"In china.. you will never walk alone", Phillip ( German).

So it’s been a while since the last blog, we last wrote after an exausting couple of weeks in the mongolian wilderness. We then spent 6 days recovering in Ulaan Bataar, didn’t get up to too much since the temperature was about -25, and we could stay outside a maximum of an hour; covered in several layers with just our eyes showing, my eye lashes and Harri’s glasses froze! We visited the local museum full of some very amusing stuffed animals with googly eyes stuck onto them. Harri went Skiing for 4 pounds ( everything included), hitch hiking there and nearly driving over the ski run. Nearly made it to a giant monument on top of a nearby mountain, but the cold as too much, headed for a bus, but every window was frozen we weren’t sure when to depart. And were the only tourists in the winter palace. Also before we left the temperature drop to – 40.

So we eventually got ourselves out of the Golden Gobi coma and caught a train to the border town to China. A few hours later caught a bus over the border, had our first chinese meal, that was Mongolian, then on our way to Beijing, had our second chinese meal, also Mongolian- where is our Peking Duck and sweet and sour chicken??!! We arrived in Beijing in the wonderful hour that is 4am, just as the local clothes market was opening and we were surrounded by thousands of women shopping. An hour later we gave up and got a taxi to the nearest metro. Our Cser host worked for google, even though google china has been banned. We slept most of the first day. During our time in Beijing we visted the Summer Palace, which we were lucky enough to go early and walk across the frozen lake before the chinese ( or lemmings) piled on. It’s really hard to describe how many people there are in Beijing, so think like a where’s wally puzzle. I’m also not sure about how chinese people think yet, they are very influenced by western culture, but it’s all still chinese. We also visited the forbidden temple with Mark, a guy we met in Mongolia, which was very pretting buildings, but busy and all a bit samey. While looking for the famous snack street we were unfortuanly met by a very friendly chinese couple, who took us to a tea house… too much money later we were walking out stunned and wondering what just happened… Scam! So never go invited into a tea house in Beijing! Also watch your pockets because Mark lost his wallet too.

One day we met up with Harri’s old friend from Morocco, Hassan and his chinese friend and had a good tour around the cute shops and ate Peking duck! We opted to go to Mutianyu, a not so old part fo the Great Wall of China, as the part we wanted to go to was closed for only 3 years. It was quite an easy trip by bus then a guy on th bus taxied us the rest of the way. We clambered over 22 offical watch towers and wandered off to a couple of un restored towers too, away from the tourists and guys selling over priced water. The wall was a great walk, quite steep, but so peaceful and made Harri very thoughtful for the day.

We stayed in Beijing for Christmas. Chistmas in China is very strange, very glittery and shiney! Malls stay open for 24 hours, and the young kids go in dates and exchange apples in boxes… our CS was amused when we told her we had never done this ever. We stared the day with a chinese breakfast fo rice and dumplings, then headed to the supermarket to buy as much chocolate as we could for 50 yuan. Yum ^_^*. We met up with Hassan again and lots of other Csers and went iceskating on a lake in the middle of town. Five hours late we went for a meal with the group, too tired to eat we made it back home and called home via Skype, it was very sci-fi as I sat there at the dinner table watching my family eating the best meal of the year!

Boxing day we heading down south for Guangzhou, it was beutifully warm and we could walk around withour coats. We stayed with a CS called Lisa and her Gf Echo. Lisa had been living in China for 5 years and didn't really know much chinese, inbetween jobs and lacking in local friends, a bit of a reality check before we reach Korea. There were lots of cool markets here and bought flip flops :D We then quickly headed further south to Hainan, a small island of only 8 million chinese. We’ve spent the day by the beach and enjoyed our 70 degree change in temperature over the last 2 weeks.

We also found out today that we are definitely teaching in Busan, South Korea, by the beach. YAY!!!

Sorry if you need to nap after all that.. I think I do!

Lots of love, Lauren and Harri xxx

p.s forgot to say we saw half a crocadile at the market.

written by  harripix on December 29, 2010 from Sanya, China
from the travel blog: harripix's Travel Blog
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