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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Hope you're well. Time for me to write my first messij in about a month, I hope it does the trick.

The past fortnight has seen us change our plans more often than we've changed underwear (completely true). We had a few lazy days in the south of Hainan island, sleeping on beaches and generally trying to forget about the existence of coats. Drinking from cocunuts is a great way to accompany this, but also our hostel had a little store 10m away where a 660ml bottle of beer set us back 25p so drinking was very much back on the agenda!

NYE saw us drink lots with other travelllers, then run down onto the beach to get excited about some awful fireworks, before heading to an even worse club. Sanya, the city we were in, wasn't really what we imagined for a tropical beach resort. It is a huge (by european standards), concrete, toxic city with someone beeping their car horn every second you're outside. The Chinese have a habit of beeping the horn as soon as anything steps within 20m infront of their slow moving vehicle, and we needed the beach time every day just to forget about this, let alone just to relax!

We left Sanya on New Years day, after ditching our plan to rent a scooter due to ridiculous hangovers (well, L aside), and headed into the tropical rainforest in the mountains on the island. We had a day exploring here, where I introduced Lauren to the art of getting lost in the jungle and just bashing your way through the plants down the mountain till you find a road. However, we probably would have prefered the jungle and the mosquitos to the road as every few seconds a motorbike would roll past with staring Chinese ppl and their mandatory hellos. After a few minutes this lost all novelty...

Leaving the mountains, we found ourselves on a 5 bus ride to Haikou in the north, that turned into a hell ride due to the insanely awful cheesy chinese music blazing above our seats the whole way. Couple this with needing the toilet the whole way as well I think its a miracle that there wasn't a massacre that day. With some more difficulties in Haikou, we decided that maybe China was becoming a bit much.
So we have decided on going to Laos instead at the end of our 30 day visa, and not extend our stay. The thought of constant warmth and less crowds is amazing!

So, with 10 days left on our visas, we voyaged to Yangshuo where there is some amazing scenery (although we were back to the cold again...). The whole area is covered in huge rocky lumpy mountains that just sit on flat plains, like someone's just dropped them there. The first day we went to see what was billed by everyone as an 'awesome light show' set on the river with lot and lots of local 'actors'. After what we thought was some hard bargainaing, we got tickets for about 8GBP each on the other side of the river, 'its for locals, the view's just as good' Turns out we were miles away from the action, and had to really strain to see anything :(

The next day we cycled round the area along the Yulong river and through rice field paths definately not designed for bikes (our falls can vouch for that!). It was incredible to feel we were 'away from it all', until a huge cycle tour group passed us the other way. After 4 hours cycling, we went on to climb one of these lumpy peaks, and were thoroughly knackered. That night we went round a hostel's bar, and got our arses thoroughly kicked in beer pong.

Next we went onto Dragon's backbone rice terraces, which are an amazing collection of rice terraces built into the side of the mountain like steps. We only had a day here, but it was really peaceful and everything was covered in a layer of ice, including every individual tree leaf, due to the night fog and the cooooold. Finding a hotel there with electric blankets we snapped it up almost instantly, and due to absolutely no heating we got the weird sensation of a burning back and a freezing front when we woke up.

Another long train journey (which only took 1.5 hours of queuing to get the tickets), brought us to Kunming in Yunnan where we pretty much did nothing for a day. From here, L and I are having a holiday from each other and exploring different places. I'm gutted that I'm not getting any of Lauren's leftovers when we eat now, but hopefully a week apart will stop us merging into the same disguisting person (and not just from the traveling sweats)

Are you still there?!

Cool

Stay in touch everyone, and a belated happy 2011 to you all!

Lots of love

H+L
XXXXXXX

PS Just booked our flights to Seoul having discovered Air Asia (Asia's Ryan Air) and it is confirmed, we have 30 days to spend in Laos and Cambodia, and then a couple of days stopover in Kuala Lumpur, leaving us just enough time to arrive to arrive 9pm the night before our first training day in Seoul!

written by  harripix on January 10, 2011 from Lijiang, China
from the travel blog: harripix's Travel Blog
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