Posts
The year is now 2009, has been for most of us, but the Chinese like to celebrate it twice…kinda like the whole country is the Queen! So although we had a big special dinner on the 31st December 2008 for the New Year we also got to have a whole week off for the Chinese New Year/Spring Festival. It’s the time of year when Chinese people take a break because, honestly, they work everyday all day all year round, until Spring Festival. Their shops are open 9am – 10pm Monday – Sunday and there are a lot of family businesses that have to work every minute they can, so their New Year celebration is well deserved. It’s also the one time of year they open the alcohol cabinet and get merry, not like in the UK when it being Tuesday is enough of a reason to go out and get hammered.
Our Chinese Spring Festival Journey began on New Year’s Eve, 25th January 2009. We flew from Nanjing airport straight to Chengdu, the capital city on the Sichuan Province, inhabited by 11 MILLION people, that’s twice as much as the whole of Ireland in one city!
Packed and ready at the airport.
Nicola and I.
Letitia’s father picked us up at the airport and took us to their apartment home where her mother and Thom’s mother had prepared an absolute feast including the best foods I’ve eaten during my whole time in China, sweet sticky rice and veggie dumplings! Letitia is going to pass on the family recipe to me…hopefully!
From the apartment’s balcony we got to witness the massive midnight firework display that consumed the whole skyline! It was amazing, something really special, to experience welcoming in the year of the Ox in China with new friends over traditional Chinese delicacies.
Our animation studio was kind enough to put us up in a hotel next to Letitia’s home, called 9 Points. It was really nice and modern, of course the staff didn’t speak a word of English, so we couldn’t order room service on the company’s card! Haha! (Calvin, if you’re reading this, I kid!)
Monday 26th January, New Years Day, Aaron, lead animator from our studio who was also in Chengdu for Spring Festival because it’s also his home town, took us with his sister and wife to the Chengdu Panda Research and Breeding Centre, which houses most of the worlds Panda population. They were very cute but pretty dozy! And they don’t really know Kung Fu, like I’ve been led to believe!
In the evening we were left to explore the busy Chengdu city centre. Another massive neon land but we found solace in the near by Dairy Queen. God Bless you Oreo Cheesecake Blizzard. Trust the whities to sniff out the closest American brand sweet treats.
Tuesday was spent at a market type place, unfortunately I can’t name these places correctly because the tickets are all in Chinese! Wednesday was spent in a similar place that was next to a monastery that was really cool to look at, very peaceful but it did have a small lake filled with dead animals, terrapins, fish and even one bird! Maybe they didn’t pray hard enough. There was also a vegetarian restaurant within the monastery that I insisted we went into cause everywhere else we go, I end up eating garnish and nasty roots for lunch! When we got the menu I was disappointed to see meat dishes all over the place! Shark fin soup and monkey heads! Appalled I was! Appalled! They had worse carnivorous foods on their menu than normal menus! The guys ordered some pork and beef and I ordered sweet glutinous rice. To my surprise however, and more so to the boys, when the food came it wasn’t pork, it was potato, it wasn’t beef, if was tofu. All the dishes on the menu when meat themed but made 100% from vegetarian foods! It was marvelous! Even the meat eaters said it was one of the best meals they’d had in China.
Aaron's Wife, Me, Aaron's sister and Nicola.
Nicola buying her smoked meat, later to be eaten from her pocket.
Nutritious Pig Face...
Actual smoked Dog.
Pounding some sweet thing...like taffy.
Lighting incense for prayer.
Now that's a beard, Chinese style.
MORE meat on a stick.
Chinese New Year is Biizzzzzaaayy!
We ventured back in the city centre for dinner because hawk eye Alex had spotted an Ajisen Noodle restaurant, a Japanese chain that he is obsessed with and must eat in at least once a week.
While waiting for our dinner a Chinese guy came up to us and asked it we would join him after dinner to walk around the centre so he could practise his English so we did. We couldn’t pronounce his name so behind his back we gave him the affectionate name of Gaylord. He wasn’t camp or effeminate in any way, we just wanted to give him a silly name. Infact he was really nice and recommended lots of places to visit and more importantly he didn’t mug us.
Matt, me, Gaylorde and Alex.
Thursday brough Thom back to us, as he had been gone for 3 days visitng his home town 3 hours away from Chengdu to see his family. An early start took us to Chengdu bus station to wait for a coach that would take us to a town called Moxi on a possible 9 hour drive. Luckily the roads were very clear and it only took us 5 hours road time to get there. I say road time because over one hour was spent abandoned on the side of a main road somewhere. On beginning our drive to Moxi, about 1 1/2 hours into our journey a massive thud came from beneath the coach. Alex and Thom, with cameras in hand within 3 seconds of the noise ready to pap the incident, we all got off the coach to see that happened. The metal plate that makes part of the side of the coach just above the wheel came off and shredded the tyre leaving it in an un-drivable state. But that’s not gonna stop the Chinese…no no! Ripped tyre you say? Too dangerous to drive you say? Possible risk of further wheel damage or even further road accidents you say? Pish posh! This driver got another good 30 minutes outta that hazard, driving the coach and its 40+ passengers along the motorway to a mechanic. The mechanic we came to didn’t have the materials to fix the problem, so the driver just kicked us all out and drove off with all our belongings under the carriage, passports, money…deodorant! Without a word to anyone about how long he’d be. Now, in the UK, another bus would be sent for us, the paying customers to take us to where we paid to go but the china way is to ditch you on the side of the road with nothing but a manky but adorable puppy to entertain us! After and hour or so, he did return with all out stuff and a spanking new tyre!
