Made in China

Xi'an

About a week ago now we arrived in Xi'an. We've been staying at a really cool hostel, they have free internet, cheap beer and a cool cafe/bar were we've had many a good night teaching a number of people the "Gravy Train" drinking game. Our first day we did the usual wander around the central city which is surrounded by a 14km wall (they like their walls here). In the centre are two towers, the Bell Tower and the Drum Tower. As the names suggest one has a huge bell in it and the other a number of large drums. These used to have some practical purpose but now the only people ringing the bells/drums are paying tourists. The views however were pretty good as they are situated right in the centre of the city.

There's a fairly significant Muslim population here, and the Muslim Quarter is right next to the Drum tower. They have a big flea market selling dried fruit but the highlight is the street barbecues. The food is cooked out on the street and served in a basic restaurant. The best thing on the menu is the half kilo of bbq lamb (which was sensational) and a bargain at $4.50NZ! They dont mess around with side veges or breads just half a kilo of cooked animal on a metal tray, brilliant. Needless to say we've frequented that place a few times since being here!

One night we went to the "Goose Pagoda" to see a light show that's on every night. It was really impressive, they light up the pagoda and out the front they have a huge area where jets of water shoot up and around, all choreographed to music and lights. On another day we rented some bikes and biked around the city wall, there wasnt a lot to see but it was fun having a burn and pushing the cheap rental bikes to their limits!

Terracotta Warriors - Are they a hoax!?

The main reason people come to Xi'an are to see the Terracotta Warriors. These were built by the first Qin Emperor (same guy that built the Great Wall). The idea was that when he died he would take an army as well as servants etc... to the afterlife with him. These were represented by the life size terracotta figurines buried with him in his tomb. The Chinese claim these to be the 8th Wonder of the world, and the main pit is a hell of an impressive sight, over 1,000 warriors standing in formation and apparently another 4,000 or so still to be excavated. The problem I think though is that it is so hyped up and there are souvenirs/replicas everywhere in town that when you finally see the real thing it's a little disappointing. This is the general consensus among other travellers too, and hence a conspiracy theory has sprung up that the warriors may not be as authentic as they appear. For a start there are a number of factories around the city churning out life size replicas of these warriors. You could replace the actual warriors with the replicas and I dont think anyone would notice. Also, before the discovery of the warriors only 30 years ago, it seems no one knew anything about them, surely someone would have made a record of such a huge event?

So the theory is that someone planted these warriors (created at the many factories around the place) then "discovered" them. This would have been quite possible as the site is in the middle of no-where about an hour from town. Also all the current restoration and digging work is done at night when the facility is closed to the public. Around the warriors there is a ton of infrastructure going in to house souvenir shops and restaurants, it seems in preparation for the crowds that will come with the Olympics next year. The whole place appears to be a huge money spinner. Even the kind-faced old shepperd who apparently discovered the whole thing, sits there signing autographs, but only signs things that are purchased at the official souvenir shop!

Going Bush on Hua Mountain

After checking out most of what there is to see and do in Xi'an, we felt the need for something a bit more adventurous. So we decided that going bush on Hua Mountain for a couple of days would be the way to go. Another guy that we'd been hanging out with at the hostel, Iain, was also keen, so we packed some food and some wet weather gear and headed for the hills.

A couple hours on a bus got us to the base of the mountain, which would probably have provided us with a stunning view of the peaks beyond. Only problem was the low cloud enveloping just about everything. At least it wasn't raining though... yet. We headed off up the mountain, expecting an old trail or an unpaved road at best. Instead we found a wide, stone path winding its way up the valley. Turns out they paved the whole path up the mountain! After the first few kilometers the path became narrower and consisted mainly of steep steps (some were just ladders cut into the rock with a chain to hold on to). Only the country that gave us the Great Wall would even think about doing this, let alone actually carrying it out.

The hike up was enjoyable, despite the limited visibility and the rain that settled in after a couple of kilometers. Most of the difficult parts of the climb are after the 4km mark (and they certainly get the heart and lungs working!) and before you get to the North Peak. For this reason, they've installed the soft option cable car to get all the tourists to the North Peak (1680m). So after this point the trails get a fair bit busier. From here we had another couple hours ahead to get us to our goal, the South Peak, which is the highest at 2160m. The trail is quite amazing in parts, with a section of the ridge being only 3m wide and sheer cliffs all around. Upon reaching the South Peak, we were greeted with more of the same, a complete white out. It was quite eerie knowing that there were massive drops and deep valleys all around us but not being able to see any of it. Annoying too.

