Xi’an

Knowing that we were leaving China at the end of the academic year in June, we decided to go to Xi’an for a weekend to see the main sites. Apparently, if you haven’t been to Xi’an you haven’t been to China. So, we flew with our friends at Spring airlines again..I think we have flown to most places in China with them. They are a cheap airline but fine. We spent 2 nights in Xi’an, arriving early on Saturday morning and arriving back to Shanghai late on Sunday night.We stayed in holiday inn, a cheap place but clean. Once we arrived to Xi’an airport we took the bus into the centre and found our accomodation. It was super hot.

We walked around the Muslim Quarter first. It is full of stalls selling all types of food and souvenirs, really busy! Off one of the side streets is the Grand Mosque so we went to check that out. It’s famous as it was the first ever mosque to built in China. Its not free but not expensive. There was hardly anybody there. We weren’t allowed to enter the mosque so we walked around the gardens.

Entrance into the Grand Mosque

Couple doing a photo shoot at the Grand Mosque

Typical Muslim stall

In the evening we walked around the city and came across another place, kind of like a museum or an area where the military stayed years ago. Bought a propaganda poster of Mao there. We walked around the outside of the wall and figured out the best entrance to get the bikes the next day and times of opening.

The next morning we went inside the city walls, the world’s largest  city wall. The price was around ￥55. Once inside we rented bikes, ￥45 per 2 hours/bike. A deposit also had to be paid, around ￥200 for each bike.  Bikes can be hired at all of the gates and can be returned to any of the other stations on the wall. We cycled all the way around, about 13km. There was not a lot of people, probably because it was pretty early in the morning.

Entrance into the city walls

Easy rider

After the biking, we went home, showered, packed our bags and went to go see the famous Terracotta Warrior museum. There are many buses leaving regularly for the Terracotta Warrior museum in front of the Xi’an bus station outside the city walls. It took about a little over an hour to get there and cost only around ￥7 on the bus. The entrance to the pits was around ￥150 each. Once off the bus it was a bit of a trek to get to the pits, but its a nice path with trees.

After about 10 min walk, you reach Pit 1, which is the main attraction. Pit 2 (slightly to the right of the entrance) has horses and chariots, but, it doesn’t  look fully excavated. Pit 3 is beside Pit 1. It has a few warriors and a couple of horses. To be honest we didn’t stay a long time in the Pits. Pit 1, was the most impressive so we walked around the loop to see it all, the other two were less interesting.

Pit 1

Edgar and his hat

Overall, a good weekend in Xi’an. Easy to get around and nice to see the city walls and warriors.

Sichuan Province 四川省

We decided to explore a little of Sichuan Province during the Qing Ming Holiday in China.We spent 3 nights there, staying in Leshan, Emeishan and Chengdu to see the Pandas!

Day 1: Leshan and the Giant Buddha

On Friday morning we flew to Chengdu with Spring Airlines. Our flight was a bit delayed but it didn’t cause us problems. We had booked our train ticket from Chengdu airport to Leshan before the trip which was leaving at 2.30 so we still had time to make it.After arriving in Chengdu Shuangliu airport we made our way to the train station which is within the airport, picked up our tickets and were on our way to Leshan. Our seats on the train were Business Class, so it was very fancy. We were given a box of snacks, drink of our choice, slippers etc..and the seats that we had were like you’d find on an airplane, going to 180 degrees! Around an hour later we arrived to Leshan. It was so hot, 26 degrees, compared to cold Shanghai! Outside the station there are a number of buses available. To go see the Giant Buddha take bus no.3. We got off a little too early and ended up walking a good bit to get to the entrance of the park. We were a little worried that we wouldn’t have a lot of time to check everything out as the Lonely Planet says it closes at 5.30/6 pm, but there was no problem with the time, the woman working there said there was no closing time! The tickets costs 90 rmb to enter. We were super lucky as there was hardly anybody there. We walked up to the top and arrived at the head of the buddha. It’s impressive. is a 71-meters (233 ft) tall stone statue, built during the Tang Dynasty. It faces Mount Emei with the rivers flowing below his feet. Apparently, it is the largest stone Buddha in the world! After admiring the head, we checked out the temple nearby. The monks were just starting to pray so that was nice to see. We walked down the steps on the side and out the south exit passing the fishing village.After the fishing village we were back on the main road and took bus no.3 again back to our street. Leshan centre seemed to be very active with dancing happening in every corner. We ate in a local Muslim restaurant and prepared for the next day. We stayed in a really nice place in Leshan called: Le Cheng Hotel.

