Dobongsan hike

On Tuesday I spent most of the day in Buyeo. Leaving my motel at 9ish I walked the 30 or so meters to the temple site of Jeongnimsaji. Arriving on the opposite side of the site to the entrance, I walked around and looked over the wall to see excavation work going on, and a fairly uninteresting looking temple with a brick pagoda next to it. Although I completed the circuit to the entrance, I decided not to bother going in and instead headed up to the other attraction of Buyeo – the Busosan park and fort. This area was even nicer than the fort in Gongju and I spent a very pleasant 90 minutes or so just strolling around the perimeter, checking out the restored buildings, enjoying the views and the autumnal colours. With a minimum number of school trip children crossing my path, this was a very enjoyable morning. From there I decided to head back to Seoul, and then slowly back to Dobong (Chi-Hé's stop).

Yesterday, I did pretty well nothing. In the morning I tidied and sorted my bag out a bit, and in the afternoon I drank coffee, read my book and watched two couples break up (I assume that's what they were doing...there were certainly tears). That was pretty much it.

Today I went on a hike. Despite the fact Chi-Hé lives spitting distance away from Dobongsan – even drooling distance away in fact – she has never set foot on this mountain. I thought that, I having more time than she, it might be nice for one of us to attempt this feat, and we could share the pictures. To give some indication of where Chi-Hé lives in Seoul, and what type of city Seoul is, this part of Seoul is not on the lonely planet Seoul map, only on the Bukhansan National Park map, a National Park which is mostly within the area of the city of 10.4 million that is Seoul. So I set out to walk to the next subway stop and the entrance to this particular hike this morning, picking up a pizza baguette at the local Paris Bakery, making sure I had some layers and lots of water, and that my (holey) shoes were tied securely on.

Starting at the bottom of the mountain, I had my usual 'why are all of these people wearing all this hi-tech crap? What the hell do you need climbing poles for? Are those hiking boots really necessary? Gloves?! He has climbing gloves?! Oh give me a break!' reaction. Having got a fair way up, I stopped briefly to check out the view and munch on the fruit (this: http://www.travelblog.org/Photos/1623710.html) a friendly Korean had thrown to me (after I'd politely declined his offer of Makgeoll [막걸리 ], which is unrefined rice wine...often with bits of rice still in. Chi-Hé – presumably in a fit of madness, or thinking of something else - recommended it once...we left it at the motel, I also had some in Busan...as much as I thought was necessary to be polite). From there it was all up hill. I mean, it had been all up hill anyway...but this was real knees to your chin, grab hold of that handhold and pull yourself up, up hill walking.

The last stretch (about 10 meters) up to the very peak was up a 70 degree angle piece of rock, with a very conveniently placed fence to one side, and the odd hand hold – quite fun, but a touch tiring. The view from the top was beautiful if hazy. Walking back was fairly uneventful aside from a couple of 'almost flat on my ass' slip ups which I largely blame on my shoes and the sandy soil in some areas, and some slightly sore hands from gripping trees and ropes. The route I took takes you via a fairly uninteresting temple – but it was nice to stop for a minute and take a look at the art on the outside of the building, and then continue down the last stretch back towards the subway – which I walked alongside for 2 stops to get back here. All in all I think I walked about 14km (8.5 miles) on my 5 hour hike, which is not bad going...although I may be going on another walk tomorrow...and then dancing in the evening, so we'll see how I feel then.

I'm now approaching my last days at Chi-Hé's, in Seoul, in Korea, and indeed on holiday which is somewhat daunting particularly as I was hoping I'd know more about what I'm doing for the next 12 months by now...but I'll still be waiting to hear about those things when I get back. Anyway, the plan for the next few days is – go on a Shamnist walk around some shrines (apparently Korea has a history of Shamanism and presumably some of this is still active), go to Chi-Hé's school to help out with some Haloween activities on Saturday, and then to Suwon to go to the Folk Village on Sunday. Monday will be my last day of souvenir shopping and coffee drinking, and then I fly home via somewhere on Tuesday night, arriving Wednesday.

Andong and beyond

After a very pleasant few days in Busan, visiting a few sights, enjoying the much improved weather, drinking pretty good coffee and reading my new book (Karamazov Brothers - because my bag just wasn't heavy enough already) I headed off to meet Chi-He in Andong, a town in central S. Korea. Andong is famous for its Soju museum, and folk museum, at which location a popular Korean show is filmed.

When I say famous...I may overstate the case. The Soju museum is a room with exhibits on the culture and brewing of Soju - the classic Korean alcoholic drink at about 20% alcohol. The biggest draw to this museum was the Lonely Planet advertised shot of Soju at the end of the tour - this did not materialise. Never mind, at least the walk back to town along the main road was pleasant enough...there was a rather nice bridge along the way.

The following day we redeemed our voucher for a free donut at dunkin' donuts and headed out to the folk village via a 7 storey brick pagoda. It being very much autumn in Korea, and this bringing out a range of colours on the trees the countryside is really quite pleasant at the moment, and the walk near the dam - which displaced the houses relocated into the folk village - and along the river was quite pleasant as a result. The village itself was not particularly interesting as there were very few displays or anything of that nature, only the buildings themselves - however it was a fairly pleasant stroll around in the warm autumn sun.

Although the food was very pleasant, and the 4 hour train journey back to Seoul wasn't too bad, the motel was pretty mediocre (it was no ritz that's for sure), the place too was of no particular interest to most people I should imagine.