There are food/drink stops the whole way up the mountain and several places to stay as well. It's quite a set up that must require a lot of walking for some people. Especially these amazing, wiry old guys that ferry supplies up and down the mountain. They scale steep, wet stairs with a piece of wood slung over their shoulder that's got anything from LPG bottles to watermelons attached!

Of course, the whole idea of the trip was to go bush. The paved trails (and Chinglish signs telling us to stay on them) were making this a bit difficult. There was also a good reason for the signs, as most of the mountain side was actually fairly steep and uninhabitable. After a few off-trail missions we found a clearing flat enough and large enough to set up camp. And since we were wet through and starting to get a bit cold, this seemed like a very good idea indeed. Turns out we had bought enough tarpaulin for about two people. Of course, we now had three so it was even cosier than expected. Our rudimentary bivvy was keeping the rain off us though and that was good enough for us.

At about 5am, the fun of our adventure was starting to wear off a bit. I was freezing my nuts off and a bit of shifting in the night meant that Kev was now lying in a puddle. Iain was fine at least, since he had a sleeping bag (smart man) and the middle spot! So Kev and I decided we might as well get up even though the weather was going to be crap. As we made our way to the East Peak, in an attempt to see a sunrise, the clouds began to clear. By the time we were at the peak, we had an unimpeded view in every direction. The dense white clouds had sunk into the valleys, leaving exposed mountain peaks and rock faces all around. It was absolutely stunning. After just 30 or 40 minutes the clouds began to float back in and before we knew it the white out was back. But it didn't matter now. So we wandered back to the tent to tell Iain all about it!

Chillin' in China

I dont want to rub it in for those who are still at work, making the world spin and so forth, but it feels so good to be travelling again! Wednesday morning we threw on the backpacks, left the apartment, got the train to central Kobe, the monorail to the port and the ferry to the airport. After a nice, polite efficient check-in at Kansai messed around in the airport for a while, then half an hour before our plane was due to take off Marcus decided he might use his phone card to ring home. (In my defense, it was only my second phone call since leaving home and the card had to be used in Japan! Besides, it meant we didn't have to queue...) So going through customs 15 minutes before take off there was a man with a walky talky waiting for us saying something like "Here they are, useless foreigners" into it. Turns out you had to shuttle from customs to the plane so we were cutting it pretty close, but got on in the end so no dramas! The plane ride was terrible and the food was shit, I dont want to talk about that.

Shanghai is amazing, much different from what we expected. No more little men in straw hats running around with rickshaws, it's probably one of the most modern cities (in parts) I've ever seen! Off the plane and straight through customs (they only really seemed to care whether you had been in touch with sick chickens, not if you had a bag full of crack) we jumped on the mighty Maglev Train into town. We covered 30kms in 8 minutes maxing out at a speed of 431kmph! From the Maglev we got onto the subway system. I was pretty impressed with Japan's subway/train system but this one just put it to shame! The ticket into town was about $0.70NZ and the carriages were brand new. The stations have huge TV screens which show you soccer highlights while showing a count down to the next train. We got the subway to Nanjing Rd which is the main drag in downtown Shanghai. Nanjing Rd is a pedestrian mall with every shop imaginable and an abundance of neon. We walked out and were immediately accosted by people trying to sell watches, DVDs etc... It's good to be back... The immediate difference we noticed from Japan was the lack of uptight conservatism in the locals. People seem to say what they think, yell at each other if need be and are not scared to approach foreigners. In our first day we were approached about ten times, usually by young Chinese uni students speaking fluent English who just wanted to talk to us (where we are from, where we are going etc...).