Giant Buddha-Leshan

Edgar and the Buddha

Fishing village

Outside the fishing village

Monks in the temple

Day 2: Exploring Emeishan

After a nice Chinese breakfast in our hotel we left for the bus station which was just a 5 minute walk away. We bought our tickets for Emei, 16rmb for both and took the 9,20 bus. We arrived around 1 hour later and found our hostel, called Happy Hostel. A very friendly receptionist spoke good English and helped us out regarding where to go and what hikes to do. At 11.30, we left and started our walk to the monkey area, which would take 5 hours the girl said.Along the way we passed many temples. We bought our entrance ticket for Mt.Emei at Leiyin temple. The entrance ticket costs 185rmb and lasts for 2 days. We walked for many hours up many steps. We arrived to the monkey area and continued on walking up to a temple called Hoagchun. We walked around 5 and a half hours in total, the elevation was around 1120m. We walked back passed the monkey area and got the bus back to our hostel. This took around 30 mins and cost 20rmb. We checked out the food market in the evening and ate nearby. Plenty of tourists around but not many foreigners.

Monkey

The monkey area

Canyon

Local man

Day 3: Summit of Emeishan

We got up early, had breakfast and went straight to the bus station to by a ticket to the summit of Mt.Emei. We were early but not enough! There was a queue outside the door and it was crazy full of people. After waiting for awhile we eventually bought the tickets, 90rmb each return to the Golden Summit. Our bus left around 7.40 and we arrived at 9.20. There was so many people it was insane! We decided to walk to the cable car. It was difficult to walk because there were so many people but we eventually got to the cable car and bought a one way ticket, 65rmb. We then had to wait and queue for around an hour to get on the cable car! At the top it was busy, plenty of people and food stalls. The views are very nice with a big golden statue at the top with a temple. We walked around took some photos and ate in one of the food stalls. At 12, we decided to walk down the path. It was full of snow and some places were slippy with ice. It was mainly steps and again full with people. We did it pretty fast because we wanted to get a bus to Chengdu in the evening. We got to the bus at 1.30 and made it back to the hostel where we picked up our bags and went straight to the bus station to go to Chengdu. We would have preferred a train but didn’t want to risk it as there were hardly any spaces left. We took the bus which took around 3 hours (50rmb) each. We took the metro to the hostel and ate in the local Irish bar.

Emeishan

Emeishan

Day 4: Chengdu, Panda Research Base

Got up early at 6.45 and took the metro, blue line, North to the last stop. Once we arrived there we had many people shouting at us to bring us to see the Pandas. We took one mans offer to take us there for 20 rmb in his tricycle engine bike. We made it to the Panda Research Base in one piece and we were pretty early too, arriving around 8.20. We bought our tickets (58 rmb) and entered the park which is quite big. There are plenty of enclosures where you can see Pandas feeding. We were lucky as there were hardly tourists at the park around that time and we got to see plenty of pandas feasting on bamboo. There is also red pandas in the park. At around 9.30 we left the centre and we could see the queues forming, so its best to go as early as possible. We took a taxi to the airport, 38km away which cost 100rmb. We stayed in Chengdu Music Coffee Hostel, basic but clean!

Giant Panda!

Giant Panda!

 

 

Jiangsu Yangshan National Forest Park and Spa

This was a day out at Mt. Yangshan hiking and a spa retreat after. Mt.Yangshan is in Suzhou City, Jiangsu province, so not far from Shanghai. We left at 8.30am by bus and arrived in Suzhou at 10am. We spent about 2 hours visiting Mt.Yangshan Forest Park. There was a trail to follow, about 10km which involved many steps. There was many pagodas along the way and a tea house. The weather was a bit foggy but still nice to get to the top for the views.

Temple in the park

Edgar on the way up the steps

After the hike we had lunch and then it was time for the spa. This was our first experience at a spa in China. We had about 4 hours to explore the different outdoor hotsprings. There was many different pools with different scents and different temperatures. There was also a mud bath. We were quite lucky as there was not a lot of people there so many of the pools were empty. Overall a nice day out.

One of the many pools

Tracy in the spa

Hairy Crabs in Suzhou

This was a day trip organised by my school. It involved visiting Yangcheng Lake (in Suzhou) where there is also a famous Buddhist temple called Chongyuan Temple and of course eating the famous hairy crabs that are a delicacy from there.

Edgar outside the Temple

The buddah inside the temple

The most entertaining part of this trip was of course seeing and trying to eat the hairy crabs which are very famous in China and thought to be the best from the Yangcheng Lake in Suzhou (Jiangsu Province), where we were!