I have now moved on to Geongju from Seoul, a place with tombs and a fairly impressive fort overlooking the new town - which was very nice to walk around, and then from there to Buyeo (pronounced boo-ya...no kiding), a place with similar attractions. I had planned to spend tonight in the Buyeo hostel...having walked up there to find the 'less institutional feel' hostel (LP) looking very much like a school, with a coach outside, and with a load of kids running around I decided 'fuck this', took a quick walk around the sculpture park and up to the nearby river and then headed to the Arirang Motel, a motel comparable to the Ritz with a PC in the room, 'mood lighting' free tea/'coffee', a water cooler/heater in the room and so on. Tomorrow I'll see the Buyeo sights then head back to Seoul for my last few days and bits of sightseeing there.

Busan

Typing this up on a very old pc, from my laptop as there's no wireless here, which may be set to Korean (and is therefore saying most of what I type is wrong...so forgive spelling mistakes)...

I haven't had a 'human kindness' story for a whle, my avowal to discontinue such acts disregarded, but today provides a good opportunity to give an example. Today I came to Busan. This was against my plan to the extent that just 30 minutes before I decided, I told Chi-He I'd be in Gyeongju for another night. However, the rain started, and a detailed weather forecast suggested it would only get worse. My only plan for the day was to go hiking, however hiking in the rain without a coat and with only one set of clean clothes in my bag did not appeal, not to mention the fact that the clouds were so low it would be dangerous and largely pointless. Thus, I got breakfast in the same place as yesterday - which made them smile - toast, jam, 'strained through my one day old underwear' coffee/water, and some free local bread which is a bit like 2 Scotch pancakes stuck together with red bean paste in the middle. Then I headed for the 1 hour, 1 every 10 minutes bus to Busan.

Leaving straight from the bus station to the hostel on the Busan subway I found my place easily enough, and was met outside the appartment building by the owner who took me to another building (she owns a few appartments) in a twin room for the first night and then a dorm for 2 more. My room mate is a Korean girl who teaches Korean in Seoul, but is here for one night visiting people and seeing Busan (for the first time). She invited me, and n American girl who was in the living room too, to join her and her friend for a day of sightseeing. It was thus that I had a taxi round Busan, to a very nice Korean restaurant, to a temple not in the guide (Haedongyonggungsa, on the coast - quite beautiful), to a nice coffee place overlooking a beach, up a mountain overlooking Busan by night, and then back to the hostel. Despite the fact me and the American girl kept insisting we pay for something (parking, petrol, cofee), the guy (he called himself John) refused each time and indeed paid for the coffee.

On the way up to the mountain we made a stop at a small fish market by the coast. At this place we had (I watched) fresh octopus - freshly cut in front of you and still wriggling as you eat it with seasame sauce...mmmmm.

A day which was going to be one of me sitting in a cafe drinking good coffee and reading my book instead turned into a full day of sightseeing with local knowledge, with the ease of a car, and with friendly companions along the way - excellent :). Now I'll explore the rest of Busan, and then on to wherever Chi-He and I end up this weekend :).

Gyeongju

Today it is raining. Not just 'a fine soft day' but actually torrential downpour river in the street kind of rain. Every time I think it's easing off, after a short period it instantly reverts back to insane downpour levels. After an early wake up (7am), and the slaughter of 5 mosquitos with my pillow this morning (I'm moving beds so it's ok) I sat alone watching the rain and reading my book waiting to move room and hoping the rain would die down. I also did my usual internet rounds, and was reminded by Chi-Hé that I had completely neglected to mention anything about Gyoengju. Now that I am holed up in a Starbucks for the foreseable future, plans to go to Beomosa temple put on hole, this seems a ripe opportunity to write about it. I'll even backdate the post so it fits in where it should.

Gyoengju is a largely unattractive town in itself to be perfectly honest. The hostel was also a fairly unattractive place. I took the opportunity of a night in Seoul to have my first private room since Hong Kong – quite a time. I needn't have bothered as the next night I moved to a dorm (in fact 3 mattresses on the floor in a room rather than the usual bunk bed dorm arrangement) and had the room to myself. The 'tv room' was by the stairs to go downstairs to the main reception and the owners living quarters, a small corner of a room which could comfortably seat 5. However, they were very friendly aside from the son of the owner trying to persuade me to stay in a single room (despite the fact no one else was in the dorm). They've also been open since at least 1985 judging from the 'Thank you' letters framed on the wall – fairly impressive.

The area is full of Shilla era architecture and history (I'm afraid you'll need to wiki that because I can't be arsed). Within Gyoengju there are a number of Tumuli, that is, tombs. Indeed there is a park (Tumuli park) full of them. Although these are quite beautiful, and obviously have quite a history behind them, they are not particularly interesting for more than half a day's walking around. They are at the end of the day just big grassy mounds.

The Bulguksa temple outside of Gyeongju (on UNESCO world heritage list) was a very pleasant (Shilla) temple surrounded by gardens, forests and hills. I walked the 3.2 km up one of these to Seokguram Grotto (also on UNESCO list), which was a very pleasant if somewhat tiring walk up hill through woods inhabited by chipmunks – and everyone loves those. The crowning piece in this Grotto is a stone carving of Buddha surrounded by a range of other dieties and guardians. This is unfortunately behind glass – which is reflective, and you can't take photographs, it was however a fairly impressive set of carvings. The view from up here was particularly attractive, and I was very glad to have been to both places despite the swarming crowds of school children – including the approximately 80 children who I had to wait to go in and come out of the Grotto prior to my entering it. After that I walked back down and towards the local 'folk village'. Some of these villages are actually decent reconstructions of old style villages with nice arts and crafts stuff and some history – including one we hope to go this weekend, and another in Seoul. This one was a set of craft type shops, which was grossly overpriced and in a fairly unattractive setting – never mind, the walk there was pleasant enough. That evening I went out to eat with a couple of people from the hostel. We had ssambap (to quote lonely planet - “Lots of tasty sidedishes which you wrap up in lettuce and other leaves”), although some of the things were quite delicious, as I suppose should be expected, others were not – I just don't like seaweed and very fishy tasting fish dishes, nae mind. And that brings me up to the next blog from Busan.

