See What Tim Is Doing: markets

Friday, 26 August 2011

Screw sightseeing…lets get drunk! Hong Kong (August 10–15)

The overnight bus from Yangshou to Shenzen was great, I slept nearly the whole way so I arrived semi fresh and ready to get into Hong Kong. I followed the sea of people and made my way to the border crossings, first passing through China and then into Hong Kong, which was relatively quick and painless. Next mission was navigating my way to Wan Chai on Hong Kong Island, which again, was pretty easy. Several train changes but the Hong Kong MTR is extremely user friendly, and I was in Wan Chai ready to see Wooders!

I met up with Wooders and went and had some breakfast (Hong Kong noodles) and we chilled and caught up on the last few years, and then he had to go back to work for a few hours, so I jumped in the van with him and he dropped me at a shopping centre so I could shop and explore until he got back home later. So my day was spent cruising around Hong Kong, doing some shopping at malls and markets and wandered around the crazy streets.

Then came night time and the carnage of my first night in Hong Kong. Few beers at the apartment to prepare, and then a short walk from Josh’s place to an area kind of like Kings Cross, a red light style district with clubs and pubs everywhere. I met a few of Josh’s friends and we drank and partied with them all night, visited a few places, some nice, some pretty dingy but still as equally enjoyable, but one things for sure, we put away some booze!

On the 4am walk home, it got back to 16 year old youth antics, riding trolleys, lying on piles of boxes and having them all give way and end up face down on the street, adopting a street sign and taking it home and who knows what else. So, successful first night in Hong Kong, with an amazing hangover the next day!

Another noodle breakfast (wasn’t sure how I felt about noodles for breakfast before Hong Kong, but now I love them!) and Josh took me on a ferry over the harbour and showed my around the areas of Hong Kong for the afternoon and found some more markets. We chilled here and ended up getting some dinner at a little street side restaurant where the seating is all on the street. The food was epic, prawns, vegetables, oyster pancake (amazing!) and loads of tasty treats!

Friday was a bit of a day of doing a few bits and pieces while Josh was working, had to post some bits and pieces and get organised. So that was my exciting morning. Then after lunch Jeremy came and got me and took me to a few markets, for a feed of Hong Kong street meat that was amazing, and then we saw the new Harry Potter movie. The cinema itself was really cool as well, less then 50 seats and each chair was like a giant couch! Then headed back to the apartment to get ready for a feed with some friends of Josh’s at Mr Wong’s, a little restaurant where you sit in a little alley at the side of the restaurant/kitchen on fold up tables and plastic chairs, and where you pay £5 for all you can eat and drink. The food isn’t mind blowing amazing, but its still pretty good and I had no trouble stuffing myself and drinking some beers. Also learnt a very valuable life lesson, how to open a beer using a chopstick.

Saturday and possibly the most fun day I have had of my trip so far. It started early, leaving the apartment and on a bus by 830am, lucky we were semi controlled on the all you can drink the previous night. Arrived at our destination, a dock on the other side of Hong Kong waiting for our boat. 930am and it was already 30+.

The boat arrives and around 25-30 people (70% Chinese/Hong Kong 30% western) get on board and we set sail for somewhere quiet and clean and about an hour later (and technically in Chinese waters) we stopped, drop anchor and get ready for a day of swimming, throwing ourselves off the top of the boat, wakeboarding and of course, some drinking. All of this is included when you pay for the ‘junk boat’, all the booze you can drink, all the food you can eat and all boating activities.

It was a good day! The day literally consisted of the above things for about 10 hours! The food was good, the beer was cold and the wakeboarding was epic fun. Josh doing a backflip off the top of the boat in a weird blow up tube was a hilarious site to see, me attempting some sort of spin, flip manoeuvre on the wakeboard that didn’t quite go to plan was apparently an interesting thing to see as well. All in all it was such a fun day and the people one the boat (95% we didn’t know) were great fun to hang out with. This was the last kind of thing I was expecting to do in Hong Kong, jump on a boat, cruise out to a little bay that had no one around or a building in site, rolling green mountains and to spend the day drinking in the sun on the boat.

That wasn’t the end of the day though, we arrived back to the apartment around 9pm had showers, another beer and then got ready to head to Lan Kwai Fong an area full of pubs, clubs and people! We met up Craig and Ramona, who I met in Jiuzhaigou, and headed to one of the bars where straight up was a round of potent jelly shots and a beer chaser. The night followed much of the same pattern, drinking, talking, bit of dancing and also meeting more random people, Hong Kong locals and people abroad. The night didn’t get too out of hand, we were still merry but the hangover the next day was not too paralysing.

Just as quickly as it had started, my time in Hong Kong was already near an end, and I was on my last day. What better way to start the day then to fill our slightly seedy stomachs with some Yum Cha! We ordered a lot, including chicken feet which Josh said I had to try, but lucky for me they never turned up, which was probably a good thing as we struggling to finish the mountain of food we had!

