So off we went! Our itinerary was Beijing, Shenzhen and Guangzhou for 11 days.
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| Part of the Lama Temple in Beijing |
I usually travel solo, so I admit I was wary about how our trip together would pan out. Also as a married woman with a child, she has no travel experience and so she didn't have in that sense much useful hands-on knowledge. But as she is a lovely person I had a feeling we would have a good journey together. And for the most part everything went very smoothly!
What I discovered when traveling with my Chinese friend was that it indeed paid off to have a local with me! Even though Beijing is a massive city and heaps of tourists flock around the city, some places still speak virtually no English. Not many, but some. Also I experienced that when I asked for prices they sometimes seemed ridiculously high: so when I made my Chinese friend enquire about the same product or service, they were surprisingly almost half price.. I didn't mind since I could use this trick, but what if I would've been by myself? It seems inevitable that majority of tourists get ripped off regularly during their travels in China. Then again having traveled quite extensively in SE Asia a couple years back, this didn't really come as a surprise to me.
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| Forbidden City's park, Beijing |
As we were touring around Beijing it seemed like any tourist would do themselves good to spend a few days in Beijing when visiting China: so many of the attractions lie within city limits! And the most famous of them all, the Great Wall, is only a couple hours drive from central Beijing. As for me, I dipped myself in the usual attractions: the Lama Temple, Tiananmen Square, Forbidden City, Temple of Heaven, hutongs (ancient little streets), Summer Palace, Jingshan Park.. There is so much in Beijing it's almost overwhelming! Five days seemed too little a time to explore everything I wanted. Also I was told by locals that the attraction I most wanted to visit, the Great Wall, would be a very grim and disappointing place to visit during February. I took their word for it and left the Great Wall to be explored til the next time.
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| Shenzhen seashore conservation area |
The thing that struck me hard when traveling in China was how ridiculously expensive traveling is for the Chinese people. Fair enough, I get paid a lot more than average Chinese teachers, but even for my budget the flights and the odd hotel night were a surprise. My friend and I booked our flights well before the holidays so we got a fairly decent price: I paid for my flights 1400 RMB which was not expensive I was told. If you compare that to an average wage a teacher in my city gets, around 2000 RMB a month, then you have an idea how expensive these flights were. And then you add a hotel night, which is a minimum of 250 RMB per night in the bigger cities.
I got lucky once again as my friend whome I traveled with had extensive family in all the cities we decided to travel to: this meant that majority of the nights during our trip we spent at her relatives homes. This to me was ideal - not only because this way we saved a lot of RMBs but also because I truly believe that staying with a local means you get extra value for your trip: locals have a lot of knowledge that majority of travel guides have never even thought of. As a bonus, people who usually open their homes for you are lovely and kind so it gives you that extra something to make the journey even more memorable :) And I was lucky as my friend's relatives were good, warm-hearted, hospitable people who made me feel right at home in their houses.
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| One more temple... Guangzhou |
When traveling these three different cities in China, one in the very north of China and the other two down at south, it was surprising to see how much variety there is in everything: the climate and weather, the local dialects, the different food, even architecture. I talked to my Chinese friend about this and she told me that every city in China is indeed different from each other. As it is a massive country I now realise how it makes sense that things vary in different parts. My friend told me that Chinese people even look different depending on which part of China they originate from - unfortunately my eye is not trained enough yet to see these differences in looks. But my ear did pick up the different dialects they spoke in different cities, so I gave myself a pat on the back for that.
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| Guangzhou city lights |
During my holiday I saw dozens of temples, tasted innumerable amount of different local dishes, admired the ancient architecture, experienced both nordic weather as tropical heat, mountains and palm trees, spent time with the locals and inevitably was left with a thirst for more! Coming back to Nanyang, a little city of 10 million people (now I understand why they call it small!), felt so unaspiring. Even if my holiday had some issues - for instance my Chinese friend started to get all panicky about the amount of money she had spent on the trip and insisted on spending next to nothing for the last remaining days of the trip, and then I had a heat stroke which forced me to stay in bed for two days - I still had a great time! I felt like the doors of China had just been opened for me, enabling me to have a sneak peak, and now I wanted to see more!
In saying that I was lucky once again that my visa run to Hong Kong was just around the corner, waiting for my return to Nanyang :) Nonetheless returning back to work was a bit painful - as it always is after a holiday! Some things just are universal :)
My little trip to Hong Kong the following week was quite an eye opener and a different sort of adventure altogether - I promise to tell you all about it very soon. :)
Zàijiàn!
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| Shenzhen airport was pretty :) |
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