On another note, I just went to change $300 of traveller's cheques (a lot, but hell it's Korea), and the woman gave me the money and a receipt only after looking at my passport – i.e. She didn't bother asking me to sign the cheques until I suggested I should (I don't want her to get in trouble!)...trusting, or hugely incompetent? You decide. Also, this story: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/oct/23/george-osborne-nat-rothschild-oleg-deripaska
is hilarious, and I greatly enjoyed this cartoon: http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2008/10/22/bellbell512.jpg

Chuncheon

Chuncheon

Throwing some things into our bags (so nice not to be lugging my cheap art laden backpack around) we headed down the subway line to the train station for Chuncheon. We grabbed some burgers and snacks and jumped on the conveniently timed train. After a very pleasant train journey – especially novel for me having not booked it, something much harder in China – we arrived and nabbed a taxi to our motel. The Ritz Motel – or Ritz Hotel depending on which sign/motel paraphernalia you looked at – looked very nice from outside, to the extent that had we not read about it in the guide, and checked the prices ahead of time we probably wouldn't have gone in. Inside it was a quiet and clean motel, with a vending machine in the lobby for all your needs. If those needs happened to be love motel needs that is – vending machine underwear anyone?

My understanding is that, in S. Korea people live at home until they are relatively older than their Western counterparts. Thus, for some privacy couples head to 'love motels'. The one we were in was not seedy – although it was fairly anonymous and there was always that vending machine in the lobby...and was in fact one of the nicest places I've stayed in the last 10 weeks with a very clean bedroom with water dispenser (hot and cold), VCR (extensive library downstairs...we did not check out the titles), TV and fridge and well stocked bathroom. Pretty good for $15 each. The guy behind the desk was called into service action when we asked him for a bus route, and spent a good 5-10 minutes finding us maps (2), and telling us where to go for the bus and so on. I suspect he doesn't often get to give out tourist information, although perhaps more so given they're in the Lonely Planet.

We'd decided to make use of our full day away by leaving Chuncheon by local bus for nearby Gangchon. The drive there was pleasant if rather crowded. As the weather was exceptionally nice, we decided to make a walk of it up to the waterfall – the chief attraction. Thus, eschewing the options of bikes, motor bikes or quad bikes – particularly popular with the visiting Korean students – we set off on our walk, which turned out to be shorter than expected, and along a fairly pleasant road with views of a valley, prime positions for watching the ridiculous poses people pull while driving quad bikes, and plenty of interesting looking bugs for Chi-He to photograph.

The waterfall itself – with entrance fee – was not particularly impressive. In fact, barely so at all. Having seen it, and climbed up a hill nearby – the name of which I only vaguely remember – we both agreed that the nicest part of the visit was that autumn had changed a reasonable amount of the leaves to various shades of orange and red, providing a beautiful backdrop. Thus, not a place I'd particularly recommend outside of autumn.

Heading back to Chuncheon on an even more crowded bus we attempted to walk back to the hotel, to find ourselves closer to the food district. Or more accurately the Dakgalbi Geori area, where that particular meal can be bought at a great number of restaurants. I'll look up what's actually in it some time, but to briefly describe – you get condiments, and a large amount of raw chicken, veg and rice cakes mixed together in a slightly spicy red marinade. Despite the fact the restaurant didn't serve beer – something I didn't think would ever happen in Korea – the food was delicious and I would happily eat it again.

The following day we did the usual dull errand things – checked out, bought tickets onwards and so on – and then took a walk along the lake in Chuncheon with the intention of catching a ferry to the island. Along the way we saw a very impressive colourful and large spider, and a number of somewhat interesting statues. As we got closer to the lake we could see the shore litered with Swan peddle boats (a few of which were beached on the slope up in disrepair – hardly an advertisement). However, with all of this excitement, a toll had been taken on us, and we decided to sit for a while...then go back towards the bus station to get some food and leave for Seoul, and my next stop (and one assumes, blog topic) – Gyeongju.

Seoul

In keeping with the theme of making rash judgments on other cultures with very experience of them (tautology?) I'll make some comments on S. Korea:
1)People wear crap suits. I'm no suit expert, but I can see when a suit doesn't fit, or when it's made out of VERY shiny material. In fact I've seen a silver suit on more than one occasion. I assume that not all of these people are pimps.
2)There are lots of coffee places – I approve of this greatly
3)Subway trains have 'old age person' seats. These seats are never sat in by young people – indeed I was told off for sitting on one. However, middle aged people will sit on these, people who you'd not want to offer the seat to in the UK for fear of offending them. Often these don't offer their seat to the older person.
4)At cafes when you order, you are given a buzzer which will flash and vibrate when your order is ready to be picked up at the collection counter. I am not convinced this is particularly efficient, but it is quite novel.

On the train back from Insadong today (nice area) I gave up my seat to an oldish woman – I really can't abide being stood over by a woman talking to someone sat next to me who is struggling to reach the hand holds which were clearly not designed for Asian women (although they do also bang me in the face so they're not that high up). She proceeded to talk to me, and sign either that I had a big heart or big breasts – it wasn't clear which. Before I knew it I had about 5 oldish women talking to me and trying to help me to where I was going, and one young Korean who spoke English and translated a bit which was very nice of her and saved me just shrugging and smiling embarassed afterwards. I was told I had to get off before my stop, so while vowing never to do another good deed again, at least not in a confined unescapbable space I checked the map to see if I was in the right line (pretty certain I was) and indeed I was but this train was terminating so I had to swap to the next one. I could probably have worked that out myself – although I did see one guy walking down the empty train after it left its terminus – but it was very nice of them to tell me anyway.