We wandered a bit trying to find a cheap hotel, and after being turned away at what must have been a "Chinese only" hotel found a cheapish one and dumped the gear. We went out for a walk and a look around that night and had a good feed from a back alley street stall for a dollar each. We had been a bit slack in planning this trip and hadnt yet brought a lonely planet. We found a bookstore with a whole lot of them, but no lonely planet China... I asked the guy in the shop who said "No no no". Hmmm OK. Long story short, after trolling through a number of bookstores with comprehensive Lonely Planet collections (nix China) it turned out that the government has banned the publication because of some obscure reference it makes, or something equally ridiculous. Luckily we found another flavour of China guidebook so we could do some planning.

Walking along we were accosted by yet another group of youths wanting to talk. They asked us to go and have Chinese tea with them. They were all in town for this one occasion that is once every three years or something and all this special tea had been brought up from the South of China by horse. We went along and it was really interesting, learnt about what all the different tea and Chinese symbols mean (cant remember though!) and the proper way to hold your cup and drink the tea (apparently this will give you some wicked street cred if you pull it off somewhere here). Everything you say, do and feel here has some symbolic meaning. After the tea ceremony it had started raining so we headed back to the hotel for an early one.

The next day it was hosing down, the first time on the trip that weather had affected our plans as we were going to go sightseeing. As it was still pouring we went to the Shanghai Museum. This was OK, the impressive things were the bronze artifacts, some of them around 4000 years old, its amazing how far the history goes back here! There was also a cool mask section with some mean looking war masks, but apart from that it was mostly typical museum stuff - nice but boring. Unfortunately the weather was still terrible as we left so the rest of the day was rather uneventful, went down to The Bund and looked at the amazing skyline of Pudong (see below) and played 20 questions with various local students. We were also asked to pose for a number of photographs with locals, so much so we were about to start charging for the service!

On day three, the rain finally stopped, so we headed out to see the sights. And there are a lot of sights to see in Shanghai. We started our walking tour in the Southwest area of Shanghai, called the French Concession. Back in the day there were several Concessions here, each one controlled by a different country and, as such, governed by that country's laws. This, combined with Shanghai's lax building codes (hopefully just in terms of appearance) and their obvious desire to build, build, build, has led to the most incredible mix of architecture I have ever seen in one city. There are colossal skyscrapers, stately colonials, ugly monstrosities and pieces of art as far as the eye can see. And the most amazing part is that, despite this strange mix and in many ways because of it, this is one of the most attractive cities in the world. We wandered for hours (and took more photos than any other one city), without getting the least bit bored. The other reason Shanghai is such an attractive city is that they have beautiful parks everywhere. It seems strange at first to be amongst flowers, trees and lush grass and yet surrounded by a skyline packed with multi-storey apartment blocks and buildings.

After the old, European buildings and tree-lined avenues of the French Concession, we moved into the Old Town, which is home to more traditional buildings (and modern buildings made to look traditional). Here we visited the impressive Yuyuan Gardens, which were an absolute maze of rocks, water, pagodas and flora. After some delicious steamed buns in one of the aforementioned parks for lunch, we wandered East to the Huangpu River. Running for a couple of kilometers up the West side of the river is The Bund. Here the architecture is colonial, with several very impressive and imposing buildings. The views from the walkway running the length of The Bund are stunning, both during the day and night. To finish our tour of the city, we crossed the river in the quite bizarre "Bund Sightseeing Tunnel". It consisted of individual train cars being pulled through a brightly lit tunnel. Probably cost a lot to build. Not sure why they bothered. This got us to the newest area of Shanghai, Pudong (which actually looks a bit Batman/Gotham Cityish at night). Pudong is a collection of some of the most amazing modern architecture on this planet. Love it or hate it, you have it give it to them for having the balls to do it. The Pearl TV Tower (468m) is the famous one and up close it really strikes you at just how odd it is. Some crazy architect probably drew it up as a joke. Then the forward-thinking Chinese probably said "OK, that'll make people look, build it." And build it they did. Along with several other (albeit more conventional) amazing buildings. One of these is the 420m Jin Mao tower. On the 88th (top) floor is an observatory, that we felt needed visiting, despite the poor visibility. The elevator was quick and the views stunning.

