Well I’m not sure what I was expecting of China. I don’t think I had really put my mind to it before the trip, although the word ‘different’ came to mind. That’s the thing, we had chosen the cities of Beijing and Shanghai because they were different. We wanted to go somewhere in the world with a different language, culture and people. And we certainly chose correctly. However I didn’t expect there to be so many people (the population is estimated at 1.4 billion people!!) and that it would be so expensive! I mean, everything is made in China right? So surely it would be cheaper there – how wrong we were. In fact, our plan of taking one backpack between the 2 of us with the expectation that we would buy more suitcases to be filled with all our shopping, was very misguided!
So our adventure started off with a midnight flight of 16 hours to Beijing a mere 5 hours after Jaco arrived back from Nigeria! Yours truly had to do all the packing ;) We were certainly the minority on the airplane which we quickly had to get used to as only about 2% of all tourists in China happen to be foreigners. The majority are all Chinese nationals! We had no real itinerary besides finding our first night’s accommodation which we had pre-booked. Luckily the underground system was easy to follow and the street names were in Chinese and English. We managed to find our Motel 268 located in the heart of the city a few blocks from the “Oxford Street” of Beijing as well as Tian'an Men Square and the Forbidden City. It was the perfect location, despite the HARD mattress being less than perfect (especially for a tired pregnant lady after a long day of sightseeing!). We spent the next 3 days walking anything from 10 – 12kms (Jaco refused to take a single taxi) around the city visiting the 3 lakes in the north of the city, the Drum and Bell Towers, the 2008 Olympic Stadium (known as 'the bird's nest'), the Temple of Heaven, the Forbidden City and Tian'an Men Square. Jaco was brave enough to try some street food and managed to gulp down some fried squid and a sloppy looking eel twirled on a stick. He was much braver than I, who opted for McDonalds and KFC burgers on occasion (PS I would NEVER eat these back home but they were a decent option at the time!).
We found the Chinese breakfast of stodgy rice, tasteless dumplings, wet cabbage, funny speckled eggs and a meat of sorts to be quite unsavoury and opted for Oatso-easy which we’d bought over from SA – thank goodness for that! Generally we enjoyed the rice and noodle dishes but after 2 days of carbo-loading meals, we were dying for a simple sarmie which was no-where to be found.
We joined a tour-group for a day visit to the Great Wall, which included visits to a Jade (stone, and also a hot favourite for #2...) and silk factory where they try and get you to buy all their goods. Our tour took us to a less touristy section of the wall and we had to take a ski-lift up to the top of the wall. Disappointingly, because of all the smog and pollution, we couldn’t see the wall snaking into the distance on the mountaintops (which is what you imagine after seeing all the pictures of the wall). It was a great experience to ‘climb’ the wall – literally you are climbing up steps which lead very steeply upwards and then very steeply downwards again – I think I had the impression that the wall was flat – but definitely not the case!
Next big city was Shanghai – China’s financial capital and home to the country’s tallest building. We took the liberty of taking the 5 hour bullet train to Shanghai to get a feel of the 300km per hour train and see a bit of the countryside. It was like being on the Eurostar or on an airplane: a food compartment and hostesses coming down the aisles selling food (larva-egg noodles) and drink. We treated ourselves to 2 nights at the 5 star Sofitel and it was great – soft mattresses, slippers, gowns and English TV! And of course a gym for Jaco! We had decided to save all our shopping for Shanghai. After realising we weren’t able to afford the stuff from the high street stores, we headed for the back street markets where you would end up bargaining for anything up to an hour on a pair of shoes (which would probably have cost less in South Africa). The city is divided by a large river with the financial district on one side and the colonial-styled buildings and mainland on the other. We took a ferry between the two and visited their tallest building at 470m. The cars far down below looked like tiny ants – it was quite impressive to see. The next couple of days were quite rainy and overcast and between shopping and hunting for our next market, there wasn’t too much to see. In fact, I think we overstayed our holiday by about a day and in the end I was dying to come home and see my Milli Moo!
The journey home was LONG – a 2hour wait at Shanghai airport, a 2 hour flight from Shanghai to Beijing, a 6 hour wait at Beijing airport. Then a 16 hour flight from Beijing to JHB, a 3 hour wait and lastly a 2 hour flight to Cape Town. I have never been happier to land on solid ground and of course to see my little bundle of joy. Unfortunately she was less than impressed with me for leaving her for a week and it took a few hours for her to warm up to being with mom again! Ouma loved her time with Milli and they became the best of friends – just shows how easily and quickly a replacement can step into mom’s shoes!
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