On the train from there up to Dobong (my stop) I was very happy to see the standard peddlers of 'crap you don't want'. This was – as I'm sure you may imagine – even more the case when an old and non-too clean woman approached me with a bag full of gum packs. She proceeded to stand over me, attempt to place the gum into my hand (in such a manner as to force me to create a fist), and then try to place the gum on my leg and ask for money. After a minute of this she sodded off. I hope I told that story properly – I'm told it was funny the first time :p.

On Friday we left Seoul for Chuncheon, a town/small city not far from Seoul (2 hours on a slow train as I remember). The main draws to this place were a pretty town near by with a waterfall, and the presence of an island in a lake at this town. More on that in the next post.

South Korea

Tomorrow, or Saturday I will leave Seoul for somewhere else. It will be near to Seoul, partly because for it to be otherwise would involve me leaving the country. There are a few conveniently located towns/cities around the country located near at least 3 places of interest. It feels very odd to call a city of 3 million (e.g. Busan, 3.7 million, 2nd city) a city given that in China the smallest place I went had 800,000 and after that the smallest was a few million. This size difference also goes some way to explain the proximity of multiple sites of interest near to each of the potential cities to visit – even from Seoul many places of interest could easily be reached.

The plan is to go away for a weekend with Chi-Hė, then I'll go on to Gongju and Busan during the week before meeting up with Chi-Hė again the following weekend (possibly in Mokpo?), again going somewhere else before heading back to Seoul for my final weekend away. So we'll see how that works out!

So far Korea has been very pleasant. After a lot of historic site seeing (the sites were historic, not my seeing of them) I decided a trip to a modern art gallery might be a pleasant experience. I'm happy to say that in contrast to the Shanghai art gallery, it was indeed a pleasant experience – no doubt influenced by my avoidance of the school group in there too. The gallery houses a permanent collection by a Korean artist which was a set of quite nice fairly traditional paintings. The rest of the building was full of modern art related to the senses – many of which were interactive. You could throw butterflies like dried leaves, you could move a Snow White statue and evoke a set of 7 dwarf shadows to follow her around (clever set of lights and sensors I guess), and you could move a bright red ball behind a massive semi-transparent screen imitating the sun/a light and prompting the moths on screen to follow you around. Amongst other things that is. After that I went for a fairly long walk along a city stream which has been restored to create a very pleasant pathway with various bits of art along it, stepping stones over the river (and occasionally fake rocks/false river beds in the water which look interesting and create an interesting flow) and fountains.

Today (my second day) I went to Bonguensa Buddhist temple. A fairly large temple complex, a cultural centre which aims to teach people about Buddhism, and a teaching centre training Buddhist monks. The area itself is over the road from one of the biggest malls in the world (irony) and is actually a bit of a building site at the moment. The buildings are rather nice traditional wooden buildings with the same colourful painting style seen in China. The complex also houses the tallest Buddha statue in Korea. It's quite tall.

Unfortunately when I was there were rather a lot of people who looked like they were actually Buddhists and were listening to the chanting being piped out and praying...so I didn't want to go into the buildings full of these people and take photos. Interesting to see an active Buddhist community though as I hadn't seen one since Thailand. On my way out of the site I was approached by a middle aged woman “Do you speak any English?” she asked; “I certainly hope so” I responded. She then handed me a booklet “The Way To Meet God”. Nothing like people trying to convert you to Christianity in a Buddhist temple. This makes me a lot less angry than in Cambodia and similar places where the allure of Christianity's foreign money partly in the shape of school and health care (no hidden agendas there!) and of course a church draws people from their traditional religions.

Food news (because I wrote this first and then decided to write other stuff and I don't know where to put it now):
On my first night Chi-Hė and I went out for a Korean grill meal (you griddle your own meat) eaten with rice and various vegetables and so on which was very nice, and a pleasant change from Chinese. Last night we met before Chi-Hė's Korean class...and had very nice Western food – which was a pleasant change from pretty piss poor Western food.

By way of a final China piece:
A few experiences all Westerners commented on in China were:
1)Bare faced price inflation
2)Children pissing in the street
3)Spitting
4)Everyone I asked had the experience that prior to coming out, various internet forums and people had warned them to expect to be treated rudely, to expect officials to be brusque, unhelpful and often rude. In contrast, I and all those I spoke to felt that people were generally very friendly and helpful – including the officials who are happy enough to smile at you and be friendly, and have also been helpful to fellow travelers along the way. I'm sure things change over time, and things may well have improved but I'm also sure that many of the stories are a combination of racism, and annoyance at being a novelty. But I'm sorry, when you point at pictures on the wall of a restaurant you do look ridiculous, either get over it (as I did) or learn the language – don't complain that people might smile at you as you do it. All in all, it is certainly a country I'd happily go back to, aside from anything else I've seen so little of it and I'd love to see more of the inland areas.

Beijing

Having arrived late on Tuesday/early Wednesday I wasn't keen on making that a busy day. As it happens it was fairly constructive, but largely due to the fact that I went out to the ticket office for my flight to Korea and bought it (I leave Tuesday morning). Following this I went to Tiananmen Square which, as advertised, is a very large square. In the middle of this square is Chariman Mao's mausoleum - which is exceptionally large given its purpose is limited to storing the man himself, and a wax replica (in case storing him didn't work as hoped).

The square is of course impressive, and the views of the buildings around, and the outer edge of the forbidden city area (complete with Chairman Mao giant picture) is impressive, but the presence of quite a lot of police, and some not very subtle plain clothes police provides for an...interesting atmosphere.

