你好中国 - Nǐ hǎo China!
My first venture to the world on the east of India!
China - the Land of Kungfu, Shaolin, Mandarin, the Noodles, Panda, Bodhidharma, the impression of cheap goods (or that is what we thought) and a lot lot more - here we come!!
This was going to be a true challenge, considering it was a world where life goes on as usual without Google - an entity to which we have been addicted of late for every petty information!
Starting and ending at Pudong International Airport, Shanghai, we would traverse through this path in China: https://goo.gl/maps/WMEBMF2G3VF2
21.Oct 2017
Landing at Shanghai Pudong Airport at around 9 pm, we went through the Chinese immigration to take the Shanghai Maglev Train on our way to Shanghai City. This train runs on the Magnetic Levitation concept - one of the many technological wonders that China offers and the only commercial use of this technology in the world currently, capable of touching speeds of over 420 km/h took us into the town to Longyang Road from where we had our first taste of the Shanghai Metro.
Due to a mistaken address initially, we ended up at a wrong metro station very late in the night, and courtesy some really helpful fellow Chinese youngsters on the train and at the metro stations, who took time to give us a lot of information in spite of their limited English knowledge and helped us take a taxi, we reached our hotel.
From here, a lot of credit goes to the offline Google Translate tool, which helped us in every single conversation, starting with the hotel staff till the Street side vendor who provided us with delicious food the next day! Here's a sample - something which people of Shanghai and Beijing understood somehow - but had its share of troubles when we started roaming inside interior China in Luoyang, Dengfeng, Jiaozuo, Yuntaishan etc.,
Courtesy a formality in China of informing tourist information at the Police station inside 24 hours, we were skeptical of giving our passports away to the hotel authorities, and so we visited the nearest police station too in the middle of the night! All was smooth though!!
22.Oct 2017
The first morning after reaching a new time zone is always the hardest - when your bio-clock hasn't adjusted to the local times, making you feel sleepy and hungry at random times. Brushing away the blues, we set out for our day - starting with the typical Chinese Noodles at a small hotel.
Now, for China newbies, most menus outside any typical Chinese street hotel looks like this:
Me being an Eggetarian, you may have understood the value of Google Translate now :P
The first and the last noodles that I had in China was this:
And, I must admit, that this was simply the best noodles that we had during our 12-day stay in China - available for less than 10¥ - 1.3 Euros!
To get the hotel provide us this noodles was a task in itself, taking us 15 minutes and using up all our dumb charades skills to decrypt the information from the shop-keeper!! Little did we know that it would continue for the next 12 days too in the same manner! :-/
@Jade Buddha temple - Starting a good thing on an auspicious note as per Indian traditions (Mom - I listened to you :P :) )
Indications for Buddha possibly being one of the incarnations of Lord Vishnu:
@Shanghai World Financial Center
The highly industrial center of Shanghai, with so many skyscrapers surrounding the Shanghai Financial Center
A breathtaking view from the 101st floor of the financial tower, showing the Oriental Pearl Tower and the surrounding structures:
The next location would be the Vegan restaurant - Buddha tree, which would serve as our rendezvous point to meet a friend of one of my fellow travellers! A welcome change and a different experience for vegetarian/vegan food for all of us!
23.Oct 2017
Xitang Water town
A one-day trip out of Shanghai took us to this beautiful location called Xitang - the old water town with history dating to 770 BC, but still maintaining the charm that one could associate to a world heritage location - with the warmest of welcome notes that could make any visitor here feel proud!
@Xitang
Streets as narrow as this:
And lovely bridges connecting the streets inside like these:
With such boat ways to commute from one place to another:
And, when you get food of all varieties, starting from Chicken Feet fry (something which I never realized that it exists - even beyond my wildest imagination of food based on snakes, sea horses, flies and stuff :-o) to local sweet varieties such as the Wild Walnut cake - pleasing every cadre of food lover - what more does one want for a totally mixed experience!!
Ending the first leg of Shanghai, off we were to the capital city - Beijing!!
24.Oct 2017
Shanghai to Beijing - the Chinese high speed Rail experience @ 352km/h - covering about 1200 kms in less than 4.5 hours - simply wowwwwwww!!!
A first glance @ Temple of Heaven - in the evening!
The strange habit of getting photographed wherever we go by random Chinese public continued in Beijing as well - we were rest assured that our photographs are making rounds all around the Chinese social networking sites!
Off we went to Tiananmen Square, almost the center of Beijing at the place where along with a host of tourist attractions was the location of the Forbidden City.
25.Oct 2017
Ticked off another one in my bucketlist - climbing the Great Wall of China @ Mutianyu! Good that we went to Mutianyu as this was among the few places which was less crowded all over Beijing!
@The stones are pretty heavy!! Wondering how they managed to build this mega structure extending across forests and mountains!!
@ the top of Mutianyu Great Wall!
The return from the top of the hill of the Great Wall was a funny Toboggan ride - one that we all enjoyed to the maximum!!
