makes one feel like a “fat little sheep” after eating all the food.

[eliskasikulova]

China adventure begins

Travelling by train, relaxing, lying down …..yes, lying down, having one chinese person lying above and below me. Got an opportunity to travel by night train. I already finished eating my instant noodles with smoked ducks’ necks as a proper passenger in China and now I’m getting ready to sleep, reviewing all the things I have experienced ever since I came to China.

It has been a month now. Still getting used to the overuse of air conditioning everywhere, extremely hot weather or XXL portion sizes in the restaurants, cars beeping all the time for no particular reason, people looking all the time, crowded places, overcrowded places and more than overcrowded places, or hearing these huge bugs making noise in the trees ( am always scared one of them is going to attack me at any possible moment ) and lots of other things that are just part of everyday life here. The journey started in Beijing where I attended the summer camp. Thanks to this summer camp I managed to see many beautiful places, eat nice food and live in a hotel like room for free….wait, what? Yes, for free. I don’t know how it is possible but there is a summer camp like this organized every year and anyone can attend…so I did ( check out more about BICC summer camp if interested). Am already missing the grandma from the canteen. I was eating at her place every day, sometimes several times per day since I could not read the names of the other foods at other places. So I just stuck to her and I am glad I did. The food there was delicious, did not get tired of it even after 20 days eating the same thing…

We saw all the necessary things that a tourist has to see like Great Wall, Forbidden City, Bird’ s nest and other places. Got to know many nice taxi drivers that had such strong Beijing accent and talked so fast that I coud not understand 50% of what they were saying. So I just nodded and chuckled politely trying to act as if I had understood everything. Unfortunately, they always noticed that I was only nodding my head to avoid some kind of an awkward feeling (the one you get when you have to ask someone to repeat the same thing 5 times because you still cannot get it) 

Anyways…from Beijing we travelled to Shanghai. Night train, hard sleeper. We travelled with one family from Shanghai who were excited to have us there. At least that is how I felt because they talked to us a lot and showed us the entire photoalbum of their family on their cool iphones. 

Hard sleeper is pretty convenient, instead of paying for the hotel and then for the speed train that could amount to 800 yuan, you have a decent bed, bathroom (notice how I left out the word “decent”) and hot water always available on the train for about 300 yuan from Beijing to Shanghai. On the train you have that cool adventure like feeling while listening to the sounds of the radio, people talking, sound of the video games, seller’s voice selling fruit, newspaper, toilet paper, tootbrushes or shoes…basically anything. And as you thought you would not be able to fall asleep to this noise, you “pass out” within couple of minutes. Shanghai family had their food neatly packed in a huge bag. We had nothing much, just couple of packs of pocky. “Next time we need to come prepared!

Three days in Shanghai included lots of walking, lots of water, lots of sweat and lots and lots of people in the subway. We tried to live cheap, eating baozi for 2 yuan everytime, living in the hotel with no bathroom door, not shopping a lot but the money still seemed to be disappearing fast. It must have been that bubble tea that I am somehow obssesed with. And also subways…we used it all the time and experienced it at its best times and at its worst times when we could barely move. Got to know the painter who was painting these special pictures of random people in the subway. He asked me to draw him, which attracted the attention of the people on the train. There were people trying to get closer to see my “work of art”. Obviously I did not do as well as he did but people were still having positive comments about my cheap creation. I managed to say the only sentence in Shanghai dialect which blew the old painter away and he started talking to me as if I was fluent in it. Good times.

Next stop is Xi'an. Let’s see what awaits us.

[eliskasikulova]

Starting a new blog, heck yeah!