That night I met a guys with similar plans itinerary wise to me (including someone who, if I do the PGCE at IoE, I might well meet at a school in London, or if he (as intended) starts working in Coventry I might see at work). The following day, they and I went to the Forbidden City - a sizeable complex of buildings build (I believe) to keep the rulers well confined and safe from the Proletariat. You can't help wondering what they'd say now with the prole's wondering around in their tour groups with their group's hat on with its individual colours, but there we go. Although the garden in the city was very pleasant (if busy) the rest was something of a disappointment - very nice for sure, and free from the insane price inflation of attractions outside of Beijing, but not as awe inspiring as I'd hoped it might be. After lunch I went down to the Heavenly Temple, a couple of miles of walking. As I bought my ticket, the sky darkened. As I walked into the park I was passed by people running out towards the street. By the time I got to the front of the temple it was eerily quiet and dark with a gusting wind. By the time I got to the back with the bridge running between a building at one end and the temple at another, I Was reminded of sunrise at Angkor Wat - pre sunrise in fact. By the time I actually got to the Temple it was pissing it down. So regrettably I decided I'd leave asap as soon as the rain subsided. If I feel like it tomorrow I might go again. On the bright side, on my walk back from there a Chinese guy came up to me and asked 'You need direction?'. Say it in the most racist Bulldog Bristow (Frasier reference) accent you can and you'll see why it was funny. ['You want erection?']

That night I got an early one as I'd booked to go to the Great Wall the next day - a 6.30am start. I opted for the Jinshanling to Simatai section of the wall, including, naturally, a hike between the two locations. Not only is this section less touristy (See the photos with no people on the wall), there are also parts which have not been renovated (in recent years), and the contrast is quite nice to see. The walk itself is 8km and supposed to take 4.5 hours. We did it in 4 and could do it in 2 at a push. However, this method of organising the timing was very acceptable as it meant they gave us some instructions (walk along the wall until point 'x' essentially), our tickets for the various check points, and then set us on our way leaving us to make our own way at our own pace - much better than doing it as a big group. The weather for this walk was perfect (see the photos) I don't think you could possibly have a better day - sun, warm but not hot, light breeze and not a cloud in the sky. The beer at the restaurant in Simtai was very much appreciated as we waited for the stragglers to come in.

Feeling that a 6.30 am start and a 'hike' wasn't quite enough activity for the day, I decided I'd give some guys I met in Nanjing, who are teaching in Beijing a call to see if they were going out. This was, after all, a Friday night, and Beijing is famous for having a good nightlife. Thus I headed out on the subway to some far far away place and waited for Patrick at our agreed spot. In fact Lincoln and Justin met me instead, jumping out of a taxi to say hi ["We saw a Western guy, and we thought 'oh! He'll know where the club is, we'll ask him - and then it was you!"]. Fortunately we were actually almost exactly where we wanted to be...and an hour late Patrick met us in the club too. After 6 hours in the club (taking us to 4.30am), which was largely full of Westerners and Koreans - no doubt drawn in by the 15 yuan draft beers at 25 yuan cocktails - we decided to leave and wait for the subway to open. I got to bed at 6.30am - something I've not done in a while and resulting in a 24 hour 'awake period'.

Surprisingly this did not prevent me from doing stuff the next day, including waking up at 10.30am. Gave Patrick a quick call and went to buy some clothes (I've run out of clean ones and I can't be arsed to wash them - this chillyness really has taken me and my wardrobe by surprise). Arriving 30 minutes late at our agreed spot, and then 30 minutes later after texts back and forth realising there was more than one damn 'Exit A' from that subway we met at the Lama Temple - a large Tibetan Buddhist monastery. In sharp contrast to the forbidden city this sight was fairly awe inspiring and although busy, still quite a pleasant place to walk around and view the beautiful architecture and very impressive statues. There was an exceptionally large Buddha in one building which I didn't except to see outside of Thailand, but the smaller Buddhas and various other statues were all pretty impressive.

From there we headed towards Qian Hai lake - a beautiful area surrounded by restaurants and coffee/tea shops. A very tasty meal there (sans beer) and a coffee (embarrassingly at Starbucks) finished a very nice day.

In the morning today I got talking to a guy my age and his parents who are Canadian (both York graduates in fact) who bizarrely was in the same room as me at the hostel in Qingdao when I was there - small world. After the usual 'small world' chat, I went down to a large weekend curio/'antique'/art market. I made the mistake of walking partly because I knew I'd have to walk a lot of the way anyway from my lonely planet map. Except of course that this is China, and things happen FAST - so in the 1 year since my book was published, Beijing built a new subway line which goes to within 300 meters of the market...never mind. The market itself was huge, and although there were a lot of jade Buddhas, it didn't suffer from the problem many markets I've been to have, namely that all the stalls sell pretty much the same items. The range here was pretty impressive - but I won't bother listing, just if you're ever here you should go there.

Other than that I don't really have much to say about Beijing. It's a quite attractive city to walk around, particularly in some areas of course, and it seems more relaxed and less commercial than Shanghai. I've enjoyed being able to shop in markets and whatever shops I want, and find a range of decent foods to eat. Although it's still annoying being overcharged in some places, more so when you've just watched someone get a different price, and been watched watching by the seller, avoiding these places is not so hard. I'd certainly happily come back to China and Beijing in particular, but I'm also looking forward to heading on to Korea and seeing the sights there!

First off an update on non-travel news. This update comes about largely because I've just had an exciting email from Colin (my supervisor at Leeds) offering me first authorship on a paper we've been talking about writing (conditional of course on me writing the paper) which is a fantastically exciting opportunity, particularly given I'd expected to be 3rd author, and I wasn't sure if the paper would be going ahead anyway, so I'm pretty happy about that (too early for a drink though).

