China Blog: Day 43
09:24Beijing Time
Phrase Of The Day: Zhe fafeng yici maoxian de Scott he Fiona (The Wacky Adventures Of Scott And Fiona)
Well, now that I’ve recovered sufficiently (No thanks to Crazed
Neighbour, who yet again began his DIY at 6am) to blog, I s’pose I’d
best let y’all know what went on in fair Xi’an, city of Terracotta
soldiers, ancient pagodas, and smog so thick my lungs will never
recover. This blog is gonna be kinda long and include many much photos,
so you may want to finish any pressing matters such as feeding
yourselves, your pets, or your families before settling down with a mug
of hot cocoa/a beer and enjoying the ride. Or just laughing at how
retarded I look in the photos. Enjoy!
Day 1: Friday
There’s one major problem with a 36-hour train journey on Chinese
railways: The lavatories. Squat toilets, about as clean as your average
pig trough. Now, in my time I’ve pondered the meaning of life in much
worse places, but only barely. And the knowledge that at the other end
of the journey there’s a beautifully sanitised porcelain throne
awaiting you in your hotel bathroom kinda helps to induce a period of
what I have come to label “Westerner’s Block”- the complete inability,
no matter how desperate the urge, to use the damn things. That’s right,
folks, nearly two whole days without…well. Y’know. Let me tell you,
it’s UNCOMFORTABLE.
Okay, that’s my BIG gripe about the train journey down. The rest of the
trip went without a hitch, and even though we were in what Fiona
described as the “most horrible hard sleeper I’ve ever been in” I
didn’t think it was too bad. Judge for yourselves:
Our Beloved Mobile Home
See, Chinese trains are split into four different types of ticket. In
order of cheapness, these are: Standing (Fairly obvious, and highly
uncomfortable- can YOU imagine standing for 36 hours?) Hard Seat (Not
much better than standing, but at least your arse gets a rest) Hard
Sleeper (The ticket of choice- reasonably priced and not too
uncomfortable) and Soft Sleeper (The best of a bad bunch). Hard sleeper
is split into bunks of six, with 10 sets of six in a carriage. It’s
quite communal, unless you get two young couples like the two below us
who spent the whole journey making out. Tsh. The scandal. Me and Fiona
played Pass The Pigs, because we’re just so cool.
Anyways, after 24 hours on the train, we made it into…
Day 2: Saturday
Sometime around midday we pulled into Xi’an station. That’s about all
there is to say about that. It’s hardly inspiring, as train stations
go. Being both knackered, unhygenic and desperate for the lavatory, we
headed off to the delightful Jianguo Hotel, a four-star (shock, horror)
quasi-palatial holiday residence just outside the city walls of Old
Town Xi’an:
The Jianguo Hotel
Yes, I know….Me? and a FOUR-STAR hotel??? What’s the deal here? Well,
I was aware that Fiona probably wouldn’t appreciate the kind of
backpacker’s hovel I’m usually content to call home whenever I travel.
So, considering I could get the Jianguo complete with “full English
breakfast”, swimming pool, sauna, gym, and a whole bunch of other
goodies for less than the price of a Travelodge back home, it would
have been stupid not to.
A short (Four hours) nap later, we arranged to meet Glenn (Another
Ex-Sunderland lad who got dumped in Anhui province all on his tod,
rather than joining the Changchun Crew), his
kinda-sorta-not-but-maybe-I’m-not-too-sure-if-she’s-his girlfriend
Sunshine, and his student who has the totally awesome moniker of Crazy,
to grab a bite to eat outside the Big Goose Pagoda, where hopefully we
would catch the famous light show, complete with dancing fountains.
However, Glenn’s pizza decided to take the best part of an hour to
arrive so our plans were thwarted. Instead, as we were all practically
dead on our feet, we split up and me and Fiona strolled back to our
hotel, stopping only for a beer at a cafe on the way.
Day 3: Sunday
Early morning, this ‘un. I’d barely got any sleep so I was wide awake
come 8:00. Some holiday. I must confess that, after my last Experience Wiith A So-Called “Western Breakfast”
I was filled with trepidation about the westernness of my Western
Brekkie, so imagine the expression on my face when, lined up ahead of
me in sumptuous buffet style was EVERYTHING from bacon, to fried eggs,
to beans, to hash browns… I honestly thought I was going to cry. They
even had – dig this – TABASCO SAUCE. I was in HEAVEN.
So, after gorging myself on fried pig of every definition, we headed
off to meet the others for a trip to the Terracotta Army. Now, I don’t
know about you folks, but I have wanted to see these things since I was
about ten years old. Even more so after my accursed parents went to
China a few years back and wouldn’t shut up about them >_<. And I
kid you not, they are totally awesome. Observe the day’s piccies:
They’re Warriors. Made Of Terracotta. Original Name, Huh?
Me And Glenn, Pondering…..Something.
Me And Fiona, Near A Big Pit With More Warriors In. You Can’t See Them. They’re In The Pit. Duh.
