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Amazing China

April 2012
A 10-day adventure by Billy Oaks Read more
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  • Billy OaksAmazing China
    Day 1

    Beijing

    April 6, 2012 in China ⋅ ☀️ 19 °C

    Today started really early, our flight was scheduled at 6:30am which meant he had to be at the airport at 4am, hence we left Gold Coast at 3am. Our first stop Sydney international terminal 3 where we waited for a couple of hours before getting in the A380 that would take us to our next stop Hong Kong.

    The stopover in HK was really quick, less than an hour and off we went, this time on Dragon air.

    By the time we arrived in Beijing the local time was 0:00 i.e. 2am in Gold Coast, basically 24 hours from the time we woke up to get to the airport in the morning, completely exhausted we found our way along the huge Beijing airport.

    Fortunately Jessie, our local guide, had organised private transport so we didn't wait much and 40 minutes later we arrived at our hotel.............end to our first day    Read more

  • Billy OaksAmazing China
    Day 2

    Tiananmen Square, Forbidden City & Huton

    April 7, 2012 in China ⋅ ⛅ 13 °C

    Second day of our trip. We had a really good rest last night, the beds weren't that comfortable but I guess we were really tired. We met with Jessi Di our tour guide I hired for our stay in Beijing.

    Our first stop today Tiananmen square a 10 minutes walk from our hotel. On our way we stop at some shops to get something for breakfast and then Jessie took us through the Changpuhe park were we observed the trees blossoming, yes Spring has arrived to Beijing.

    Next we arrived to the huge Tiananmen square via an underpass, big crowds everywhere, on one side stood the National Museum, opposite the Great hall of people and in the middle the monument of people's heroes. According to Jessie during Chinese celebration nearly 500,000 people gather at this square that is the entire population of Gold Coast !!!! . Anyway we didn't spend much time here and headed straight to the Forbidden city.

    After walking nearly 200 m we arrived to the Meridian Gate, where tickets are sold. the line for tickets was endless however thanks to Jessie's contacts we managed to get tickets in 10 minutes. passing through the first gate we arrived to a big plaza with 5 marble bridges. I couldn't stop staring at the architecture and the attention to detail shown in roofs. Something that was a constant for the whole trip was dealing with people pushing around, instead of waiting turns to get through a door or downstairs Chinese are used to push their way in.

    We access the majestic Gate of supreme and then the hall of Middle Harmony and the Gate of Heavenly purity to finally arrived at the imperial gardens were there were some restaurants for lunch. We didn't stop and instead went to the Jing Shan Park (across the road from the North entrance and additional fee) that offered superb views back to the forbidden city.

    Time to leave the complex and have some deserved lunch. We couldn't resist trying the famous Pecking duck so Jessie took us to a restaurant near the drum tower. As expected lunch was delicious and cheap (around 250 Yuan or A$35 for the 4 of us). This was also the first time we had to use the squatting toilet............quite challenging.

    We then went to visit the drum and clock towers and the nearby Hutong hiring a rickshaw (the best way to go around the narrow streets). The Hutong is definitely worth a visit, it is a separate world within Beijing where time seems to have stopped.

    We grabbed a taxi back to the hotel enjoying the terrible traffic this time of the afternoon.

    Jessie left us for the day so we decided to try the night food market at Wanfujing road. The market is a tourist trap, even local were hesitant to try the exotic meal offered however we shared a moment of laugh looking at others struggling with the food.    Read more

  • Billy OaksAmazing China
    Day 3

    Mutianyu Great Wall

    April 8, 2012 in China ⋅ ☀️ 19 °C

    Today we visited one of the most iconic places on earth, the great wall. I had selected the Mutianyu section to avoid the crowds. Jessie and the van picked us up at 9am and after cruising through Beijing motorways we ended up going in a narrow road traversing some farmlands, we passed some small towns with recreational facilities very popular among Beijingers. We finally arrived at Mutianyu village and got our tickets for the great wall, the village was really touristy with souvenir shops everywhere......

    We used the cable-way to get to the wall (chairlift) and toboggan for the way down. The cable-way took us close to tower 6 and from there we went up the hill to tower 10, I don't have words to explain how excited we were, walking on the great wall had been one of my wildest dreams since I was a kid and now it was actually happening. The Mutianyu section is farther away than Badaling and hence less crowded, most of the tourist were foreigners (mostly Europeans), getting to tower 10 was a bit demanding due to numerous stairs up & down but the views didn't stop to astonish us.

    On the way down we used the toboggan to add some fun time to the adventure, of course little Ximena was so excited, last time we did a toboggan was at the Big Banana in Coffs Harbour a couple of years ago.