In other 'Simon's life' news, despite the fact I keep telling people that my plan is to go to Stockholm, their applications process STILL hasn't opened, so I'm still waiting to hear from them. Although plan B is to apply to London to do the same thing, I haven't got a plan C as such yet which slightly concerns me given the short time I'll have to sort one out now.

So last time I updated I was in Qufu. Qufu is a small place which I suspect has undergone a lot of change in the last year or so - the lonely planet is pretty disparaging about it for example. I was pleasant surprised walking around at how attractive a place it was. It was also the smallest place I'd been yet (800,000 people only!, I think Tai'an is a touch smaller again). However, I'd been told the Confucian attractions there were largely not worth seeing for the price, and I had some errands I wanted to run anyway, so I didn't do a lot there.

My plan had been to go to Tai'an and climb Taishan, taking all my stuff with me and then moving on to Beijing via Jinan. However, in a classic way to scupper a plan I stubbed my big toe really badly on Monday evening, to the extent that I was pretty certain I couldn't climb Taishan, certainly not descend it.

I still woke up at 5.30 on Tuesday to head to Tai'an, getting straight onto the bus. The journey took almost two hours because of the number of stops we made (it should only take 1). When I arrived I headed South to the other bus station to buy my ticket, thinking that if there was a bus to Beijing at 2.30pm I'd take it and just not bother doing anything in Tai'an. As it happened there was one at 6.30pm, so I bought a ticket thus avoiding any need to head to Jinan (although guaranteeing I'd arrive in Beijing an hour later than my anticipated arrival of 1am on the 'via Jinan' option). Having dumped my bags and vowed that the only way I'd go into the toilets at the bus station again was if I could find some horse blinkers to prevent me looking at the 'Jesus surely that's never been flushed EVER' squat toilets, I headed to get the bus to Taishan (the mountain).

I'm used to the buses being cramped here, but having got off I vowed I'd not step foot on a bus in Tai'an again unless I broke both my legs (clean off) and could thus use them to beat the crowds off. I'm not sure what the etiquette is, but I'm fairly sure you're not allowed to hit elbowing grandmother's in the face no matter how much they just pushed in front of you...but christ on a bike these buses make you wish for that lurch that might just make it happen accidentally.

Bitterness aside, having driven through a fairly ugly looking city (I'm very glad I stayed in Qufu not Tai'an) the mountain area itself was rather beautiful. A quick phone call to tell my Beijing hostel I'd be arriving late, and I decided I could manage a bit of a climb up, so I followed the groups up the hill rather than heading for the mini-bus stations. If I wanted to see Taishan itself, then this turned out to be an error, because I walked a wrong turn and headed up a mountain to the West instead. The route was mostly stairs, but did offer some rather nice views down the valley and crossed over some rivers and so on along the way. At the top I found a temple (not very interesting) where Chinese people were burning bundles of paper I think with money inside - I'll look up what this ceremony is later. From there you could walk further up to the peak overlooking the whole valley and a bit of the valley behind (which I suspect Taishan offers a nicer view of, but to be honest looked to be mostly forested mountainside - so nice but not that spectacular). To get to the absolute peak you have to scramble up some stairs/ladders/stairs cut into the rock and climb using some conveniently located hand holds, but the view is quite beautiful...this is the only part of the walk that even if done slowly might not be 'doable' for some people (none of the OAP's I'd seen further down went up this bit).

Disparity between intention and actuality aside this turned out to be a beautiful route too, and because I was somewhat rushing, aware of my time being short I got up and down in about 3 hours in time to walk into town, grab a KFC (delicious I promise you) and then go to Dai temple ('a traditional stop on the pilgrimage to Taishan). Only 20 yuan for entry to the full complex, which I spent 1 hour in rushing around, and could easily have spent 2 hours in enjoying all the little gardens around it and walking along the various bits of wall that surround the complex. Well worth a look. Photos of all this are now on Picasa.

After the temple I decided I'd just slowly head back to the bus station, partly because I was concerned my bus ticket didn't have a seat number on it (I'd already checked the characters were indeed the characters for the cities I was departing from and going to). The bus was already there when I got there, so I got on at about 17.15 for an 18.40 departure. At 18.50 we departed - this was fine by me. We drove round the corner to the train station and stopped at the transport stop there. This was less fine by me. Hoards more people came on, and someone sat next to me taking my legroom - damn. At 20.00 we left for Beijing. That's 2.45 on a bus...without leaving the departure location. Fuck. Other than a stop at the side of the road for everyone to get off and take a piss we drove right the way through from 20:00 to arrive in Beijing around 3.00. I followed one 'driver' to the road (where the taxis were) to get a cab. Seeing that he was driving some shit box none taxi I abandoned him - something I'd probably have done anyway given he was telling me "oh I know this place [my hostel] 100 yuan off meter, 120 on you know" - bullshit, it only cost me 120 yuan to get to Beijing! As it happens I paid 30 (about $4.50) and checked in at 3.30. Although the night person seemed to be looking at beds with people in (he was) - an idea neither I nor they were keen on - he eventually found mine (out of 8, 3 of which were empty) and I got an alright sleep. Now I just need to book my flight for Korea and enjoy Beijing, something I doubt will be an issue.

Qingdao and beyond

UPDATE to my previous post:
##) Wedding photo couples will be anywhere attractive. I walked along the beaches in Qingdao on one nice day and stopped counting at 40 brides. There were easily 50. Had I gone up to the church I would have found at least another 10. They seem to arrive in dresses (with jeans underneath and trainers on) in mini-buses and then all have photos taken in the same setting, explaining the huge number of wedding photo shops around some of the places I've been.