Seriously, the warriors are amazing. I wish I could put up more than
one picture of them, but I’m putting up so many this entry I don’t want
to break the Internets. I won’t bore you with general tourist talk, ut
I will mention that at one point in the day I got a massive electric
shock when my watch hit Fi’s camera, which REALLLLY hurt.
Oh, and there’s the Insane Taxi Driver Experience: We got our taxi from
the hotel to Glenn’s hotel, but it soon became quite apparent that the
moron didn’t have a god-damn CLUE where he was going. So eventually we
told him to take us to the train station because he’d been driving
around for twenty minutes and still didn’t know where he was. THEN,
when we go there, the sod had the cheek to charge us 45 yuan! So we
gave him 25 (More than the whole journey was worth anyway), and left.
He went MENTAL and chased us into the station, and even got the station
guards involved. It was when he grabbed Fiona really roughly that I was
about to get involved, but some other Chinese guy took him away and
calmed him down.
I don’t mind being ripped off by somebody who does it properly, but
when someone makes a mistake and THEN expects you to pay over the odds
for it? Not gonna happen.
That evening the pair of us stumbled across this little backstreet where we sat down and ate chuar,
which is basically barbequed meat on skewers that wouldn’t be allowed
in the UK or the States. Seriously, you take your stomach’s life in
your hands when you eat the stuff, but by God is it worth the risk. The
food is absolutely AWESOME and I’m gutted I didn’t get a picture of it
to show y’all. However, I DID get a photie of the light show at the Big
Goose Pagoda that we actually managed to sorta catch- there was a
massive crowd so I kinda focused more on the pagoda:
Ain’t It Bootyfull?
I apologise for the water droplets on the lens. After heading back to
the hotel, we hung out in the bar where we played at being very
sophisticated- her with cocktails, me with my scotch- before retiring
fairly late.
Day 4: Monday
Monday
started off well, with a kick-arse breakfast yet again, including
croissants (^_^!!!!!!!) and then got even better as we took a
wander into old-town Xi’an. FIona had spent the morning doing
internetty-type things, and I’d been for a swim in the freezing cold,
yet totally awesome, swimming pool. We managed to book our train
tickets home (There’s no such thing as a return ticket in China) and
ended up taking a really funky rickshaw ride through the streets of the
city. It was the first time I’d really seen Xi’an in the daytime, and
it’s a seriously strange place. Compared to Changchun, everyone seems
happy. And I don’t just mean content, I mean “Hey, life is great!” One
of the biggest examples I found of this is this kid, who, if he was
doing this on the street back home, would be locked up for vandalism:
Banksy Eat Your Heart Out
It really is weird to see kids actually enjoying themselves, playing in
the streets without a care. It’s one of the many things that makes
China so much friendlier than the West. The kids get enjoyment out of
simple things, and don’t need to rely on things like Playstation games
and expensive, light-and-sound toys to have fun. It’s something that
has long since died out back home, and seeing it here really does make
you smile, even for a bitter child-hating cynic like myself.
We basically spent all day in Old Town, visiting bookstores, drinking
coffee (LOTS of coffee) and just generally hanging out. On the way
home, we walked along the walls where, thanks in part to the massive
caffeine kick I was on, I burst into a rendition of Notes from The
Phantom Of The Opera, singing all three male parts, and causing Fiona
to question my heterosexuality, a debate which raged all the way back
to our hotel and led to her threatening to post a blog with a list of
reasons why “Scott Lewis Is Gay”. Psssht. Women. Can’t live with ‘em,
can’t live without ‘em. Not my fault I enjoy musicals, gawddammit!
Day 5: Tuesday
Laaaaazy day today. In that we didn’t actually leave the hotel until
1:30 when we met Glenn and his group before they left for Bengbu. We
ended up having dinner in this really sketchy restaurant, and they
completely misunderstood my order and, instead of sweet and sour pork,
brought me some random spicy meat-and-peanut dish that wasn’t
particularly tasty, filling, or pleasant. However, they DID surprise me
and Glenn by bringing our beers in pint tankards, complete with spoon:
There’s A Spoon In My Beer!
Don’t ask why. Just leave that to the philosophers.
After we saw them off, we strolled through the city and tried to make
it to the South Gate so that we could visit the Forest Of Steles, which
is basically a massive collection of stone tablets charting the
development of Chinese writing through the centuries. However, due to
larking about, shopping, insulting each other and getting lost, we
ended up missing it so we sat on a wall and relaxed before heading
home. That night we’d planned a meal at the Shangri La, a five-star
hotel about a 15-minute walk from the Jianguo, and although the meal
was awesome I couldn’t help feeling uncomfortable. I always do in these
sort of rich, fancy-pants places. I have no idea why, it just happens.
And I had steak, which makes everything in the world better.
