Last Day

Managed to get reception to sort out last lot of internet so last lot of photos uploading as we speak. Weren't sure we were going to do this but it seemed wrong somehow to need to make our last photo / blog posting from home so what the heck!

Had arranged to meet the rest of our group at 10.30 but quelle surprise they did not arrive. Checked their room at 10.45 and they were sort of pale but up for a shopping trip. We bundled them into a taxi and then didn't see them again all day - oops, due to meet them for dinner, hope they are okay. We are taking bets on what happened to them. We think they may well have been so hungover they just got in taxi, drove around the corner, stopped, got out and walked back to hotel and bed. They did not seem very sure about their stomachs or that going shopping would be a good idea when we last saw them! They were however still laughing about Rubber Duckie!!!

Still, not to be put off by hangovers in others we popped in our own taxi and ended up in an entire mall (5 floors) of complete and utter tourist tat. What an absolutely phenomenal place. Truly awful. But hilarious in a very tacky kind of way. Felt obliged to carefully review all 5 floors of tack and then it was all a bit much so went in search of lunch.

After lunch took subway back to Tiananmen Square and walked from there back to hotel down some very nice streets. Enjoyed just menadering along, taking it all in and saying farewell to Big Trip!

All we have left is farewell supper and trip to airport.

Chinas been great. Crossed off loads of the things on the 'must see before you.....' list.  I will not miss the hacking and flem at all but Martyn says he finds that preferable to the rural Vietnamese habit of sweeping all leftover food onto the floor in restaurants. Whilst we both very much enjoyed our little walks I don't think either of us are looking forward to walking up the stairs when we get home - they really are seriously into steps here!

Stunning scenery and some more great people. Its interesting that in the conversations we have had despite the completely different political management systems, the economic problems are exactly the same as those of democracies. The colours are not so intense as the parts of SE Asia we visited and in a lot of ways it 'feels' a bit like Russia in terms of colours. It feels like there are secrets here that we didn't quite manage to crack in to but then we travelled in a different way here.

And thats it - all done, apart from one or two things - they say life goes in circles. We started with a good few 'How Much' posts. I think there may be another when we do our first supermarket shop! There were also a few comments about 'bagstooheavy'. We're off to pack. I think bagsstilltooheavy may well be the final situation!

Its been an amazing few months. I seem to remember I ran out of adjectives sometime in New Zealand, hopefully I haven't repeated too many. Should have thought to find a web based Thesaurus really!

We both wonder who had the most fun, you reading this, or us writing it. If you've become used to an (almost) daily helping of hapless adventures, mishaps, comedy and the odd picture, we have too. And we'll miss it............

So this blog is dedicated to anyone who helped make this possible for us. Whether you looked after a key, checked the house, started the car, kept our paperwork safe, stored our post, covered at work, gave us giggles on fb or via comments, stayed in our house, put us up in your house or met us somewhere on our travels, enjoyed reading this or will simply enjoy reliving the memories with us when we get back. Thanks for everything.

Karaoke

It’s a good job I can type this in because I am absolutely speechless. There are not words to describe it but it true blogger fashion I will do my best. Your imaginations can add in the rest and might just get to something half as good as the reality.

Needless to say I didn’t need my ear plugs. Lucy (group member) was really quite good and she was the opening act. As the evening progressed some of the other people who were trying to use the bar might have needed ear plugs but we were so loud by then they just left. They obviously didn’t know true talent when they were witness to it.

I think the talent show on the boat cruise must have been the warm up. Our whole group renditions of Robbie’s Angels and Bohemian Rhapsody were to die for. The Australian Explore group who arrived, stayed and started adding to the list of songs on the play list (which we had to sing as they were too chicken) loved the Rick Astleys ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ that Martyn and I managed (oh, did I mention that we performed as well…….) Our ‘Pretty Woman’ was also received with much applause and the whole group ‘Uptown Girl’ would have made Billy Joel so proud. Bon Jovi will never perform Living on  Prayer as well as we can!

And then someone picked some tunes that to be quite honest are more suitable to dancing to than singing to but by then we were well warmed up and we knew our Macarena on the cruise ship had been applauded so we were full of confidence. Dancing Queen saw Lucy and I duet with a small number of ad libbed dance moves. Twist n Shout saw us give up on Karaoke but Twist n Shout with the Australians on the small stage. They were quite impressed with how low I could twist (so was I given the number of steps on the Great Wall!). Anthony and Martyn then took to the mikes for Stayin’ Alive whilst Lucy, Collette and I performed as a backing dance trio.

But the absolute star of the show, the winner of the next 10 Pop Idols and Britains Got Talent is most definitely Martyn. His rendition of Rubber Duckie by Bert and Ernie from Sesame Street. I’ll just pause here to let that sink in.

Have you finished laughing yet?

I think it was a one time only event but don’t panic – I’ve got video. It was out of this world.

I tell you, two 500 ml bottles of mineral water and a basket of popcorn can really make you lose your inhibitions.

What a finish.

Calzone Factory

Ha Ha – Martyn was finally got by his mis-hearing of Chinese. He was so excited all day – not by The Great Wall (although that was truly great) but instead by what he thought was the promise of a Calzone Factory.

