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China and Vietnam

a travel blog by gstrauss

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First few days

Shanghai, China

I've been in Shanghai since sunday. Leaving for Beijing tonight.
Shanghai is a very modern city. Nanjing road is the main shopping strip. Its completely capitalist, and the shops are even nicer than in Australia. Clothes are very expensive too. I'd say they are only marginally cheaper than in Australia.

I've been travelling around during the day with people i've met at the hostel. The other travellers are mostly swedish and British.

written by

gstrauss on November 28, 2007 from Shanghai, China

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Bejing

Beijing, China

Got to Beijing this morning. 12 hour train ride. The trains are really nice, i was in a compartment with four beds, but there were only two people. The train travels at 130 km/h so its very fast. Today I just walked around tianenmen square... didn't do much. Tomorrow I'll go to the forbidden city.

written by

gstrauss on November 30, 2007 from Beijing, China

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Beijing 2

Beijing, China

Still in Beijing. I had two massive nights partying over the weekend. The expat bar district is called Sanlitun and all the bars of full of foreigners. All international students or young people working in Beijing. I'd say there are only about 20% of the patrons are chinese. I went to a food market last night where they have sell cooked food on a stick. You can get almost anything. Normal things like beef, lamb, pork. Then theres squid, octopus, and eel. Then its gets stranger. There are worms, centepedes, sea urchins, snakes, scorpians and star fish! I stuck to the beef and squid.

Tomorrow I plan to go to the forbidden city and then on Tuesday I'll go to the great wall.

written by

gstrauss on December 2, 2007 from Beijing, China

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More Beijing

Beijing, China

Still in Beijing. I went to the Forbidden city and Jingshan park yesterady. Forbidden city was good..just a big temple complex. Then i went to the park behind it to watch the sun set, which was amazing. The smog made for a spectacular sunset, and the park had views over the forbidden city. Today I went to the temple of Heaven, and also the Pearl market. The pearl market is just a big market that sells all kinds of things, not just pearls. I bought a bunch of stuff... new shoes, a watch, and some presents.
Tonight we celebrated Chanuka. There are a couple of Israeli girls staying at my hostel and they made a chanukia. I said the blessing because i was the only one who knew it off by heart. I dropped my camera today and it broke! It was very cold and my hands were kind of stiff... oh well. I'll buy a new one tomorrow.

written by

gstrauss on December 4, 2007 from Beijing, China

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Great wall

Beijing, China

Today I went on a 10 Km walk along the Great wall. It was an unrestored part so the terrain was very rugged. It was really beautiful though, and definitely worth it.
Yesterday, I went to the underground city. Its a huge series of tunnels that Mao built during the cold war in case of nuclear attack. It has the pottential to house 300,000 people, and has movie theatres and an ice skating rink. People used to live down there but its closed down now because there was too much disease. I also saw an acrobatic show which was great, although the costumes, music and set hadn't been changed since the 80's. I'm taking the train to xi'an tomorrow night. I've been travelling with Michelle, a girl from New Zealand, which has been nice.

written by

gstrauss on December 7, 2007 from Beijing, China

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Xi'an

Xi'an, China

Got to Xi'an this morning. Took the overnight train. I went to the terracotta warriors today, very interesting. Almost all the other tourists there were chinese, thats been the case with all of the major tourist sights so far in China. I'm staying at the Bell Tower Hostel.
Tonight I'm going to eat dinner in the muslim quarter (its a walled city). There is a big muslim presence here because xi'an is the start of the silk road which was the major trade route that stretches all accross eurasia.
Ok... thats all for now!

written by

gstrauss on December 9, 2007 from Xi'an, China

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