When we got back, we decided we were going to kick back and relax in
the hotel sauna, so we went to our room, threw on our bathing suits,
and trotted off downstairs to the hotel’s fitness centre. After paying
100 yuan each for an hour, we were led downstairs, and the guy opened
the door. Now, expecting, as we were, a classic sauns with several
other people, imagine our surprise when we were led into a room with
tv, bed, and shower….and a two-person sauna. THEN I was led to
ANOTHER room exactly the same.
It was then the realisation struck me.
We weren’t in a SAUNA, we were in a “Sauna, nudge nudge wink wink”.
Yes, folks, we had inadvertently stepped into the hotel’s brothel. I
hate to think what we’d have gotten if we’d ordered the “Sauna and foot
massage”, which was 110 yuan, or the “Romantic Massage” for 450.
So, after explaining (While beetroot red) to the attendent that we’d
made a mistake and just needed the one room, we ended up having our
sauna and fleeing as fast as we could, glad that we were checking
out the next day and hadn’t charged our little experience to my credit
card.
Day 6: Wednesday
Our last day in Xi’an *sniff* was hot, muggy, and crystal clear. After
our last breakfast *sniff* and checking out, we had 8 hours to kill
before our train so, dumping our stuff at Left Luggage, we wandered
around the Muslim quarter of Old Town, and just generally wasted time.
One moment of note- we were eating at Dico’s (A chinese version of KFC
that, surprisingly, doesn’t taste like crap) when we got accosted by a
five-year-old girl called Cha Sha (I think) who was absolutely
fascinated by my hair. So after talking with her for a while, and after
she convinced her mother to buy her a sundae because I had one, we
asked her to pose for a picture. So in her rush to stand up, she spilt
her ice-cream everywhere! I felt so bad, I went and bought her another
one, despite the mother trying to give me money for it. Anyway, after
telling her I didn’t want the money because “Ta de wo shao pengyuo”
(lit: “She is my little friend”), this was the result:
Fi, Cha Sha, And Her Mother
So we bumble around the city for a few hours, visiting Grand Mosque,
haggling, and so on and so forth. The heat was starting to get
oppressive and muggy and we were both getting kind of cranky, which
sucked as at one point we even semi-jokingly discussed breaking up, but
couldn’t decide if we wanted to or not so we settled it with a game of
Rock, Paper, Scissors. Stable relationship, huh? Needless to say, i
won, and we’d agreed that if I won, we’d stay together and if she won,
we’d split. It was a laugh, and gave us plenty to talk about, if nothing else 
One of the major reasons for us being so damn grouchy was the smog.
Seriously, I hadn’t noticed it until today when there was absolutely no
wind and the air was so hot and still:
Xi’an: City Of Smog
Although Xi’an was awesome, it was a hell of a relief to get back on
the train to come home. We were in a berth with four guys who were
going to do some work for their company in Changchun, and talking with
them in halting Chinese was great fun. Admittedly, Fiona did much more
of the talking than me, but I was content to listen and see what I
could pick up from their conversations- I find that helps as much with
learning the language as actually speaking it does.
So after teaching the guys how to play Pass The Pigs (An awesome
exercise in my Chinese counting abilities) and being consistently
beaten by them, we settled down to another hard-sleeper night.
Day 7: Thursday
Despite the fact we still had 30+ hours to go on the train, I was
actually looking forward to today. Chatting with the guys really helped
my Chinese, and it was great fun just hanging out with them and
practicing my Chinese flash cards, mutually teaching them English and
them helping me with my Chinese:
Yeah, We Coo’
However, that all changed in the afternoon. See, up until now, I’d had
a bit of a cold. But after dinner, I crashed out for a few hours and
then woke up with a VERY unpleasant feeling in my stomach.
Remember Westerner’s Block? Well, I’ve found a VERY good way to get
over it. Give yourself the Squits on a train and trust me, you won’t
give a DAMN what the lavatory looks like.
That’s right, folks….on a 44-hour train journey, for the first time
since coming to China, I got a diarrhea attack. That, and I was
throwing up, too. So eventually, although I didn’t want to leave our
new friends, we upgraded to soft sleeper to take advantage of the
western-style toilet, large, soft bunks, and healthier atmosphere. Not
that I was going to sleep much anyway…
Day 8: Friday
And so we come to the end of our adventures. We arrived into Changchun
at 11am, and my stomach had just began to settle down. We’d talked a
lot over the trip, and all was good between us(except for the fact
Fiona caught
my cold) but after everything else- the trials, tribulations,
discomfort, and general unpleasantness of the trip it was a HELL of a
relief to be home. The last part of the
train journey was hellish, and getting home to the sanctuary of my own
lavatory was a godsend. Thus endeth the first holiday I’ve had in years.
Seriously, during the five days away I was more relaxed than I have
been since LONG before I graduated, maybe even in a few years. It was
nice to just play the tourist for a change, but there was enough
travelling and random aimless strolling to satisfy my backpacker-fu.
And, of course, the company was fantastic.
Anyway, I’ve been writingthis for over an hour, so I’ma going to go try and eat some grub.
Zai Jian!
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