That night, a Pizza hut close to our Hotel saved us from a repetition of the usual dose of Soup Noodles - this is what we got there:
26.Oct 2017
A relaxed day as such during the course of our hectic schedule - as we made a short visit to the Temple of Heaven once again for all the interior chambers - stumbled upon an artist, sketching a section of the Temple of Heaven instantly!
We then made our way to the Fragrant Hills Park. But, to be honest, this place must be visited on a day with less crowds, as the heavy crowded day spoiled the charm of the place almost completely, leaving us only the Cable car ride to the top of the hill the only enjoyable activity for the whole day.
A doze of potato chips on our way to Fragrant Hills Park:
That night, at the Indian restaurant which we found very close to our hotel, it was so nice to see the neighbouring Chinese Restaurant woman wishing us a warm welcome in China - sweetly conveying it through the Indian restaurant guy :)
27.Oct 2017
Forbidden City - walking and more walking and more and more walking - the Forbidden City seemed as if it never ended - with thrones and artifacts of old Chinese emperors:
Lunch with another friend of one of our fellow travellers @ SUHU - Vegetarian Tiger. Easily the best native Chinese vegetarian food that we ate throughout our trip of China!
While my friends ventured out to some souvenir shopping, I made my way to take a quick grab at the Bird's Nest - the cauldron of the Beijing Olympic games of 2008, including the Water Cube next to it!
Quite right to the names, the stadium and the swimming pool buildings were built with utmost precision and the look of those from a distance was so grand and amazing.
Thus ended our Beijing trip, as we proceeded to our next stop - Xi'an.
28.Oct 2017
Terracotta warriors - the only spot where we visited in Xi'an - but one to remember for a long time!
Going on to Luoyang:
Luoyang - City with literally no English anywhere but a nice bunch of helpful guys starting from the taxi driver who hoarded us out of the station, our apartment owner who tried in every possible way to get us comfortable till the sweet lady at KFC next morning who helped us get some eggetarian meal in the chicken-world of KFC!
Tip - Never hesitate taking a taxi in China if you are in a group - you would really spend almost the same or just a little bit more than the metro tickets - taxis are very affordable in China!
29.Oct 2017
The quest towards finding the dwelling of Bodhidharma!!
Shaolin temple -
After the long drive to Dengfeng + the Bengaluru-cab-equivalent towards Shaolin temple, we reached the scenic area in front of the temple.
Here he was - the founder of what we know now as the KungFu!!
The KungFu show that followed was a fantastic display of grit and determination by the students of the Shaolin school of KungFu!!
After a big ping pong session with the bus and the train ticket counters, courtesy again the timely help of some strange people, we managed to get ourselves a bus ticket to Jiaozuo!! Phew, not forgetting the meal of Veg dumplings that we gulped in between!
Communication with the bus driver became an issue, when Google translate + other fellow Chinese passengers with their mobiles ensured we stayed calm and thus we waited to reach supposedly the most challenging leg of our trip to Jiaozuo!
Issues with the language didn't end there, though, when we reached our hotel to find that our room booking was missing! Again, courtesy one English-speaking woman there at the hotel who had little to do with the hotel administration came to our rescue, infact extending her help to garner information regarding the next leg of our trip and providing us detailed English translation of the same!
30.Oct 2017
Yuntaishan - simply amazing!!
Again, courtesy a strange girl who helped us book a cab to Yuntai mountain, we started our ride towards the mountains
@Red Stone Gorge - among the lowest points in the Yuntaishan Geopark
Had an awesome trek of close to 8 kms through truly amazing scenery!
A relaxed day when the only task was to take up a couple of trains to reach Shanghai via Zhengzhou!
1.Nov 2017
@Shanghai Zoo - It was all about the Giant Panda - the main attraction of China!!
The Red Panda -
The Giant Panda -
The scene of the two Giant Pandas having their grand lunch was more than enough to make the Shanghai Zoo visit a grand success!!
Bund
@ Symbol of Shanghai :)
Huangpu river cruise though a bit expensive, is one experience to be considered specially when it is dark, so that all the buildings can be witnessed in their full vibrance!
2.Nov 2017
A day dedicated for Souvenir shopping - in the areas of East Nanjing and Yuyuan Gardens - the true Old Town of Shanghai!
And ending up with this:
After visiting another friend for a quick chat, we headed towards the Pudong International Airport!
Simply mind blowing is an understatement - we tried a lot of variety of street food during the entire journey - super tasty they were, reinforcing the fact that the real taste of food of a country is always best portrayed in the street food that the country provides!! Here are some of those:
Travel has indeed made us richer with all the experiences, made us better persons and increased our capability to handle helpless situations far better - emphasizing the fact that preparation is the best way to defend a situation!!
With all these wonderful memories and great experiences, we fly back to India to sign off a memorable vacation in China and a much improved perception of this amazing country! :-)
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