Ms Jonker's Adventures

We checked into our hostel and I took about a 3 hour glorious nap which was much needed after another sleepless night on the train.

There’s just something unsettling about glancing up at any given time and seeing at least one person starring at you, not looking away when you stare back. It doesn’t make for a comfortable environment to sleep. 

We wandered to Tia Na Men square and got some food but it seemed like most of the famous sight seeing places were closed for the day.
We came back to the hostel through a busy market place where we got a fee things.
I got a little plastic cylinder container that holds a fork, spoon and chop sticks that screw together haha. I love my lunches!

We played pool, ate oreos, played cards, had tea, and watched Oceans 11 (while eating more oreos) in the ‘movie room’.  Can you tell were getting to the end of our trip? Hahah so tired all the time.

Sunday went out to the forbidden city. It was cool and nice to see. But there was loads of people there so it was also quite irritating. It was more fun to photograph the mass amounts of people then try and get the perfect photo of the buildings and rooms.

After getting lost while trying to leave we managed to get back to the hostel and Google map where the market was that we wanted to see.

(From China Travel Guide)
Located at the southeast corner of the 3rd Ring Road in Beijing, covering an area of 48,500 square meters (520,000 square feet), Panjiayuan Flea Market is the largest, most complete, cheapest and most popular market selling second hand goods and curios in China. (I read it’s the largest market in Asia) There are so many types of goods in the market that it is like a museum. It is a heaven for buying and appreciating antiques, crafts, collectibles and decorations. You can find calligraphy, Chinese painting, writing brushes, ivory carving, traditional Chinese musical instruments, porcelain, ancient furniture, etc. There are also some peddlers from ethnic minorities like Hui, Mongol, Miao, Korean and Manchu, hawking their national handicrafts. Actually, Panjiayuan Flea Market has become one of the must-go attractions of Beijing for tourists from home or aboard.

I got a little Buddha statue (finally!), Some jewelery, and some little bags.
After a few hours of wandering around there we lazily headed back by metro to dump our goodies at the hostel and finally get some food. We got some meat stuffed in bread patty things, and wandered over to the market we saw the night before to get the last few things we wanted to bring home. I got a huge bag of chips, candies and snacks to bring back for my boyfriend (and me… haha) and my coworkers.

Monday we woke up early to go on our ‘secret’ great wall tour. The hostel promises to take you to the ‘real’ great wall away from all the tourists and all the reviews said it was a must.

And holy crap they did not disappoint.

Let me set the scene….
It’s the last day of our travels in china. The three of us are eager to end off with a bang. After tiring travels with not so great weather we finally get ‘the perfect day’.
The sun is shining the brightest it could in the sky and there is a good constant cool breeze to even out the rays of sunshine.  In the 29° heat we barely sweat at all. By far, the most beautiful day we’ve expirenced in the last 7 weeks.

We went on a bus with about 20 of us and we only passed a handful of others on our walk down the wall. The majority of my photos have NO ONE on the wall. How cool is that?
We walked 3km along the 7,500 km wall (although they’re saying it’s said to be longer now) through seven towers and back down the same way.
I knew they’re be stairs and I knew it’d be a hike – But holy smokes, I did not anticipate it at all! I imagined this great hike up and then a nice flat walk for a bit, a little higher, flat walk etc. Nope. Not even close. Constantly up and down and up and down. And not just stairs; oh no. There was also just like a very very slanted include or decline that was extrmeley challenging to walk along. But man it was beauitful. The cool air blowing the smell of 100s of lilac trees and the sun shining down on your face as you look out over rolling, endless mountains is an expirence I will never forget and I’m eternally grateful for.

Thank you Beijing for an amazing final day.

We flew from Shanghai to Chengdu because it was only slightly more expensive and took about 1/10th of the time.
We took the bus to our hostel and ditched out bags then went on a walking tour of some local temples and nunnery and markets before we realized I had lost the map within a block of leaving. We wandered a bit to the monstary then came back, ate dinner (real burgers!), got a new map, then went again. We got distracted on our walk and found a Walmart which we HAD to go in.
After we found the market which was closed and decided to call it a night because we had an early morning the next day to see….