I have now left the beach, beer and BBQ haven that is Qingdao. Qingdao was a city with not huge amounts to see, but quite a lot to do in terms of just strolling around the town's German architecture and along the beaches, sampling the fantastic food (seafood and otherwise), and drinking beer for little money - this can be bought in plastic bags from street vendors. I have now also finally sampled the Tsing Tao dark beer (Tsing Tao is from Qingdao for those who don't know) - a kind of dark larger drink. The hostel there was a fantastic building (old observatory) and social setting particularly on days when the weather was good and warm. Having said that, I'm very happy to be out of the 14 bed dorm, in which 16 people were sleeping at one point. I shouldn't complain too much though - some people slept in the corridor. National holiday is not a good time to travel in China.

Having intended to go from Qingdao to Jinan by train, I was somewhat wrong footed to find all trains and buses booked. So, I headed down to the bus station at 8am to buy the last ticket for a bus to Qufu (the home of Confucius) After a delicious lunch of BBQ spiced meat, veg and bread I headed for the bus station which was easy enough to find - but only because I'd been there earlier that day, and when I arrived in Qingdao. When I finally got onto the bus I looked for my seat; seat 28. The bus had 27 seats. Sitting next to the driver's assistant at the front for my journey I waited for 8.30 and my arrival 'in' Qufu. 'In' Qufu turned out to be just off the highway turn off for Qufu. Some enterprising individuals wait there to pick up the people who are dumped in this stupid location, so my 127 Yuan ticket was pumped up to 147 by taking a 'taxi' with 5 other passengers. These passengers were Uni students at Qufu and from Qingdao, and very nicely and helpfully assisted in getting the driver to where I wanted to be - in fact they had a clearer idea of where it was than I did. More on Qufu later.

Arriving Qingdao

NOTE: updated the previous blog.

I'm sat on the roof of my current hostel waiting to check in. It is 8 o'clock. I have been in Qingdao since 4.30. I sat in the bus station reading for an hour, then decided to try and walk what I thought would be a 1km stroll to the hostel. The bus station was not where I thought it was. Taxi hailed, taxi heads West (I know from the sun, stupid Germans didn't build nice compass oriented roads like the Chinese do), I was heading East. A

rrive with ease and walk through the walk to get to the Old Observatory Hostel (named because that is indeed what it is) past people jogging, exercising in other ways, playing some sort of badminton thing with their feet/hands/body (shuttlecock thing kicked between people like men/boys (generally) do with footballs, only these groups were of middle aged women, and one guy with a sword. Steered clear of him. I arrived at the hostel at 6.30ish, the night guy checked I had a reservation and put my bag away, walking past 2 guys they're putting up on sofas in the corridor (national holiday + beer festival = no beds for non-bookers).

This hostel is beautiful anyway, I've put my first few photos online already it's that nice. For example:


To get here I caught what I thought would be a 9 hour bus from Nanjing. It was in fact 7.5 hours (hence arriving at 4.30 rather than 6 when I'd hoped to arrive). This was a bus with beds. 3 rows of bunk beds down the length of the bus. Each about 6 foot in length, with an inclined head rest such that the person behind you can fit their feet under your head rest, and place some personal items on the shelf which extends from the back of this head rest. Not the most comfortable sleep I can imagine - but equally not too bad, if a little surreal/odd. I've put some pictures on picasa...but I don't think they came out very well. Once such is:


At the front you can see a TV screen (in front of the window in fact), and to either side is a set of bunk beds. At the front of the image are my legs, and it then extends into the bed in front of me. It's hard to take photos even in dark mode without people noticing. The following photo is from www.africa-trade.ci/china/bus/sleeper_bus.htm



So, I'll update more in Qingdao when I get a chance. Thus far, it seems quite nice. We'll see whether it can knock Suzhou as my favourite place in China so far.

Some Things

Thought I'd make some general observations regarding 'how things is in china', as follows [the list is exhaustive - there is nothing else note worthy, indisputably]:

1) People spit. They hawk, and then they spit. Do not wear flip flops for this reason (a lesson I am yet to learn)

2) People are bad at queuing. Not as bad as some would have you believe. But still, when the train stops, the people get on - fuck the people getting off.

3) Babies and young children will piss (fortunately only witnessed one exception there) in the street in: Bins, street drains; plant pots; grassy areas. The normal method (because I KNOW you want to know) is for the parent to hold their legs back against their body, the child's back to the parent's stomach, and let fire. Someone I spoke to said she saw this method employed with exceptional aim into a bin at the train station. Now, as you may gather from that last remark - this occurrence is not limited to those areas without toilets - of which I've seen none - it can be anywhere. And it isn't because you have to pay for the toilets - you don't.

4) Chickens feet and so on are sold everywhere. Interesting meat WILL appear in your food no matter what you order, this is unavoidable. However, there are also lots of pleasant foods, including the presence of cake shops all over the place. As long as you avoid the sweet looking breads that happen to have meat (of some kind) in them, you're fine. I've also had some very nice things which I can only describe as slightly crisp fried lamb in pita breads with a kind of slightly spicy soy sauce - something I hope to replicate when I get home. The fried green beans with salt (possibly to dry them a bit), garlic, and chili are also surprisingly delicious.

5) people will talk to you in Chinese even when it is entirely obvious that you don't speak a word of Chinese at all.

6) Sign language for the numbers is different here. 10 is the index fingers crossed (which looks like a 10 in chinese), 6 is the 'rock' symbol in the West (fingers down except pinky and thumb), and I can't remember the others...which causes some problems as I can only remember how to say numbers 1,2,3 and 10.

