Month: April 2005

rather then spending £90 on a 27 hour train journey, we opted for £150 for an hour flight, then an hour ferry straight into the harbour. as expected it’s nuts, but nuts in a way that didn’t surprise me. after china, hong kong, though twice as bright and twice as busy as shanghai, everything is in english, everyone speaks english, they drive on the left, they have manners, everything is logical – it’s about as chinese as china town.

so as you may have expected stretch and i inspected the night life for 4 days straight… in short: why on earth would i want to move back to london?

china is a country full of rich culture, vibrant people and a multitude of beautiful landscapes. china is also perfect for drink driving. there aren’t as such any drink driving laws here, but of course that would be stupid to put other people lives at risk. no no. instead we found a go karting track and got utterly bollocked.

the afternoon starts with a pint, then a 10 min race, then another pint, then another race. by the end of 5 races we couldn’t get around the course with out having to be pulled out of the tire walls. our sixth race was prepared for with tequilas. i broke an axle in a pile up with some french people. fortunately there isn’t the hassle of wearing helmets or racing suits… shorts, thongs and tiger beer are all you need for some 30mph mayhem here. wicked.

it’s a big city. i’ve been working all week, so haven’t had too much chance to explore. fortunately not too many temples here. lot’s of bars, a few foreigners and more chinese people that you can shake a stick at. decided against joining in the anti japan demonstrations in favour of all you can eat sashimi dinners! eating chinese three times a day has started to loose it’s appeal, so it’s good to be able to read menus and order things you know you like. cheese.

took us 2 days of mini bus chaos to get here…. was it worth it? er. we got the cable car half way up, walked another hour to the top (1868 m) then for some reason… ran back down! 6km of stone steps. i can’t explain how much my legs hurt.

right now i’m cruising down the yangzi river looking at ancient mountains farmed by an ancient culture. not quite as glamorous as it sounds though. we choose a budget tour for chinese tourists. (2 days for £14) we’re in a 6 bed dorm that smells of shit. stretch and i are the only people that can speak english amongst the 200 people on board. that said, the view is nice!

Xi’an, so, after jumping off the overnight train we jumped straight onto a tour to the terracotta warriors. more like a theme park than a historical goldmine! just like the great wall tour, this one stopped off for a factory tour, museum and gift shop fun, a not included, but no choice banquet and then finally some warriors. but the youth hostel was good, a dumpling party got every one in the spirit to experience some Xi’an night life. yup. good. 8 of us rock up to a club, free to get in, it’s packed, everyone dancing, music pumping, we’re ushered to our own private table we buy a bottle of absolute for £15, another 4 staff bring all the mixers, 10 bottles of beer and a fruit bowl the size of sainsbury’s for free.

look forward to ‘ben and stretches vague guide to china’ video. it’s going to be good.

So… I’ll be in china then…

with stretch!

i’ve been here 5 days now. and i’ve loved every second.

you’d think after living with bei for 5 years i’d know or wouldn’t have forgotten the chinese meaning of my name. the correct way to introduce myself is, ‘wor jyao ben’, the direct translation being ‘i am idiot’. ben means idiot. perfect.

picture the scene. i’m in an shop surrounded by about 7 members of staff, all female, except for the owner who is doing his best to speak english with me. upon asking my name, the reply sends the audience into giggles, desperately trying to hide thier laughter behind each others backs. note to self. your name is benjamin.

chinese isn’t as complicated as i thought, the structure of the language is very logical, the problem is getting the right sounds out of your mouth. so far i’ve learnt about 30 words, and about 10 characters. but there are 10,000 ish characters! though apparently i only need 3000 to read a newspaper. i had never really considered that reading a menu would be impossible, we found our selves looking for busy restaurants, not because it indicates good food, but because there is more food to point to on other peoples plates. nobody seems to mind. tonight we’re leaving the city, we’re told the luxury of at least a few words being understood will disappear.

it’s 7am and stretch and i are in bed together, that said the bed is 9 ft wide and could easily fit a few more people between us! we’re in the town of pingyao, it’s been everything i hoped to find in china. we took a night train from beijing to taijaun, a horrible city where we stared at continuosly, then 2 more hours to pingyao. this town is built within a huge 4 mile wall, ever inch is years of layers of living, culture and dust. the children say hello as you walk past, if they can they’ll ask your name or more. every open doorway leads to a maze of courtyards that you want to explore. i’ve had to stop my self taking too many pictures.

last night we went for a guess and see meal, which turned out to be beef fat and corriander, followed by a nightclub. odd this quiet traditional town would be playing hardcore techno to 30 pogoing sober young men in blazers. hardly anyone was sat down, and before long niether were we. 2 mins later stretch starts a breakdance competition with the locals… the techno stopped and the staff slow danced to christmas carols on the pan pipes. honestly. after making friends with the manager and his family we made our way back through the pitch black alleyways to our hotel. still sober, only 11 pm and we were locked out!

doorways of pingyao photoset…

note on photo set: The red banners basicly say happy new year. Good luck. Etc. they stay up all year round. Pingyao is famous for it’s new years celebrations and has more of these banners than anywhere else. What is beautiful is, the very last picture. 17. has blue banners. Blue indicates that a member of the family died that year. Our guide seemed very sad when ever we passed one. Even though it’s a bit like having a post-it note on your front door saying, grandpa died last year, I still find it beautiful.