*Drumroll please*

PANDAS! 🐼

We were up at 6, checked out at 640 and on the bus at 650 on our way to the Chengdu research base for giant panda breeding.

Chengdu is KNOWN for pandas.  The base has the most pandas in captivity in the world- they started with 6 and now have 164. They are geographically closest to the part of China that has he most wild pandas as well. Currently it’s estimated there is less than 2000 pandas in the wild.

Needless to say I was very very excited for this opportunity.
We arrived bright and early because we read that was when they were fed, which is the best time to see them.
We were able to watch sub-adult giant pandas eat, cubs play, adult pandas be lazy and chill, as well as red pandas walk around a path right next to us.
The facility is huge but a big part of it seems to just be a forest area with no paths or anything so walking through the base and taking a 100000 photos only took a few hours actually.
Which is good because by 11 the base was PACKED with noisy people and students on field trips crowding the views.

I’m really really happy we went early. It was amazing to see so many cute, funny pandas! The base has images and a little paragraph on each of them which were cute to read.
We found out from our roommate that the ‘hold a panda’ option was currently unavailable due to some disease recently given to them, which sucks but really I didn’t have enough money for it anyways. Another girl at our hostel travelling south through the country said ‘you know it’s only like a minute right? And its like super expensive ‘
She had done a 5 day panda keeper ‘volunteer’ program (if by volunteer, you make a ridiculous donation and then do someone else’s job for a week) and loved it but said the holding the panda was cool, but just seeing them and bring around them was amazing as well.

Before coming we never really planned or researched the cost of this trip after, or the cost of living in Guangzhou in general so I’ve ended up spending more than anticipated I think. But I’m having an amazing time, and seeing a big variety of sites and culture and it’s totally worth it.

Tonight were on a (fully booked) night train for 15 hrs to Xi’an. The last one we all had a row to spread out and sleep. Here, not so much. Gonna be a loooooong night.

Night trains are a good idea in theory, but lousy in practise.  Bright, loud, and frequent stops make it really difficult to sleep. We took a 8 hour night train from Wuyishan to Shanghai and arrived at 4am. We were woken up frequently by the crew to ensure we didn’t miss our stop and just by the general commotion.
We didn’t sleep well at all and eventually got to our hostel before 6 and just slept in the lobby until 8 when breakfast service started.
It was a very chilly 16° which was a shocker for us. So After a traditional ‘american’ breakfast we took a walk to forever 21 and bought some long sleeves and pants then went to the free museum and walked back so we could check in and nap.

That evening we went for a walk to the famous Bund area which is essentially just a street of interesting architecture on a river. We passed by a river cruise stand selling tickets. Before leaving the hostel we had read about it, claiming it was better then Hong Kong (which if you remember the light show…..) and in our sleepy haze, said sure why not?
We walked, ate, walked more and more and then went back to catch our river cruise.  She informed us for only 8 yuan more (less than $2) we could go for an extra 30 minutes. What a deal! So we said yes.
After a sketchy ride to the middle of nowhere in a van that literally had dining room chairs for two rows of seating we arrived and we’re starting to realize we don’t care about boats and the skyline view at night from the river… the chilly cold and wind on top of the wet boat made it very miserable to be on the top deck so we sat at the bottom for a bit till we got to a good part, went up, took photos, then went down to play cards and laugh at everything because we were so sleep deprived.

The next day we went to a market again and bartered for some souvenirs and keepsakes and came back to the hostel after a full day of drizzly rain and chilly wind.
The guy in our group made a friend with a lone traveller in his room and the 5 of us went to an 90 min acrobatic show. It was incredible! Apparently the people doing it are students at some school for acrobatics. The show runs nightly at the same time for a decent price (around $25). 
They did flips, dance, magic, juggling, – all kinds of cool stuff! If you’re ever in Shanghai, forget the river cruise. Do the acrobatic show!