Stomachs full, the next part of the hangover cure, a trip to the beach. Yep, Hong Kong has proper beaches, I didn’t expect this but it was a welcome surprise. We arrived at the beach, got ourselves an umbrella and got set up amongst the hundreds of other beach goers. The beach was pretty nice, rather clean considering how close it was to the city centre, nice hills and mountains around and most of all refreshing water and warm sand. There was BBQ set ups with BBQ’d meats and corn readily available, ice creams, drinks and surf boards (although there was no surf) all just as easy to get your hands on. Hours went by and we swam, slept, ate and just chilled in the sun. It was a great, relaxing finish to the alcohol fuelled 5 days! Hong Kong is a wicked city! Really, really liked it! Has a little something for everyone!

A big thanks to Josh as well, the kid knows how to show you a good time! Looked after me, showed me around and was a wicked host! Thanks mate and see you back in Sydney at Christmas time.

Things learnt in Hong Kong

• None of the buildings have floors containing the number 4 (eg 4,14, 24 etc) as the word for 4 means death

• How to open a beer with a chopstick

Fully

Getting gnarly

Wooders wipeout

Wooders floater

Cutty on the wake

Sunset

Sunset on the way home

Sunset one side, and this crazy full moon the other

One of Hong Kong's beaches

Before it got out of hand

The rampage home

Random umbrella and sign adoption

Dinner at Mr Wong's

Getting lesson on opening beer with chop stick

Me, Jacki, Jez and Josh

Jelly shots in Lan Kwai Fong

Wooders and Wen fighting

Me, Jezza and Wooders

Delicious bubble tea

Yum Cha goodness!

Some of the crew from the junk boat

Tuesday, 26 July 2011

Hot and sweaty Xi’an (July 23-26)

After the not so bad 15-hour bus ride, I arrived in Xi’an…well kind of. The bus pulled over at the side of a motorway and the driver came up and told me this was my stop. So I took as his word as he knew better then I did, gathered my gear and got off along with about 10 other people. My first thought, where the f**k am I and where is the main city. I was literally on the side of a motorway with the nothing around except a closed petrol station. I waited for bout 10 minutes hoping a taxi would turn up. None did. So I decided to start walking in the same direction as the others who got off my bus, and felt like I was walking on a road to nowhere. I started worrying, not sure how I would get to my hostel. It was about 530am and already muggy as hell. So what did I do, probably something I shouldn’t of, but I was desperate.

A small white van pulled up next to me, and I noticed the girl who was in the bed next to mine was in the front seat, and an older lady around 50 in the drivers seat and they started talking to me in Chinese, which obviously I had no idea what they were saying. After gesturing and trying sign language, showing them my address, we were getting nowhere, and the only thing I could gather was they were saying get in. Half was saying you’re an idiot, the other half was saying it two Chinese women, how much trouble can you really get into. We drove for a while and through very desolate areas and I was at times thinking that I had made the wrong choice. 20 minutes or so go past and I saw nothing that looked remotely like a town, and then out of nowhere, main roads! Relief flooded my body. The lady pulled over, got me a cab and gave the driver the address and I was off (after paying her the equivalent of 50p) and finally I arrive at the hostel. Check in and they let me into the room straight away where I was able to sleep for a good few hours.

So day one wasn’t overly productive. I just cruised around town and familiarised myself with Xi’an, which is like a smaller Beijing. I walked down to the city walls (Xi’an city walls are the most complete ones that have survived in China, as well being one of the largest ancient military defensive systems in the world) and the south gate into the city, checked out some really cool traditional Chinese street markets, ate some street meat, checked out the Muslim Quarter which was really interesting too and then retired to bed after a few beers and some pool.

Day two, the Terracotta Warriors, my main reason for heading to Xi’an. They were only discovered in 1974 when a farmer was digging for water and at a depth of only 1.5m, he found a head of one of the warriors. And since then until now, they are still uncovering more and more tombs filled with warriors. At present they have three open to the public, and a fourth one that has recently been found.

We started at number three, and wasn’t too exciting as this site is still being worked on and pieces of warriors are getting found every day and eventually, they will all be found and put together.

Number two, little more exciting with a few complete warriors and horses as well as a lot more pieces. And then number one, amazing! Over 2000 complete warriors stand in the pit, all in line, and no two are the same. Was pretty amazing! The emperor constructed the army to protect him (although I still don’t know how he thought a bunch of statues would do that) but then again he did die from eating too much mercury. So Terracotta Warriors, really really cool!

That night I met up with a few people I met on the tour and we had a few quiet beers, that turned into a 330am finish, but was a fun but chilled night. So that meant the next day I slept in a lot, which was actually pretty nice. Although in the afternoon I did go for a ride with Ky, an English fella I met on the tour, and we rode around the city wall, which was pretty cool, and not too hot considering it was high 30’s at lunchtime.

That night we all decided to go out for dinner to the Muslim Quarter and it was unreal. Between the four of us we had three fish, 20 lamb kebabs, two plates of vegetables, a bowl of weird stuff, two bowls of soup and 6 big bottles of beers and two bottles of water and it cost us £4.50 each for everything! And it was all amazing food! Then we wandered the streets of the quarter looking at all the interesting things on offer there, retired to a bar and chilled over a few beers.

I had to stay in Xi’an a day extra then I wanted due to no trains, but tonight I get a 15 hour train to Chengdu which is further south again. Activities for down there include going to see the pandas, horse trekking in Songpan, going to Leshan and Emei and then who knows what else? Will wait and see.