Back on the other side of the river we caught one of the many night cruises that operate along the Huangpu. This was a relaxing and excellent way to see the lights of the city and get a bit of night photography in. Our enjoyment may have been helped along slightly by the evening drinks we had indulged in. Our 600mL beers and 500mL bottle of local whiskey (with Coke mixers) cost about the same as the two coffees we had had earlier in the day! The cruise lasted for about an hour and then we decided to finish up with some night shots along The Bund. Unfortunately, after taking just a few photos we decided to go into a bar for a drink. When we reappeared, the city lights had all been turned off so I missed some of the shots I was hoping to take.

Our last day in Shanghai was spent relaxing and walking back round some of our favourite parts. Then we jumped on the night train for Xi'an...

Sayonara Japan!

It seems like a long time ago that we stepped off the plane here, but the last few weeks have gone pretty fast and now it`s time to pack the backpacks and dust off the passports in preparation for China. While here weve made the most of the local nightlife, made heaps of friends and visited a fair number of cultural sights in the local area. We`ve used and abused NOVA Corporation for jobs, but for a company that made a net loss last year of 30 billion yen, they probably have bigger problems to worry about than us passing through!

Since the last blog we`ve done some more travel and sightseeing....

Mie/Iga

The other weekend our good friend Danny invited us to stay at his school in Iga, Mie prefecture. Danny lives at the school seeing as its about 2 hours outa town in the middle of no-where. We had to catch about 3 different trains to get out there but it was well worth the trip. Once out of the city the train went through some awesome countryside, hills and forest until we got to Iga. Iga is a really small, quiet town surrounded by rice paddies, everything is an awesome shade of green, you can even smell the difference from the city, the air was so much cleaner. Danny took us back to the school, the guest room where we stayed was the nicest accommodation we`ve had here yet, the highlights being real beds (not futons), room to swing a cat or three and one of those japanese toilets with more functions than a swiss army knife! A word of warning if you ever use one of these things, before you press the button that shoots the high powered jet of water at your backside, make sure you know which button turns it off! Wayhaaaay!

So after our experiments with Japan`s hi-tech plumbing equipment Danny took us for a walk around the area. We visited a neat little shrine next to the school before wandering down the road through the rice paddy fields. Danny took us into the forest to see an abandoned hotel that is rumoured to be haunted. It felt like I was in that movie `Stand by me`,　three friends wandering off into the forest to see a dead body and poke it with a stick or something! The hotel was cool, it was nestled in the forest over a creek, we had to go past the `WARNING DANGER` sign and cross a half rotten bridge to get to it, good adventuring! It was like the owners just upped and left around 20 years ago. There is still furniture, whiteware and the like but all the floorboards were starting to rot and the forest was beginning to grow through. Rumour has it that someone committed suicide there and there`s a ghost about, didnt see him though. The strangest thing was some brochures we found from when the hotel was operating. It was weird to stand in a rotten, run-down room looking at a picture of the same place in brand new condition. Judging from the clothes of the people in the brochure the place must have been pretty popular in the 80`s.




After our sojourn to the haunted hotel we went back to the school and were joined by Rebecca (Dannys girlfriend). We cooked a meal for about 15 people in the school cafeteria, ate it all, got drunk and played cards for the rest of the night. The next day we got a train even further into the country to visit the ninja museum. The ninja originated in the Iga area so they have this really cool museum with all the gizmos and gadgets. They had some cool stuff like fake walls that were actually revolving doors and swords hidden in the floor boards. This one unassuming looking girl who was doing the demonstrations could whack a floor board in the secret spot with her foot and have a sword in her hand in literally the blink of the eye! After the museum displays of swords, throwing stars etc... we saw a live show with these guys demonstrating all the weapons with some pretty impressive skills. They even fought each other with real swords and kusarigama (axe with a long chain mace on the end), felt bad for one guy who was always the `loser` although he made a good job of dying dramatically each time! We capped the weekend off with a visit to yet another beer garden in Osaka. Big ups Danny and Rebecca for an awesome weekend!

Kyoto and Hasedera

A couple of weeks back, we realised that we really hadn't crossed enough off our to-do list so we planned a big weekend of sightseeing. We decided to head out to the popular tourist destination of Kyoto on Saturday, with fellow Nova faithful, Melinda (she's an Aussie but we forgive her for that). Kyoto was once the capital of Japan and is renowned for its many temples and shrines. We began our tour in the Gion area of Kyoto, which is home to several quite similar temples, all easily within walking distance. These were probably some of the less impressive temples Kyoto has to offer but they were still well worth a look and there was a wedding in full swing at one, which was cool to see.