Our last full day in Shanghai we slept in a bit. The girls and I walked along a street of shops and I got to see my first ever m&m store! Then we met our new friend again and all went to some new market in the French concession. We went to a panda restaurant (🐼💕) and then walked around to another famous block of streets lined with shops and food. We found a Tesla showroom and sat for a good 15 minutes in the car playing with all the fancy electronic controls. We found a bagel place (💕💕💕) and then took the metro back so our new friend could head south on his train that evening. We napped again (💕💕💕💕) and then got some dinner and went to another hostel that had a rooftop bar on the 6th floor with an awesome view that we had paid to see two nights before on a stupid boat. Haha. We had gone there to see if we could socialize with other English speakers but arrived early so we sat along the edge on the roof looking at the skyline with our backs to everyone who eventually filled the small space haha.
We left and went back to our hostel that had cheaper drinks and a happy hour BOGO, then got some mcdoanlds fries and passed out.

This morning one of our gang members left for Thailand for a month, so now we’re down to three. Caitlin, Brent and myself.
We’ve got only 3 cities left, and 6 days.

Plane to Chengdu today, night train tomorrow to Xi’an and another night train back to back nights (it’ll be death) and then fly home from Beijing a few days later!

Because of the mixup with the trains we only had one short day in Xiamen, which is a shame because the island we were staying on seemed beautiful. But alas, what can you do?

We arrive in the afternoon. And managed to get our next two train tickets we needed. So we’re set for about a week on transportation and accommodations, which is a godsend to my ocd of preplanning everything.

The directions the hostel listed were confusing and not specific at all.
“From railway take bus 1 / 1 2 to …. Whatever the stop was called” no idea what side of the street, is its bus 1 or 2 or something else….
I had my first entire conversation without either party understanding anything the other said. I asked a parking patrol and showed him the stop name and direction and he didn’t understand. But when your white everyone tends to just come over and see what’s up, so two more men came up and I motioned bus, pointed to the bus stop, showed a one and two on my fingers and gave a big shrug indicating I had no idea what the f#$& I was doing.
Eventually one guy saw the word bus. He actually said bus, spelt it, then translated it to the others and then they mentioned we needed to cross the street using the underpass and catch the number 2 on that side.
Alright, so one word was understood between the two of us. But still! I did it!

Or so I thought. When we crossed the street there was no number 2 listed. Back to being discouraged.  We decided it be best to take a cab (although with 5 people and 7 bags wed probably need 2), so we tried to flag some down. We stopped about 3 or 4 and showed them the address in English. All of them had no clue. Great.
But this is the age of technology! We can manage right? So I wip out Google translate to get it into a format the taxi drivers can understand and……
The internet and VPN isn’t working.
If this is the age of technology.. China is the land of firewalls. Geeze. Never works when you want it to. Especially not if you need it to.

Eventually one guy stopped in an unlicensed taxi/SUV and tried to get us to speak the directions into his phone to translate. But it doesn’t work because the words were speaking aren’t English. Somehow Brent’s phone magically offline translated it and the guy knew where we meant. He agreed to take all five of us and our stuff for 60 yuan (12$ Canadian) for a 15 min ride. They always charge more when you have more people but I still feel like we paid to much.
It was a risk getting into a car that wasn’t a cab but Google started working again so we followed the map the whole way and showed him and it all worked out!

We got to our little quaint hostel on this quiet road with coffee shops and dropped our stuff. We were pretty hungry and one of the other hostelers suggested we try this pizza place. She gave me vauge directions that we tried to follow and ended up seeing a bit of the city, and eventually get stopping at the fanciest pizza hut I’ve ever seen.  Hahaha
On our way back we got some water, fruit for the morning train, and bug spray and after bite type cream for our massive bug bites that itch to the extreme.
I woke up in pain on how itchy my legs were last night. They’re bad. From now on, all photos will be from the waist up cause my legs look ridiculous.

After dinner and shopping we headed back, showered and then sat on the patio chatting and listening to music.