It was Closoinne – you know, the French enamelling thing – apparently it’s a traditional Chinese art as well!

Poor bloke, he was quite disappointed. Until he saw the furnace and solder and other bits – then he decided it was quite cool, not quite as good as a Calzone but quite cool! It was also expensive (and not at all ‘us’) so we didn’t buy any. Hadn’t realized it was all made of copper – tiny little bits of copper glued on to the outside of copper and then the paint fills in the gaps. Very fiddly and very clever.

Anyway, all that came after lunch. Before lunch was The Great (not fire) Wall. Martyn conquered this one as well but then so did I – hurrah. We went to the Mutianyu section. Walked up the hill to watchtower 8 and then along the wall to watchtower 23. Well I say ‘along’ – obviously we went ‘along’ the top but well, its VERY undulating and involved LOTS more steps. The ones before gate 23 were particularly painful – 455 of them followed by 20 so steep that Martyn went up on hands and feet! So now we have thighs of steel and knees of jelly! Absolutely amazing though – a truly great wall!

And then we realized. It was our last ‘Big Thing’ of ‘Big Trip. We really are coming home soon. Although our bus ride back to the hotel did make us question that once or twice…….driver suffered from ‘Sudden Braking Sydnrome’ quite badly and our seats faced backwards which made the whole thing even more interesting as we could feel the effects and see the faces of our group who could see through the windscreen!

But yes, only one more day to go and the group has planned a shopping day. Not sure what we’ll do but its all after the excitement of this evening anyway – and what does this evening have in store for us? Well half our group quite like their beer (to say the least) and last night they went to a bar. In the interests of ‘group trip’ (and because we have nothing better to do) we’re off to the bar with them this evening. Of course we’re in China  - it’s a Karaoke bar. I have my ear plugs ready.

There are nine million

Bicycles in Beijing according to Katie Melua (or was it Norah Jones?) Our tour guide today agreed. Have only seen 5 in use so far though. Apparently everyone has swapped their bikes for cars. Oh and mopeds that run on batteries. I thought I’d got the hang of all the mopeds in Hanoi. At least you could hear those blighters coming. These ones sneak up on you silently!

Arrived in Beijing at 8:18 right on time. Bus to hotel, drop bags off, grab breakfast, no early check in for us today so off we go sightseeing.

First stop Tiananmen Square. Despite Martyns firewall shenanigans there were no tanks for us thank goodness. Lovely big square with lots of big buildings all around. Meandered through square to Forbidden City.

At this point I started having quite significant flashbacks. When much younger my parents hired ‘The Last Emperor’ on video for us to watch. Remember that one Mum? As per usual Dad fell asleep but even Mum said it was a bit slow to say the least. I don’t think we made it to the end. Well now I have to watch that blasted film again as today our tour guide told us all about the Last Emperor and I’m walking along looking at things in the Forbidden City and reading bits in the museum thinking ‘where have I seen/heard this before?’ Then I remembered.

Well despite my mental anguish at the thought of watching this film again (I’m sure some people will tell me it was a great epic of cinematographic history or something) The Forbidden City is stunning. Huge but stunning. Exactly the same layout as the Purple City in Hue but that was just ruins, this one was MUCH bigger and still completely standing which was a big bonus!

After Forbidden City on to the Temple of Heaven which was pretty amazing as well. Here the Emperors made animal sacrifices to the gods for a good harvest. No nails at all involved in construction all dovetail joints, on a completely circular building. Cool.

I confess then back at hotel I fell asleep. Oops.

Dinner followed by acrobats show. Brilliant. Diablo tricks, jugglers, balancing acts but the piece de resistance was one of those balls that motorbikes go around in. These were proper motorbikes with engines not batteries and four of them got inside this ball and whizzed around. Mad. We’re thinking of asking our Easy Riders if they want to give it a go!

Now sleep, big day tomorrow. Guess where we’re going!

Night train to Last Bit

Usually we say ‘next bit’ we’ve just realized now we have to say ‘last bit’.

Before train though, day in Xian. Visited the Shangxi museum which was lots of archaeological artifacts and very interesting. Added a lot of context to the warriors yesterday which was good. We are very dynastied out now though and we still get a bit lost in the Tang, Han, Qing, Ming, there is one other, I can’t remember…..my history head is bursting…..1911 cultural revolution, got rid of emperors, didn’t realize China had a democracy for a while there, or that the Emperors were around so relatively recently…….

Then off for a cycle ride along the top of the great wall of Xian – not so great as ‘The Great Wall’ but this one went around Xian old town in a square. We had a tandem. Called it Timothy. Then Martyn called it lots of other names, chain came off 6 times and I put it back on again, chain then broke so we had to walk. Picked up another tandem at the next stop, seats so low that when I pedaled at the back my knees hit Martyns bum! Oh and depressingly I think the suspension (?) is weighted for little Chinese people as we looked like we had two flat tires. This was even more depressing given that we had fallen in love with the weighing scales some sick person decided to leave in our hotel bathroom – they gave very nice numbers!

