Yes, I finally got to Hong Kong. This has been the worst day of the trip. First of all, I realized that my flight to Guangzhou was leaving from the wrong airport: the small old airport of Honqiao instead of the new one in Pudong with the fastest train in the world connecting the city and the airport. So, no fast train this time. When I got to the airport, I checked in, and 1 hour before the flight I went to the gate to see this regarding my flight.
Fortunately, it was not this, which I still do not know what they are referring to…
Yes, that was my flight. So, I came back to my airline’s desk to try to get some solution. I got it in another company, and almost at the same time, but of course, the flight was closed when I got to the Check-in Counter. Too bad. Back to the information desk and I got a new flight, one hour later to Guangzhou. So, it was ok, although I realized I would get quite late to HK, but I could not do anything to solve that.
Anyway, a bit late, but I managed to arrive to my friend’s place in HK, and tonight I have rested quite a lot. Now I am going to explore the city a little bit and tonight I will hang out with my friend an others.
Here you are some photos from a grey Shanghai (due to the weather, of course)… You can see The Bund, some traditional area with lots of people (quite common, there are people everywhere), one of the buddhist temples (which have a different taste to the ones in Japan) and the new financial area with the tall skyscrapers (the tallest is also the tallest in China).
Finally, I managed to upload a couple of pictures. As I have already taken almost 1000, I will select the ones from Beijing and Xi’an properly at home… But I cannot wait to share with you this picture taken in the Summer Palace in Beijing: a 4-star rated toilet, by the Beijing Tourism Administration.
Spectacular, isn’t it? 😉
Public toilets is a big issue in China. I think it is the country where you can find more of them everywhere, in pretty well conditions and totally for free… The only problem is that you do not find paper in them. You need to remember to carry some paper always with you for these cases.
I have been asked that 7 times today, since I arrived to Shanghai this morning after 16 hours of train in hardsleep from Xi’an. By the way, I strongly recommend to use always the softsleeper if you actually want to rest in the train. In the hardsleep you share your space with too many people, and you do not control the lights… So, you will not sleep as much as you want. Tonite, someone dropped his coat from his berth in a third level hitting a bottle with water next to me, which fell into the floor, waking me and others up for a while… and of course, at 7.00 am the lights were on and the music, and the people were walking and talking around…
But I was talking about something more interesting. “Where are you from?”. I have been asked this question today by 4 couples of girls, 1 couple (boy and girl), one girl, and one waiter in a door of a restaurant. In the first 6 cases, my suspect is that it was a well-known scam in China. They talk to you, showing interest in speaking English and after a while, they suggest to go to some place to have a tea (typical, as we are in China). The problem is that the Tea House is extremely expensive, so you pay a lot and you cannot really complain… I knew that, so I did not dare to speak to any of them, except the last two groups, as I wanted to see how they did their job, but I quitted just after they offered me to go anywhere.
I wonder how it can work with anybody, as it is a very forced situation: a strange starts walking with you in the street with a lot of interest in you… That’s not normal… But it still works a lot, otherwise there would not be so many people practicing that. Today, apart from my 6 cases, I noticed 4 more facing other people. This is one of the new things I found in Shanghai. Although in Beijing I met a couple who were victims of this, here it seems to be more extreme.
Apart from that, I have found Shanghai quite more international than Beijing or Xi’an. Most labels are also in English, you see many foreign people in the street, and also the aspect of most of the city is western-styled, with skyscrapers and so on… Still, we have the mess in the traffic, the bicycles, and the intense shopping… but it is different.
Deep down, this was a small town until the french and the british arrived here and made what we can see today. In fact, there is a neighbourhood called French Concession (tomorrow I hope to find time for it) and you can hear a lot of French in the streets…
Coming back to the question: “Where are you from?”… The answer they expected me to give when they asked me the question entitling this post was “France”, and they looked disappointed when I said: “No, Spain”… “But you look French…!!”
I am in Xi’an, one of the ancient capitals of China. I arrived this morning after travelling the whole night by train from Beijing. Pretty good and convenient, as you do not need to waste time by going to the airport and so on, just sleeping in the train, and you get up in your next destination.
I stayed four days in Beijing and was ok. The first day I just walked around without almost any direction (I was about to get frozen), so I visited Tiannamen square, the Olympics area, and walked around some centric areas. The second day I did the Palace day: the Forbidden City and the Summer Palace (I was delighted with both of them). The third day I took it easy (do not forget I am on vacation), so I just walked around, through some Hutong (old neighbourhood), the Bell Tower, and went to Karaoke (I had to make the comparison China-Japan in this). The last day was the Great Wall day. Impressive to see even if you go to the touristic part, as I did. I might have found things to do for one more day, but I am looking forward to getting some warmer weather, so I preferred to skip some shopping and start moving south.
Now, Xi’an is impressing me in a quite positive way… Apart from the famous Terracotta warriors, it has a quite well preserved old city, with a complete wall, some old buildings, and a nice Christmas’ evening happening… I do not know what was it, but people were in the city centre with balloons, playing games, eating sweets, wearing hats, …
Tomorrow I will visit the rest of the city, and tomorrow I will head towards Shanghai.