This morning we sent daria off to the airport with the two giant suitcases so the four of us left only have our big backpacking bags thank God. The suitcases were such a hassle. But luckily we were able to unload and send back our souvenirs we bought so far and our teacher clothes we don’t need anymore.

I’m sad our time here was so short but I’m excited for the next stop in Wuyshian. The place looks amazing. Famous for big mountains, bamboo rafts and rock tea.

Onto the train now! Be there in a few hours.

We left Hong Kong around 11 after a quick McDonalds breakfast (they had pasta in soup for breakfast?) and took the metro out of the country. Thank God for multiple entry visas. 👍
We got to see some scenery as we went by on the metro aboveground out of urban HK and to got the border. We literally walked off the metro went through customs and bam, youre in China ready to catch the next metro. Hahaha.
We tried to search for train tickets for the next days journey and after 30+ minutes of walking around we found the place. NOTHING is in English, so we wait in the shortest line to ask which line is for Xiamen. (In hindsight we should probably have it written down and ask someone in the lines) she tells us next line. Great. Move over. Wait some more. We’re able to successfully communicate the amount of tickets, the date we need it for and chose a time. Then she askes for all 5 passports in order to book it (you need your passport to do ANYTHING in China it sucks). But two of the girls stayed in the metro station because they have heavy luggage and backpacks. So it’s waaaaaay to difficult to get around with all of our junk.
So we left went back down and just decided to head to the hostel and see if they could do it, or help us do it online. They couldn’t (sigh) but eventually we figured it out!

Now we’re just waiting to get the confirmation email sending us the tickets. then we take them there and voilà! Hopefully.
(Wrote this part of the post Monday evening)

Once we ended our depressing unsuccessful train ticket expirence we metroed to the next hostel which was ammmmazzzzinnng (especially compared to the last one)! They have a nice open lobby with foosball (!!!), pool and couches. Our bathroom is big and we have nice showers.
I desperately wanted to shower because I didn’t in the tiny HK one, and because it was like 28° and I was actually dripping. Once we were all clean and refreshed again, and after a few games of foosball, we headed out to grab some lunch/dinner and go to Window of the world.
At the metro station I tried another flavor of McDonald’s icecream- Macha- making that 3 nee kinds total; mango sundae, sweet potatoe. Plus the two new pies I tried. 😍 #fatkidatheart

Window of the world is a 84 hectacre park with TONS of miniature world famous monuments. After 730 pm you can get tickets for ⅓ of the cost, which we thought was a great deal. At 730 there was also a huge show on the main stage with kids ddoing crazy skipping tricks, people doing flips on Pogo sticky type things on their feet, and tons of dancing. After an hour of the show we decided we better start looking around otherwise we’d run out of time before it closed.
We very quickly found out that it was so cheap because once the sun goes down you can’t see a big percentage of the monuments and a few things are gated off. But we enjoyed our time exploring the Grand Canyon, seeing the Eiffel Tower, and posing next to mini pyramids.
Eventually we headed back to the hostel, got some pineapple on a stick and played more foosball with a beer. Both cost 50 cents each. Gotta love China.

(Wrote the next morning)
In the morning we discovered that we in fact, did not have train tickets as they had sold out. We spent a few hours calling and trying to figure out if there was any other way to get to Xiamen today (there isnt), or how and when we could get there for the next day and ended up buying tickets for a 1015 am train on Wednesday. 
We paid for another night at our hostel, and lost the night we had prebooked unfortunately. But all was not lost! We decided to check out another massive miniature attraction park called China Spendid and Folk Villages or something of the sort. They had over 100 famous Chinese monuments, and featured 25 villages. We probably saw a good 50% of the 600 acre park before getting rained out, grabbing subway (yay fresh veggies!), and metroing home to dry off and hang out.

Tonight well probably try to buy more train tickets for other legs of the trip as to eliminate the issue in the future, play cards, and go to bed early for our 7am departure to the train station.

Shenzhen, it’s been a blast. Thank you for gracing us with an amazing hostel and a chance for me to justify bringing my sunglasses. Sorry we tried to leave so soon. Thanks for keeping us back.