    After haggling a lot for souvenirs (sometimes prices went down from 500 to 40 Yuan!!!) we ate at a local Subway (yes the fast food chain) and then back on our Van, this time heading to the Ming Tombs. The winding road from the wall to the tombs pass through a series of hill with blossoming tress and small villages, overall the trip was close to an hour.

    The Ming tombs are not that impressive. Other than a few artifacts from the emperors such as crowns and vest the buildings are not that marvelous compared to Forbidden city.

    We left the tombs and run into some traffic on our way back to Beijing, yes Beijingers were coming back to town after spending most of the Sunday our of the city. We stopped at the Olympic Green to look at the futuristic constructions like the water cube and the bird's nest and then the Van took us back to the hotel.

    For dinner we chose to go to a restaurant across the road from our hotel, big mistake, the menu was totally in Chinese with no photos and the waitress didn't speak English at all. We drew a chicken in a piece of paper and they told us that they didn't sell chicken so we understood it was a vegetarian restaurant. We ended up in another restaurant a couple of hundred metres from there, the waitress spoke really good English and had a Western menu (no surprises it was full of tourist).    Read more

  • Billy OaksAmazing China
    Day 4

    Temple of Heaven & summer palace

    April 9, 2012 in China ⋅ ☀️ 22 °C

    As usual Jessie turned up at 9am to take us to the Temple of Heaven. We spent closed to 20 minutes looking for a taxi until we finally got one (taxis were on demand on Monday morning). The journey cost us 20 Yuan.

    We entered by the southern gate and passed by lots of people practicing Tai Chi and dances or in general just exercising. the first place to visit was the Round Altar and then the Vault of Heaven. A long corridor took us to the Qinian Dian, which is one of the most photographed buildings in Beiing (it is portrayed in DK tourist guide). In general the complex wasn't as crowded as the forbidden city.

    We left using the Eastern gate and walked to the Metro station, the ticket for the 45 minutes ride to the summer palace cost 9 Yuan for the tree of us, something around 1.5 Aussie dollars !!!.

    The summer palace is a huge complex with plenty of opportunities for photos and cafes along the way. First we arrived to the Marble boat, and extravagance from the dragon empress Cixi, then we followed the 700m long corridor that was colourfully painted. Jessie advised us not to climb to the actual temple, apparently there is no much to see there. we continued along the corridor until we arrived to the hall of jade and the Eastern gate.

    It was close to 2pm and instead of having lunch we grabbed a taxi for the Silk street market.........

    With the traffic it took us close to an hour to get to the market, the trip cost me 75 Yuan (12 aussie dollars) however we passed by modern Beijing and skyscrapers like the 330m tall China World trade center and the bizarre CCTV tower.

    The Silk market is a paradise for shoppers (including my wife), haggling is compulsory as the initial prices are completely ridiculous. It was interesting to see how the vendors managed several languages, we intentionally shifted to Spanish during our bargaining but so did they.......

    After the market we went to the acrobatic show, a highly recommended thing to do while in Beijing, the performers left us speechless and the final show with the motorbikes nearly killed me of a heart attack, spectacular.

    Back at the hotel it was time to say goodbye to Jessie, this was our last night in Beijing because tomorrow we are going to the Xian to visit the 8th wonder of the world..........the Terracota Warriors !!    Read more

  • Billy OaksAmazing China
    Day 5

    Arriving in XI'AN

    April 10, 2012 in China ⋅ ☀️ 20 °C

    We woke up early in the morning and packed up all our stuff. The staff at reception spoke limited English however checking out was relatively easy. It took us less than 5 minutes to get a taxi to the airport, a bonus compare to the dramas we had on Monday. The taxi ended up costing us 90 Yuan not bad compared to the 300 Yuan I paid for the pre-booked Van that picked us up on arrival.

    Beijing airport is massive with several terminals, fortunately the girl at the restaurant were we had breakfast founded that our flight was leaving from Terminal 3 and wrote it down in a piece of paper in Chinese characters for the taxi driver.

    After checking we had some lunch and then just waited for our flight, this was our first time in Air China.

    The flight was quite comfortable actually, the plane was fairly new and the messages were given both in Chinese and English, we arrived in Xi'an around 5pm. Instead of looking for a taxi I booked a shuttle van at the airport for 200 Yuan (I know I didn't learn the lesson in Beijing)

    50 minutes later we arrived at the Days inn hotel, our first impression was positive, the hotel looked much better than the one in Beijing so things were starting to improve.

    We had some dinner in the mall across the road from the hotel, this time we were prepared with our list of Chinese phrases, however the menu was also in English so no problems this time

    Tomorrow we were going to visit the Terracota Warriors    Read more

  • Billy OaksAmazing China
    Day 6

    Terracota warriors...