After cycle ride some of group had to go to bank so we got bus to Bell Tower and Drum Tower and found a market to wander around. Spent another group members (Anthony) money and Martyn bought ANOTHER pair of sunglasses having broken the last pair straight in half!

Late lunch / early dinner = hotpot. Nothing like hotpot at home. This was a personal saucepan full of water with a little burner underneath. Interestingly the burner was full of white crystals not liquid.  Anyway, boil water in personal saucepan and then add very thinly sliced beef / lamb and veggies, or an egg, tofu or noodles. Dip cooked food in your own personally constructed bowl of dip (from a selection on a buffet table) of soy, BBQ, sesame, coriander, garlic, chilli and lots of others. Leave to cool and then eat. Very nice.

And then train……to ‘last bit’

Warriors with Dumplings

Found them…..the Terracotta Army that is. Hard to miss really (well apart from the fact they were underground). All 11000 of them plus horses, carriages and a whole host of stuff the Chinese haven’t dug up yet.

 

I tell you, Indiana Jones, The Mummy and Sinbad the Sailor have nothing on this lot. They look just like they will start stomping along just as soon as some bad guy presses the button! There are rows of them in just about one piece but the ones with holes in and limbs missing and heads missing etc are a bit freaky. There is one that is just two feet standing there.

 

Phenomenal to think they were all painted bright colours as well – I didn’t know that. They even went to the detail of putting tread on the guys shoes – there is a kneeling archer and you can see the sole of his foot, his shoe had tread marks on it. 11000 hand made models and they are putting tread marks on shoes. Wow!

 

And they were chrome plating their swords and they cast the most magnificent (if small – well smaller than we were expecting anyway) horse and carriage out of bronze.

 

Breakfast yummy today – proper toast and jam that tasted of jam not runny sugar water (mind you it had come all the way from Austria in its little packets which was a little distressing on the carbon footprint level). Proper bacon as well. Wooops. Allowed though as no lunch so it was left over snacks for us, oh and a packet of mini shortbread biscuits we bought at our tea tasting ceremony. Very useful on two counts – one was lunch, the other was to take away the taste of the tea! We tried Lychee Black tea – this was the winner. Then Dragon Well tea, Ginseng Oolong tea (which should have an aftertaste of liquorice but Martyn said not – although I think he’s damaged his taste buds with his salt liquorice) and finally Ku Ding tea. Fortunately for me the tasting cups were very small and it was perfectly acceptable to throw away the bits you didn’t like into the servers little draining board!! Personally I preferred the little Buddha and pig models the lady had that changed colour when she poured the hot waste water over them but I did my best to focus on the tea!

 

Back to hotel for a quick nap. Well that’s what everyone else did. We went for a walk down the road – Martyn found a gadget shop. To be honest I think he spent longer looking at the gas burners and wok attachments than at the gadgets but at least I wasn’t subjected to the freezers and washing machines floor. They had a dehumidifier that had two goldfish in it. I thought you had to empty the water out of dehumidifiers. What would happen to the poor fish?

 

And then dinner – dumpling banquet. Well we compromised as we weren’t sure we all wanted an entire meal of dumplings so we had ordinary food for 5 and two dumpling banquets which was good as we all got to try a bit of everything. Followed by birthday cake for Lucy and Happy Birthday song over the loudspeakers and applause from everyone else in the restaurant as well. Very nice for her but we were very glad we had our cake in a much smaller restaurant with no speaker system!

 

Then everyone else went back to bed and Martyn and I stayed out – ‘what’ I hear you say. Martyn and Kay having a night on the town whilst everyone else is tucked up in bed. What is the world coming to????? Well, we just figured we’d come all this way and we were not going to miss out. If we can stay awake through The Nutcracker ballet in Russia after a night train we can stay awake for this. We watched the Tang Dynasty Show – lots of beautiful costumes and great dancing with some traditional Chinese musical instruments. It was very good.

 

And then, hello pillow!

Dam

No I’m not mis-typing a blasphemy. That’s where we went today!

Three Gorges Dam. Largest dam in the world. 2.4km long, 15m deep at top, 124m deep at bottom. HUGE.
Whether you agree it should have been built or not given the environmental and human implications it is a very impressive feat of engineering.


Martyn managed to stay up to see our boat go through the lock system down the side of the dam. This was at about 11.30pm and I had been asleep for an hour. Missed him leaving the room, woke up when he came back. I was in time to look out the window and see the boat moving down instead of along!

(yep, that's a 7x5 container barge and 3 cruise ships, there were also 2 other barges behind us - all in the same lock.)

Anyway, dam very impressive. Then we went along the last gorge of the three gorges on the Yangtse river but actually our ummmm, 7th counting the little side excursions! Then we found another dam at YingChang where we disembarked and had lunch. This second dam was actually built first and is 0.2km longer but still not as big as the three gorges dam.

After lunch bus to train station and then night train to Xian which is where we are now.. Of course given that we’ve spent about 95% of the last 4 days on bus, boat or train we still feel like we are moving. It was very odd having breakfast in the restaurant and looking out the window at scenery that stayed still.

Better go – apparently there is a Terracotta Army around here somewhere………