With that as our introduction to the city, we decided it was time to go and see the big daddies. So we jumped on a subway and headed for Kyoto's (and possibly Japan's) best known temple, Kinkaku-ji (The Golden Pavilion). Set amongst a series of gardens and built out over a lake, it is quite a sight to behold, as the throngs of tourists from all over the country (and the world of course) will no doubt attest to. The masses of people are to be expected but of course detract from the experience somewhat. They also make it a pain in the arse to get a good photo. Luckily, I had the Kev Annoying People Mover (KAPM, patent pending) as part of my photographic equipment arsenal. Whenever a group of people was in my way, I simply had to deploy the KAPM and within seconds I had a clear shot. We're not sure if it was his impressive BO on this particular day (it was rather hot and humid and a hangover was in full effect) or just the fact that he was a big, white gaijin but all he had to do was walk towards a group of people and they would magically disperse. Brilliant.

Our final stop for the day were the Kyoto Botanical Gardens. These were a nice mixture of vastly different garden styles, with everything from traditional Japanese gardens to massive groves of blossom trees (unfortunately we were a few weeks late for the blossoms to be out) to rose gardens. It was a nice way to end the day, especially since the subway station was right next to the gardens and we'd had enough of walking by this stage.

Day two of our sightseeing extravaganza began with several long train journeys to get us to Sakurai City, in the back blocks of the Nara prefecture. A decent crew of us Kiwis (the usual suspects, plus Tao and Michelle) jumped off the train with Miwako (Jamie’s friend) as our guide. Straight away this was clearly at the other end of the scale to yesterday's destination. There was hardly anyone around and the town, which was nestled in a lush, green valley, was quite small.

After a short walk through the town we made it to the Hasedera Temple. The beginnings of this structure date back to 686AD, with parts being modified and added to over the years. It made for a nice change after the previous day's hustle and bustle. The actual temple was not as impressive as the best that Kyoto had to offer but the views from the temple and the tranquility of the place were amazing.

After visiting the temple, we jumped back on the train and headed to Miwako's apartment in Osaka. For dinner, she taught us how to make takoyaki (fried dough balls with octopus in the middle). Not all the team were too keen on octopus though, so to mix it up we also made them with a whole bunch of different fillings and proceeded to stuff our faces and wash it all down with a few Japanese brews. A fantastic end to a fantastic weekend.

The China Challenge

One last bit of info for you... we will not be shaving for the duration of our stay in China! I don't mean we'll be growing some well-trimmed, nicely maintained beards either. I mean the shavers will stay in their cases until we get to Europe. Niiiiiiice.

The Marcus and Kev Travel Awards - Japan

Best Beer Category - 1. Yebisu, 2. Asahi Super Dry, 3. Kirin Hoposhu (cos it`s cheap!)



Best Food Catgory - 1. Okonomiyaki, 2. Fresh Sushi, 3. Ramen



Most Impressive Category - 1. Himeji Castle and Gardens, 2. Hasedera Temple, Iga Ninja Museum



Most Fun Category - 1. Beer Gardens, 2. Weekend at Danny`s, 3. KRAC and Sports



Worst Experience Category - 1. Working/Coming out of retirement, 2. McGregor Dead Legs, 3. Playing Rugby/Touch/AFL on sand/concerete (but good times).



Best Value Category - 1. Spirits (1 x bottle of Canadian Club = $NZ 10), 2. Rent (3 people living in a 1 bedroom apartment), 3. The 100 yen shop.



Best Local Innovation Category - 1. Indentation below the tab on drink cans, 2. The rail ticketing system (email Marcus for a more detailed accolade), 3. Taxis (GPS Navigation and automatic doors).





The Stats



Days:58

Money Spent: Dont want to know.... lots

Money Earnt: Hopefully enough to cover the above

Beer Consumed: See `Money Spent`

Nights we got home after the sun was up: 12

Midweek benders: 9

Hours worked: 332 (Combined)

Verbal Warnings about length of hair: 3

Hours spent on trains: 62

Kilograms of rice consumed: 22.15kg