7) There are a lot of card games and Chinese chess games going on on the streets. These are social games, with many observers (often). There are also (but less frequently) mah jong games on the street, and visible through house doors/windows. This makes me smile - although I try to avoid doing that over the table, wouldn't want to give any hints after all - but until I find someone who speaks English and is playing, I don't think I'll play as I know Hong Kong rules and Chinese rules are a bit different I believe.

8) All road signs in China (I think, presumably it's only the straightish ones), have compass directions on, generally in Chinese. Thus, learning Mah Jong has aided my navigation in China - fantastic. Not hard though, North looks somewhat like an N, West somewhat like a W. I know East and South (although the symbols I know are different I think) but you of course don't need them if you can recognise the other two.

9) Within seconds of posting, I remembered this one: People will ask to take photos with you. Not, "They'll ask you to take their photo" - they'll ask a friend to take a photo of them, with you, in fact sometimes they won't ask, you'll just notice that someone is covertly taking a picture of you. The former (avec asking) happened yesterday at the top of Purple Mountain Nanjing. It's all quite harmless of courses, keeps me amused.

UPDATE: 02/10/08

10) Sitting waiting for my bus I remembered some more noteworthy things, some common some less so. Firstly - everyone smokes. Or, all the men do at least. Women might do, but not as publicly.

11) I have more than once (although not too often thankfully) seen these half length cubicle toilets, with what is essentially just another large urinal trough to squat over behind this minimal door.

12) Offensively I forget to mention that, for the most part (con artists and some taxi drivers, some [but by no means all] officials) people are very friendly here and generally very helpful. Having said that, there is obviously a reasonable amount of amusement over the Westerner's lack of comprehension over the most simple thing - buying tickets, ordering food, eating, etc. But I use the phrase 'reasonable amount' for a reason there...

UPDATE: 06/10/08

13) Wedding photo couples will be anywhere attractive. I walked along the beaches in Qingdao on one nice day and stopped counting at 40 brides. There were easily 50. Had I gone up to the church I would have found at least another 10. They seem to arrive in dresses (with jeans underneath and trainers on) in mini-buses and then all have photos taken in the same setting, explaining the huge number of wedding photo shops around some of the places I've been.

I'll add to this exhaustive list when I think of some more things. It's almost like Catholic moral law in that sense.

Nanjing

We met a scientologist in Shanghai. He was talking about the fact he'd come over to China to 'open gates' - we suspect this was a euphemism for 'convert people'. Even listening to his crap (allegedly ;) ) didn't prepare me for the awfulness of the new Indiana Jones movie, which someone put on in the hostel last night. No plot structure, awful acting, awful filming and a god awful (unstructured) plot. However, I assume no one reads this blog for film reviews. Probably sorely disappointed if you do, but frankly thats your own stupid fault.

Place reviews I can sort of offer. I've now spent 3 nights in Nanjing. An old city and regional capital I'd decided to cut down how long I spent here...and then was forced to change that plan - nae mind. Having arrived from Suzhou in 2 hours (70 yuan for fast train - it should take 3.5 hours) I set about immediately booking the next leg of my journey as I was concerned I'd not get transport otherwise as it's national holiday this week. Fortunately the people at this hostel (Sunflower YH Nanjing, I can't recommend it enough) were kind enough to take me to the ticket office and help me book. I got a hard sleeper top bunk leaving yesterday. It was to arrive at midnight in Tai'an (where there is a mountain - Taishan - to climb). Fine and dandy, but as you may have gathered from it leaving yesterday this was not to be. Accommodation prices can triple in holiday season, and indeed they did, while availability - particularly of the cheap kind - plummeted. I've no doubt that if I'd got there and looked I would have found somewhere for under $30 a night (already way over budget), but arriving at midnight this was not something I wanted to do, nor did I want to climb the mountain at that time (although people do, and it's lit all the way up by lanterns). So, next day I booked a ticket to Quingdao on a bus. For this journey I will have a bed (yes, on a bus) which should be interesting. Going to the train station to get a refund on the ticket was interesting, but after 30 minutes in the 'refund' queue someone looked at my ticket and bought it off me for face value (saving me the 20% the office would have charged) - not bad, 2 extra beers right there :).

Nanjing itself is a nice enough big city. The walls are very attractive, and quite impressive. The parts overlooking the lake and mountain on the east side are particularly pleasant to stroll down, and up on to. The area around the hostel is also quite nice to walk around, although now absolutely heaving with chinese tourists which makes it less pleasant. Certainly there is much more of a 'big city' feeling here than there was at Suzhou, and the place is less attractive, but for a city of its size it is still not a bad place to be. Yesterday saw a trip to the Purple Mountain here. Planning to catch the cable car up and down the mountain, I set off on the bus in my flipflops. Finding the bus depositing people near a mausoleum was slightly annoying. More so when I saw the price was 80 yuan (outrageous price, and I'd been told not worth it). Some time was spent looking for the path up the mountain, which was eventually found in the form of a large number of steps winding up one side. This was (as you can imagine) not a particularly pleasant walk up steps in flip flops, and lacking in views as the area is wooded. However, the summit did offer some expansive if hazy views over Nanjing and the lake. The chair lift down (30 minutes on a chair lift...not something for a windy day) offered some fantastic views of the same scenes and because you could see more even fairly near the base of the mountain you got some nice views of the old wall.

My plan for today is to go check out some street sellers near the hostel. Grab these nice pita like lamb sandwich things and some other food and sit in the hostel reading my 21 yuan Crime and Punishment (Peter Carey was 120 yuan...Dostoevsky 21. I love copyright law), and hope like hell the hostel stops playing this classical Christmas music (an experience I've had to endure in a fair few places here). No doubt some english teachers will come in at some point (they're all on national holiday too), and then I'm off to Quingdao later on the night bus, for beer (Tsing Tao is brewed there), beer festival, beaches, and BBQ - excellent.