Shanghai: Two degrees of separation!

Number One ( a short one)

Our waitress at M on the Bund was born in Minlaton!!!


Number Two ( requires a little more consideration)

We were heading to Guilin and Yangshuo after Shanghai on a 24hr train journey ( which Mandy is dying to blog about) and had booked accommodation in Guilin but not Yangshuo where we planned to be for about 7 days. We had 3 places we wanted to stay in....they all sounded great and had come highly recommended. I kept telling Mandy that we didn't need to book, that we would get a cheaper price if we just rocked up. She, however, was insistent, so I rang....all 3 were booked out.....you can imagine the consequences!!! To my defence, I didn't know the "Gravesweeping Festival" was on, or that it was holiday time for the International Schools around China.

Anyways, Mandy had booked a cooking class in a village called Chao Long run by an Aussie woman and we confirmed via email and also asked her if she could recommend any accommodation. She booked us into the "Outside Inn" in the village, a guesthouse run by a Swiss lady called Nadine and her Brit husband Mike. We had not heard of it but were grateful for her help.

That night we went to Franck's French Bistro and had to wait for a table, so we went next door into a wine bar, ordered some delicious Chinese wine ( yes Chinese wine can be delicious) and Mandy started chatting to the only other customer, an Indonesian gentleman called Wen. He was living in Lijiang (in the North and was in Shanghai for business). Over the course of a few drinks we discussed the "Gravesweeping Festival" and how it had mucked up our plans and he said "hang on, I have some friends who run a guesthouse in Yangshuo, I will ring them".............and you guessed it.......Wen's friends were Nadine and Mike.

This bizarre coincidence of course demanded another bottle of red wine, which was so good Wen bought another for us to take to Yangshuo to give to Nadine and Mike as a present, accompanied by a letter suggesting they must look after us!!!

Come on! In a city of 12 million people how scary was that!

Shanghai

We caught the day train from Beijing to Shanghai, first class, sit up and it was pretty good...like a plane seat. The thing cruises at around 200 clicks an hour but was very smooth. Nothing exciting to report except that a half an hour into the journey we thought we'd better celebrate with a beer, it was 11 o'clock after all. I scurried down to the buffet car only to be told they had run out!!!!. I know the Chinese like to drink but that was ridiculous. Problem was solved when we stopped at the next town, plenty of vendors on the platform selling warm beer. Its amazing how delicious a warm beer can be when you're travelling!

We'd decided to stay in the Assett Hotel in Shanghai, mainly through good review in Trip Advisor and the price...it was cheaper than the hostel in Beijing..around $40, and we knew it was away from the main Bund area, but took the punt. It was great, staff had little English but really helpful and good at charades, bathroom needed some grout cleanser, but the best thing...cable TV and a golf channel ( much to Mandy's horror).

We knew Shanghai would be different to Beijing, more glitz than culture so we spent the days wandering the different precints and spent the nights fine dining and drinking. Had a great meal at M on the Bund on the 2nd night and they have a simple guide ( M's guide to Shanghai) which lists, amongst other things, the best bars and restaurants...so we simply followed the guide!!! It was not the cheapest guide to follow, hence all of our evening meals in Shanghai have been tax coded "Directors meetings"....a lot of business planning went on!!

The highlight was an after dinner evening listening to some very cool jazz at the House of Jazz and Blues, owned by a very famous Chinese movie star who was entertaining guests that night and (this is dumb) asking the young extremly, attractive manager where she was from and she answered....."Siberia"....a first for me, I mean who comes from Siberia!!

The biggest shock was getting out of the cab in the area called Old Shanghai to be confronted with more people that we have ever seen. Part of this old town is a mock ancient shopping precinct crammed to the gills with Chinese group tours...it was the worst shopping moment of my life!!!!. But the odd thing is, wandering away from that chaos, we found back alleys that were old and very poor and fascinating and had some delicious street food....the Chinese contradiction principle yet again!!

Of course we had a great time in Shanghai.

Out of Order

For those of you who may be following........., the last two entries ( The bars and Ni Hao) have gone below "The dining experience".....don't ask why...we might perfect this blogging at some stage but hang in there.

The Wall

What can you say! The wall....... its amazing.

We shared a minibus to Jinshalin with Patrick and Julia Walls and their 3 delightful children, Connell, Kierin and Lachlan, 6,4 and 11 months...they had been travelling for 3 months around India, Nepal and China!! You can walk the wall from Jinshalin to Simatai which takes about 4 hours and is reasonably difficult... we chose not to, but all the Walls did....well done guys!!!!

I reckon the Chinese would think it very auspicious that we walked the Wall with the Walls!

Jinshalin is peaceful and beautiful, Simatai is rugged,wild and dramatic and amazes one in its engineering feats. We caught a very long, very high and very tired looking cable car to the wall and I freaked...its not for the faint of heart......which may have been a little silly in retrospect... or a good test...I am still typing!!!!!