    April 11, 2012 in China ⋅ ☀️ 20 °C

    Ok we had only one day to explore what Xi'an had to offter, of course the highlight were the Terracota Warriors however there were other things to see like the Bell & drum tower, City wall, Pagodas etc etc. For this reason I booked a half a day tour to the Terracota Warrios at the hotel for 260 Yuan per person, including transportation, entrance fee and lunch no bad considering that the entrance fee alone is 150 Yuan and lunch probably 40 - 50 Yuan so in reality I was charged 60 Yuan for the transport (around 10 Aussie dollars).

    Our guide, James, picked us up at the hotel at 9am sharp and after stopping in another 2 hotels we took off. We were 8 people in the tour: an English couple, a Kiwi couple, a Canadian girl and the 3 of us, we all share the same passion for travelling and exchanged some knowledge of places we had visited.

    The first stop was the Terracota Warriors factory. This sort of workshop is supported by the government having as main goal investigation of the way the warriors were built. After being presented with the process the terracota were built we were taken to the souvenir shop where we purchased souvenirs at reasonable prices (or so we thought) a 12 piece set of mini terracota warriors cost me 120 Yuan.

    Back in the Van it took us another 40 minutes to reach the Museum, from the car park to the main entrance we walked close to 500 metres on a path full of souvenir stands on the side, the offers were incredibly cheap, the 12 piece of mini terracota warriors was on display at 20 Yuan, I felt really disappointed with myself because I realised I had been ripped off at the factory.

    Anyway back to the museum we first accessed Pit 1, by far the largest pit of them all and also the most impressive. It was also the most crowded. The warriors were really well preserved and at the back of the huge pit a series of statues had been placed on display for a closer view.

    After Pit 1 we visited Pit 2, no much to see in the pit however some figures were on display on one side, this was as close as we could get to the warriors.

    Pit 3 didn't offer much, the warriors were headless and in a small number. Apparently this pit was allocated to the army superiors.

    I suggest visiting pits 3,first then 2 and finally 1.

    After buying some souvenirs we had our lunch at a local restaurant, the food was typical of the area but not too attractive to our eyes, anyway enough to keep us going.

    Back at the hotel we had some rest and then we walked to the Bell & Drum towers (less than 10 minutes walk from our hotel), we didn't pay the entrance to the towers so after taking photos from the outside wet went to the adjacent Muslim Quarter to see the night market. Mostly food and souvenirs were sold and some other items, we ended up buying a back pack for 50 Yuan and some local delicatesses.

    It started to rain a bit so we headed back to the hotel, we missed the City wall this time and I wished we had stayed here for another day...........maybe next time.

    After visiting Historic China tomorrow we were flying to Shanghai to visit the ultramodern future of China........    Read more

  • Billy OaksAmazing China
    Day 7

    Arriving in Shanghai

    April 12, 2012 in China ⋅ ⛅ 17 °C

    Our flight to Shanghai was scheduled at 12:30pm so that didn't leave us much time in the morning. We took advantage of the coupons we received while checking-in and had breakfast at the hotel. Plenty of choices including Chinese noodles, soups,etc however we went for something more conventional (toast, coffee and scrambled eggs).

    The hotel booked us a taxi to the airport for 150 Yuan, which is not that bad.

    Our plane took off on time so we arrived to the massive Pudong airport in Shanghai as expected. Instead of booking a Van we went for a taxi. I had the name of the hotel written in Chinese so it wasn't a problem for the taxi driver to take us there, obviously I noticed that he made a couple of extra turns to extend the journey but at the end the fare was 160 Yuan.

    We stayed at the Rayfont celebrity hotel, not that we were some sort of celebrities but the price was reasonable, well actually out of the 3 hotels we stayed over in China this was by far the best. With no time to waste we hurried up to the nearest metro station located within 5 minutes walk from the hotel.
    Our destination Naijing road and the bund, I just wanted to take a picture of Pudong.

    The ticket machines were really easy to use and in both Chinese and English. After two train changes we finally arrived at Naijing road station and from there the bund was only 4 blocks away. Walking along Naijing road reminded me of Hong Kong due to the multitude of Neon lights.

    The views of Pudong skyline looked really impressive, a bit of a mist covered the top of the Shanghai World Financial centre (aka the bottle opener) still amazing.

    The air was a bit cold so we took a taxi back to the hotel, our first glimpse at Pudong didn't let me down    Read more

  • Billy OaksAmazing China
    Day 9

    Yuyuan Garden & People's square

    April 14, 2012 in China ⋅ ⛅ 18 °C

    The weather didn't help us today, mostly foggy and some drizzle so instead of going to Pudong we spent the day shopping (well actually my wife did).