The crabs from this lake apparently come with their own certificate of authenticity and identification number. The crabs are so popular that they can be really expensive, a couple of hundred yuan and are often exported to Shanghai and Hong Kong, and high-profit foreign markets.

Local woman selling hairy crabs

Hairy crabs all packed ready to be sent somewhere

The hairy crab is only eaten in the Autumn during the 9th and 10th month of the Chinese lunar calendar (Oct-Dec). Luckily for us it was November. The crab was pretty small in size. The most difficult part was to dismantle it. Once that was done..there it was, the part you could eat – a tiny yellow liquid (looked like the yolk of an egg). Was it worth it? Just to try once..maybe not again.

The hairy crab

 

Cycling Hengsha Island

This was a one day trip to Hengsha island organised by a group called Trafish. It was a great day out and really nice to get back on the bike again! It cost 50rmb in total and that included everything! Everything means: Bus to the ferry, ferry to the island, mountain bikes for the day, lunch, picking oranges and and keeping them for free, a 100rmb voucher each to spend on local produce from the island (we bought a big box of figs, box of oranges, rice  and beans), bus and ferry back to Shanghai. We cycled 21km around the island stopping off at different landmarks. Below are some pictures of the day!

Ready to cycle!

Flying on the bike!

Picking the best oranges and getting to keep them for free!

Not much traffic on the roads of Hengsha, but this did appear!

The road all to ourselves!

Harvesting wheat

Machete Power!

Wuyue Ancient Path and Zhexi Tianchi

We spent the weekend away with a group called the Hiking Lovers. We left on the Friday night from Shanghai arriving at the entrance of the WuYue Ancient Path at 1am Saturday morning. We spent the night in a local guest house.

Saturday we got up early, had breakfast and set out hiking. After a few hours hiking we arrived at West Zhejiang Tianchi. We ate lunch here and waited for others in the group to catch up.  We climbed the summit of the mountain nearby (Altitude: 1363m) and had good views of the lake from the top. We then made our way back down to the lake and back to the guesthouse while others in the group camped by the lake.

Starting out on the hike and views from the top of the mountain

Edgar on the top!

We arrived at the guesthouse at around 6 that evening and had dinner. There was a group of Koreans also in the village that night which seemed to party very hard. Most were wasted by the end of the night.

Sunday morning, we went for another hike. It was a bit more technical than the day before as it involved more rock climbing than hiking. We were also a smaller group so it worked better. It was a good trek with pretty sites along the way.

The group on the Sunday morning hike

Some rock climbing

Local farmer

A good weekend away with good company!

 

5 days in Beijing

Here’s a quick run down of our 5 days in Beijing:

Day 1: Travelling to Beijing

We took the fast train (309km/hr) to Beijing from Shanghai. Tickets are hard to book online so we got them through an agency, 553rmb each way. We left Hongqiao railway station (which is probably the size of Dublin airport) and arrived 5h 15 mins later in Beijing. We made our way to our hostel (Bestay Hostel), which was very close to the Temple of Heaven, one of the famous temples there. We stayed for 3 nights here at 360rmb in total. It was a bit difficult to find at first and really small but other than that it was fine. We were a bit tired, so just walked around a bit and went to Hongqiao Pearl Market. This is a huge fake market that has everything you can imagine. We ended up buying some asics runners there and later a beer, only 60 cent for a huge bottle.

Day 2: The Great Wall, Flag raising Tian’amen Square

Dongzhimen bus teminal to get the bus to the great wall (Mutianyu section-the one with less tourists). We had planned to take bus 916 to there but a woman working in the station said no, its no longer running, so she took us to bus 980 (Minyun). Shouldn’t have listened to her…we found ourselves in the middle of nowhere, with the only way to get to the wall by paying a taxi. It was all a fix..as later we had read the same thing happen to another tourist. We ended up bargaining a taxi to the wall. In the end we paid 160rmb for 45km, not too bad! Once at the wall, there a number of different tickets to choose from. The basic entrance is 58rmb and then we chose to get a cable car up and a toboggan slide down for 80rmb. Once at the top you can chose what part of the wall you want to walk. We were lucky in that there wasn’t many people there. It’s well worth going to. We may even return in May to run the Great Wall Marathon..maybe.

Us at the Great Wall

Tracy Jumps!

Edgar and the wall

To get back to the city, it was easy. We got a taxi to Hairou and then the original bus which we were supposed to have gotten in the morning, 916 (11rmb) back into the centre.