And of course the Forbidden City......its fascinating, and is a must as well, especially with the headphone tour. Sal C told us that she had Michael Caine on her headphones but we then found out it was now Roger Moore, so you can imagine our disappointment when the headphone rental ladies fell about laughing when we requested Roger Moore. They informed us that he had gone! We got a chinese ladies voice instead, which was quite effective and seductive when talking about the various sexual encounters that happened in the forbidden city...nothing explicit mind you.

We met some people who believe you need 3 full days there....we comfortably did it in 3 hours!!!!

The one thing in relation to sites such as these, they are chock-a-block full of Chinese tour groups...in fact everywhere in China is...its great that so many Chinese tour their own country, but they all do it in groups and they do not stray from the chosen routes...it is quite amusing to watch their antics as they get very excited about everything they see!!

Of course we had left our official sightseeing duties until the last two days of our stay so now it is off to Shanghai on the day train.

We hadn't done all we had planned to do in Beijing, so of course we will have to return!!

The dining experience

We were a little apprehensive about the dining experience in China, but have been very pleasantly surprised.

Our first meal was a Vietnamese lunch (of course) but that night we had a fantastic Chinese degustation dinner at The Source (recommended by Chris Manfield in her latest book). We couldn't find this restaurant and ended up taking refuge from the cold in a hotel who rang the restaurant who sent one of their staff to get us....yes travel in China can be challenging.

There were food challenges also, but we ate well. The only real let down was a recommended Yunnan restaurant whose menu was very obscure and the menu pictures even more so. We couldn't find a bowl of boiled rice on the menu and the only picture of rice was rice stuffed inside two large pineapples (a desert). Mandy, ever the charade expert, believed she had conveyed the message and yes it did appear that the waitress had understood........but alas....the two pineapples were returned apologetically to the kitchen!

There are, of course, some very weird (to us) ingredients on the menus and we probably haven't been as adventurous as some, but we have tried and did not really have a bad meal in Beijing.

The highlights were a Hakka restaurant near our hostel which was challenging but delicious, with a young female staff who were hilarious, and our first Peking ( Beijing or Roast) Duck in a fantastic, family run,chaotic retaurant called Li Quin. The retaurant was down a tiny hutong, the entrance opened to many ducks roasting in an open fire oven, mess everywhere, communal tables, staff running around like the proverbial chook, a wonderful ambience!. You order, your duck is presented for viewing and the feeding process begins...pancakes etc..though not as formal as some. It was great.

There is a lot more to experience.

The Bars

Beijing has 4 or 5 distinct bar areas(not that we went to all). The area we were in, had some great small bars. A bar called Huxleys (tiny) was a favourite. Huxley, the owner had a huge sign out the front stating " F...ing great Mojitos" (without the dots and maybe another lost in translation moment) and maybe that's what enticed us.....anyway they were not up to your standard Andy...yes of course we had one. The bar also had a great itunes playlist.

From that extreme to a bar called Lan, an upmarket Philippe Starck inspired expanse taking the 4th floor of a building, European "Masters' paintings on the ceilings and weird and wonderful collections, displays and furniture, and a ultra chic clientele. The girls on the door were a little underwhelmed by our Gortex jackets and hiking boots, but they let us in.

The night we went to Lan our itinerary included a number of stops, all on the other side of town, so maybe a 25min cab ride (for about $6). It was very cold, we got stuck in a godawful traffic jam and after an hour in the cold cab we decided to head straight for Lan. Frozen and frustrated we sat at the groovy bar and in a short time had racked up a bar bill that was over a $100 (easily done we can assure you)...a little over budget.

But fate intervenes in funny ways. A "kindly European gentleman" (you can read that anyway you want, but blogs are a public domain and Mandy did give this gentleman our card!) took quite a fancy to Mandy , even though he was entertaining a young Chinese girl at the time, and generously, or inadvertently, paid our entire bill.......we sort of wished we had drunk a little quicker!!!!

That night ended at a bar where you can pick up Mongolian girls and the planned candlelit dinner was a sweet roll, which we had bought for the next days trains journey, in our hostel room.

We need to explore a few more Beijing Bars!!

Ni hao

One of the first things that struck us on that first morning in Beijing and ever since then is the openness and friendliness of the people. A simple Ni Hao (hello) accompanied by a smile initiates a similar response from the Chinese.

Add charade like actions to illicit a little more information (as Mandy is want to do) and the Chinese become very animated - this is true from the youngest child to the oldest, bent double tribal woman.

In a country where there is no English signage it has been crucial to get as much help as possible. Everyone, from the staff at our hostels, to English speaking locals on the streets have bent over backwards to write down destinations in Chinese or take our mobile to speak to our hotel for directions home....or  whatever.