    The first place to visit was Yuyuan garden and bazaar, the place was mentioned in all the tourist guides and I also saw it in the QANTAS promotional video for Shanghai so I guessed it was worth a visit

    The Yuyuan garden is small compared to People's square for instance however the markets spread everywhere. I must admit that the place is quite touristy. The buildings although well preserved are fairly new and the prices are quite inflated. Anyway the place is nice and with good restaurants.

    We had lunch at one restaurant that is supposed to have the best dumplings in all Shanghai (according to the QANTAS video and also looking at the amount of people queuing up), instead of the take away option we went up stairs where they have a proper restaurant The food was actually good and a reasonable price.

    After buying some souvenirs we went back to the train this time in our way to Naijing Road. In day time the place looked completely different, the Neon lights were hardly seen and a bit less crowded. Shopping malls aligned along the road offering some of the most exclusive brands with prices even higher than in Australia.

    We finally got to People's square to have some rest, well not actually there was a mini theme park in there with some rides including one really similar to Dreamworld's "The Claw" so without wasting time Ximena jumped on this ride and then I followed........

    We spent sometime in the park watching people screaming their heads off at "The Claw" others exercising or just wondering around (We are not really into Museums so we didn't visit them)    Read more

  • Billy OaksAmazing China
    Day 9

    The futuristic city of Pudong

    April 14, 2012 in China ⋅ ⛅ 17 °C

    The weather improved today, at least I could see the top of the buildings.........still no sunshine. Anyway time to pay a visit to the futuristic part of Shanghai, Pudong.

    The metro took us to Lujiazui station, a big station btw really close to the impressive Oriental Pearl Tower. The tower once the tallest building in China today it remains as the most iconic building in Pudong. The design is futuristic resembling a rocket ship. Lots of people around, being Saturday people come for a stroll around here.

    Even though the Pearl Tower has a platform view we decided to go to the SWFC instead, main reasons: less crowded, the tallest building in China (3rd in the world) and also we wanted to have photos of the Pearl Tower which is not possible if you are inside the Pearl Tower obviously.

    [PHOTO_ID_L=jinmao-tower.jpg] The SWFC is located on Century Avenue adjacent the Jin Mao tower, another impressive super building second only to the SWFC, together these two buildings are the roof of China, also next to them the Shanghai tower (under construction) will be the tallest building in China when completed (630m), the place will be spectacular with these 3 buildings.

    Anyway back to SWFC, nicknamed the bottle opener due to its shape, has 3 observation platforms at floors 94, 97 & 100. After queueing for 10 minutes and paying the entrance fee we entered a room with a scale model of Pudon, then another room with a promotional video of SWFC and then to the lift (one of the fastest in the planet). The lift took us to the 97F and from there by escalators to the Skywalk on 100F. At 474m Skywalk is the tallest observation deck in the world and offers the best views of Pudong, Time for photos.........

    Leaving level 100F we went down to level 94F where a coffee and souvenir shop are available. There were some restaurants on level 1 but the prices were higher than the SWFC so we went to a nearby mall adjacent the IFC2 tower where there is a food court on basement 1.

    After our lunch we walked to the Oriental Pearl tower, bought some souvenirs at the retail shop and then went to the controversial Bund Sightseeing tunnel. For some this is a must do, for others is just ridiculous, I find it quite interesting a sort of mixture between Queenstown's Gondola and Infinity on the Gold Coast, my only problem is that the ride is just too short.

    Anyway the train took us to the other shore of the Huangpujiang river where we spent the afternoon taking photos of Pudong skyline and the Bund.

    Back on Naijing road we had something to eat and then back to the hotel, our stay in Shanghai and China was coming to an end.    Read more

  • Billy OaksAmazing China
    Day 10

    The French concession

    April 15, 2012 in China ⋅ ⛅ 19 °C

    Our last day in China, our flight was scheduled to 7:45pm so after checking out we left our baggage under custody at the hotel and went to explore the French concession and Huaihai road which according to book guides said rivaled Naijing road.

    We left the metro at South Shaanxi road and then walked along Huaihai road. Naijing road has definitely more to see but Huauihai is far less crowded. The prices were still astronomic though.

    The houses and roads along the French concession are a good representation of French architecture with balconies and Verandas. The restaurants around the area offered not only Chinese food but also European options however the prices were a bit high so we went back to Dapuqiao station and had lunch there in a typical Chinese restaurant.

    We were back at the hotel at 3:30pm and the taxi we pre-booked at reception was already waiting for us, 50 minutes of dangerous driving along the motorway and we arrived to Pudong airport just in time to check in at QANTAS counter. From there we just waited for the plane that would take us back to Brisbane via Sydney.    Read more

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