We went to Tian’amen square in the evening and just happened to arrive in time for the flag raising. There was lots of people there to watch that. Some army guys marched from the Forbidden city across the road to do it.

Tian’amen Square

 

Biggest bunch of flowers I’ve ever seen!

Having a stroll around

 

Traffic back on the street after the flag raising

 

The lads

Day 3: Forbidden City, Mausoleum of Mao, Temple of Heaven, Lama Temple

We queued up to get into the Forbidden city. (It was actually closed and we didn’t know..closed on Mondays?). There didn’t seem to be much going on so we went to a park within in it called Zhongshan Park. This was really nice, plenty of stuff going on in there. We left and went back to the square and decided to go to the Mausoleum of Mao. Security fairly high there. You are not allowed to bring bags or camera inside, they need to be left in a place outside, small fee needed.  Also, it’s not open all day. It closed early, at 12 or 2 can’t remember.  Many people left flowers at the entrance as we walked into the building. It all happened very fast. We could see Mao in a glass case, looking well preserved. You can’t stop and look, just keep walking!

Outside the Forbidden City

Edgar in Zhongshan Park

Dancers in the park

Entrance to Mausoleum of Mao

After that we went to see the Temple of Heaven (15rmb) to enter the area. We  didn’t go into the temple, just walked around outside it. It’s also huge.

Temple of Heaven

Park around the Temple of Heaven

Old people’s gym!

Lama Temple (25rmb) was next. This was impressive aswell, beautiful temples, lots of insence buring and monks walking around. Very Tibet like neighbourhood. We walked around some back streets there, checking out the hutongs.

Entrance to Lama Temple

Edgar and some temples

Day 4: Summer Palace

Moved to a different hostel called Saga Youth Hostel. Really nice, cost 270rmb per night. We spent the day at the Summer Palace walking around the lake for about 3 hours. We didn’t go into the palace itself ..think we were tired from all the walking at the end. We also met a friend that evening which we hadn’t seen since 2009..

One of the many bridges

 

Another bridge

Nice views along the lake

The Palace

Great dinner with good company

Day 5: Forbidden City, Back to Shanghai

This time we actually did go into the Forbidden City as it wasn’t a Monday. 60rmb to enter. It was National Day in China so there was plenty of people in there. It’s huge. Big spaces with big temples. You could spend all day in there. There’s plenty of parks also.

In the Forbidden City

Dressed up for the National Day

Our 5 days in Beijing went very fast but we enjoyed them a lot and saw the main sites. We were lucky to have great weather until the day we left. It’s very different to Shanghai, it felt more Chinese there. In Shanghai it’s all very western but there not as much. It’s really easy to get around on the metro which only costs 2 rmb for any trip. It did get a bit crazy on the last day with the amount of people on the metro. The highlight of this trip was the Great Wall!

Goodbye Beijing!

 

Anji, JingKongLi, Zhejiang Province

This was the first weekend away from Shanghai having been here one month already. We joined a meetup and spent the weekend in another province called Zhejiang (beside Shanghai). The place we stayed was called Anji, which is located near Hongzhou and is well known for its Bamboo forests. We left on the Friday night and arrived 4 hours later. We stayed in a guesthouse, we were about 30 people in total. Saturday morning we had an early start having breakfast at 7am. This was mainly a rice porridge type mix with some beans, boiled eggs and bread.

Breakfast

 

Anji Village

We started our aqua trek in the valley at 8am. We didn’t know really what to expect as the description said 5/6 hours walk along a river and on rocks. Turned out it was walking in the river and navigating over rocks and trekking through a forest! Much more difficult than what we had expected. Luckily we had aqua shoes to keep our grip. There were leeches along the way. Luckily I didn’t get any but Edgar got a monster leech on his foot. He didn’t realise until he took his shoe off.  Full of blood it was! We ended up walking until 6pm, that’s when we arrived back at the guesthouse, tired and hungry. After a cold shower (no hot water left) and dinner we had a bonfire and had some beers with the rest of the group. A great day river hiking.

 

River Hiking

Many waterfalls along the way

The next morning Sunday was rafting day along Xianlong Canyon. Again we didn’t know what to expect but it turned out to be great fun. It was a 2 man raft with wooden oars. There were chutes which the raft went down which was the best part.  We managed not to fall out of the raft!

Xianlong Canyon

Making a splash!

After rafting it was back to the guesthouse again for lunch, shower and then back on the bus to Shanghai. It was a super weekend, not only did we meet many people from many different countries we all had a great time doing what we enjoy most.

Before heading home

 

Group photo!