The cab drivers are the same. Taxis are very cheap in Beijing...we didn't get to use the subway(slack), but we did use the buses (40 cents to anywhere)....so we used cabs. We often wanted to go to some very obscure bars (surprise, surprise!) and cab drivers would leave no stone unturned to locate the place...phone a friend or directories or wander the streets asking locals until the bar was located or they and we gave up in frustration and went to the next one. Often we would find the bar and it wouldn't quite live up to expectations so we would hit the streets and the process would start again. 

We were always prepared with our nightly destinations written on scraps of paper in Chinese (courtesy of hostel staff), and some nights we had 10 scraps of paper...just in case, and the thing that always amused us was the cab driver would take the scrap of paper, read it out loud very slowly, maybe twice, ponder until the light bulb above the head illuminated and take off. On a few occasions they would refuse muttering in Chinese things like "no way man, not going there or you've got be joking" but 99% of the time they were great.

The cynical would say that all of the above relates to the belief (ok it may be a fact) that the Chinese do not want to lose face........we choose not to subscribe to that!!

Just a note re the photo of the couple dancing. It is a nightly occurrence in public spaces..the music starts and couples ballroom dance around, many like this couple showing off their prowess. Just another great Chinese custom!

Lost in Translation

Chinglish is the simple literal translation of Chinese into English....its probably more than that and I am sure someone with more knowledge than I possess on the subject would find argument in that statement, but lets keep it simple.

The first night we wandered the tourist section of Doncheng. By the way it was freezing. We are wearing five layers of clothing and still are cold. Also at this time of year the wind blows off the Gobi desert, which clears the smog, but brings with it a fine cloud of sandpaperish sand..so we are wandering the freezing, sand swept streets looking for the first likely refuge which was a small, basic Chinese eatery.

We were given the menu, in Chinese but with Chinglish translations. We could have eaten..........

Entree

• explodes the frys sheeps internal organs....15rmb (remimbi is the currency,around $3)
• slides the tendons....18rmb

Main

• sheet iron mutton....28rmb


• explodes the loose meat....25rmb

Salad

• the water boils the green vegetables....5rmb


• the sugar mixes the tomato....5rmb


• pats the cucumber ( won't go there!..however it did spark a conversation about Warrick Capper exposing his "Captain Cucumber" (his words) on Big Brother, and whether it was a lebonese cucumber or not...but that's another story!)

Dessert

• sesame seed cake adds the meat....5rmb

• fries the hemp bean curd....8rmb

To Drink

• a mouth cup
• vial drink
  

....................................................................

We had two long neck bottles of local beer for 4rmb each!!

The Red Lantern

We stayed at the Red Lantern Hostel which is situated north-west of the main town area.

This is the first Hostel we have stayed in for 30 years and I was a little apprehensive. It was down a little alley and was a traditional courtyard house. We stumbled into a communal living area at around 10pm to find a group of young Austrians drinking beer and playing cards...typical hostel scene and my apprehension increased, whereas, of course, Mandy's enthusiasm skyrocketed and before we were shown a room she had engaged the group, knew names and itineraries and had become firm friends, even thought they spoke little English.

Mandy is going to love hostel life!!!

The room, for a hostel was pretty good, the bathroom, well check out the photo, but the water was hot and pressured! The sign behind the toilet, " Please put all used toilet paper in the bin provided", set me back a second, but it is amazing how quickly you get used to doing things differently!. This is not a hostel thing, it is China-wide. We haven't entered a 5 star establishment yet, so I don't know how they get around the sewerage issues.

Anyways the hostel thing worked out brilliantly. We met some great people...its amazing how many older people use the network, and the staff ( all young and keen to improve their already good english) were fantastic.

Just back on the toilet topic. Beijing has many public toilets which we are sure had been upgraded for the Olympics, the only problem being for females is that most of them don't have doors so its a bit of a parade!!!

Its only the beginning........

Lets pretend this is the first blog.

We considered a preamble, as it was 30 years (not quite to the day)ago, when we boarded a Thai Airways flight (with Susie, who was enroute to London) to Bangkok on the first leg of our first adventure. We were all apprehensive then and nothing has changed...(except the airfares, which have decreased considerably).This time it was not the fear of the unknown but the fear of being able to do it...not as far as Mandy is concerned though!!!!

Like 30 years ago it was a very tearful and sad goodbye at the airport.

A couple of comments re the flights: I carried, in my day pack, enough prescription drugs to last me six months. They filled the pack and yet I was not queried once through four airports:

we flew Dragonair from Hong Kong to Beijing and the food and service (read that as lovely staff continually filling our red wine!) was fantastic and the softest touchdown ever experienced:

lastly we was nervous entering China as we had a one way ticket which apparently is a no no, but the entry was smooth, efficient and very friendly:

no lastly.. the best thing was seeing a gorgeous young lady at the airport exit holding a sign that read " Mandy and Steve"...the lift to our hostel.