Cute cute cute cute cute!
Middle of nowhere.
The best photos I got over the whole trip were from my coach seat! I had a massive window in front of me, so while Matt was sleeping, drooling on himself, I took pictures of the beautiful Chinese landscape. I had no idea that China looked like that, now I can see where the inspiration for the water paintings comes from.
We were abruptly ushered off the bus at some random bus stop that no one else was getting off at and we almost lost Nicola cause she just woke up out of a snooze and didn’t get off the bus in time, but Thom stopped it before it drove off. Then we clambered into a tiny 5 seater taxi with us 4 in the back and Thom in the front on some guy’s lap next to the driver which took us into the mountains and to a little town called Moxi on Tibetan territory. It is such a lovely little village, it’s just what I imagined in my mind when Thom first told us about it. A really small community of people, very poor but all so happy. During the evening everyone is out on the streets playing mahjong, working in their open kitchens, setting off fireworks.
Sunset in Tibet.
Nihao!
Mahjong.
Spit Chicken.
Lots of bull head shops, Alex and Thom bought one each. Gross.
That night we stayed in a massive pink hostel that had just been built I think! Bloody freezing but a bed is a bed!
The next morning was another early start to get tickets and catch the bus that would take us up to the glacier on Hai Luo Guo Mountain. I can’t really write much about the glacier. It was just amazing. You’ll have to appreciate its grandness from my photos!
Our sexy climbing gear.
I'm on top of the wooorrrllllddd!
The glacier is really high something like 5000km, above the clouds and when we got out onto the actual glacier the sun was beating down on us all.
Suffice to say, we got sick. We all got headaches and Matt got a little heat stroke. Being so tired and having a spliting head ahce, I wasnt really in the mood for walking back, so I got a people taxi. 2 guys who carry me on a bamboo chair UP HILL! I couldnt even muster the strength to walk it never mind carry someone else! I felt sorry for the 2 tiny chinese men who had to carry big westerner Matt!
When we returned from the glacier we the took the cable car up even high to view the glacier from the sky, a choice the crippled me and Matt. My head was ready to explode and my stomach began to churn. Even though we were sick as parrots we had to get the bus back to village. For most of the trip we did pretty well, as we got lower and closer to regular land level I got better…Matt did not. “Gill, you still got those plastic bags?” BLARRRRRRGGGGHHHHHH! Vomit in a bag! What to do with vomit in a bag in a public coach? Wing it out the window on to the nearest cabbage patch!
This night we stayed in a different hostel, a really cool one advertised as a backpackers hostel. It had so much character and the couple that ran it was lovely. Brother Liu who forced oranges upon you every time you went there but he was lovely and helped us a lot with the mountain and going to a hot spring spa in the mountain.
The taxi to the hot spring broke down so we had to push it to get it going. Nothing is easy in China.
Eggy Hot Spring. SO2.
We returned to Chengdu on the 31st and just took it easy. That night we went out for dinner with Thom and Letitia for Alex’s birthday and farewell from ChengDu. After we took a little walk around the city centre again where we saw a woman selling hamsters, rabbits and guinea pigs in tiny cages on the cold loud streets.
Nayi is the white one on the right.
If anyone knows me you already know whats coming. Yes! I bougth one! I had to save at least one of them! She’s tiny and pure white with pink eyes and we called her Nayi, which is Sichuan Mandarin for beautiful…and tasty, but we’ll never know if the last one is true.
We went back to Letitia's apartment after and gav eher a good feed and some freedom from the cage. The day we were up the mountain was also Alex's 22nd birthday, so Letitia and Thom bought him a lush birthday cake which we all scoffed that night. Happy Birthday Alex.
The next day we were leaving ChengDu but our train wasn’t until 8pm so we squeezed in one more activity before leaving. We visited a dam that was built over 2000 years ago, pretty impressive for not having machinery and stuff.
Year of the Ox.
Year of the gay Ox.
Part of the Yangtze River, that runs all the way back to Nanjing.
When it came time to catch our train, we thought it was going to be OK to take the rabbit on the train in a secure box but they said no, but luckily quick thinking Thom came up with a story that I was from some animal welfare organization and when I saw is in the street I had to save it. Luckily the train people were all women, if they had been men I don’t think Nayi would be with me now :’(
The train journey lasted from Sunday evening to Tuesday morning, a long time to hide a rabbit on a train!
Aboard the train we met some Chinese people who were sleeping in the bunks above us. Obviously we couldn’t talk properly to them because we know no Chinsese ad they knew no English. But the Steven came along. Autralian, Chinese teacher going to Beijing where he teaches. He was able to translate for us. We allexchange email address, but I doubt we’ll be bothered to correspond!
Steven, woman, Nicola, man.
The cabin were 3 bunks high and 2 sets in one section. Me and Matt were on opposing bottom bunks, Nicola was above Matt and then the rest were randomers. But of course who would be on the top bunk in my stack? THE smelliest man in China. As soon as he took off his shoes the whole place got all stinked up! You couldn’t sleep cause the stench was so choking! Eventually it eased but if he rotated or wafted his covers the smell would soar down to my nostrils!
All in all, it was a brilliant holiday, we really got to see some of the beauty…and smells…China has to offer. Thanks to Thom, Letitia, her family, Arron and Calvin.
THE END
