Shanghai

I read somewhere on line that even that in general Spring festival is logical nightmare in China there is a small gap when travelling is actually possible because most of the Chinese stay at home with their families. There was a good flight offer from Beijing to Shanghai by China Eastern Airlines. It was two hours flight and I was excited to see what kind of tiny aircraft it might be, but I couldn’t believe my eyes when I boarded in the plane. For that two hours long domestic flight, the aircraft was same size than the one I flew from Finland to China: eight seats in a row with two aisles… That was the moment when I realized that there is huge population in China. 

In the morning of departure it was snowing in Beijing and arriving to Shanghai it was raining, which was actually the first time in almost two months that I see rain. Shanghai itself is really different from Beijing and it’s also huge. Best way to go around there is definitely use subway even that transfers and distances between stations or lines are quite long.

First stop was in Yuyuan gardens in Shanghai old town. One of the most beautiful things/places I’ve seen so far in China, I can just imagine the place spring or summer when it’s on its best. Even entering to those gardens, you have to cross the bridge of nine-zigzag. The story tells that the corners of the bridge stops evil spirits to enter to gardens because they are not able to go through that zigzag.

Another spot was called “water town” which means a bit same idea than in Venice (but not in same scale), small alleys and some canals where people move by boat. Obviously this was one just a very small one, ancient remaining of Shanghai’s history. Alleys over there were so narrow and so packed with people that walking around became so annoying at some stage that I decided to head up for somewhere else. Usually I am very good with all new food and ready to try out new things but in Shanghai and especially in that area there was one food that I would not touch, even the smell irritates me. The colour is black and it is actually called “stinky tofu” and there are no words to describe the smell of it!

Shanghai is much more modern than Beijing, mostly because the city itself has been developing rapidly since past few decades and become a business center of China. That is the story that can be seen on numerous skyscrapers and the famous bund area which is built by western nations after opium wars. A river boulevard looked much more like ones I’ve been in Europe than to be one located in China. From ancient days towards modern, we climbed up to the one skyscraper: Shanghai’s Financial Center, world highest observation deck according to Guinness World Records on year 2008 when it opened, 474 meters.  The timing was perfect, we were there just when it started to get dark so we saw Shanghai by night. After checking the view from “the sky”, I wanted to see possibly the most famous “post-card view” from Shanghai… Picture from the bund (the boulevard) towards the Shanghai towers.

It seems like in Shanghai people were a bit friendlier and also spoke better English than in Beijing. I liked Shanghai a lot, it was like mixture of West & East. I am very curious to see more places in China and compare them between each other. But before going to a new place, have to return to an old place, Beijing. In this scenario it meant 12 hrs train ride without sleeper bunk. There was no way to imagine what kind of seats were coming up, wooden flat benches or what… But it was a really positive surprise, seats actually were comfortable and a huge huge plus for me: There was lots of leg space so sleeping in the train actually was possible. 

The Chinese New Year's Eve

Red lanterns, stunning fireworks, all kind of funny little sheep items (in Chinese Luna calendar its now sheep’s year), parades, thousands of people everywhere gathering together to celebrate… Does this sound familiar? That’s what I kind of thought, but I will tell you a little different story:

First of all, Chinese New Year is not just a New Year’s eve as we have used to celebrate on 31^st Dec. Here it is start for the Spring Festival (how it is more commonly called) which last from about a week up to a month depending a little bit how you calculate it, this year the main Spring Festival week was 18.-25.2. Sheep items are true, there is on sale everything you can imagine related to sheep (or a Chinese character meaning sheep) and people were buying that stuff…

During the Spring Festival people do gather around but not with big crowds. The Spring Festival is a time for Chinese people to go with their families and relatives and spend a time with them by watching New Years’ gala show on TV (estimate 700 million viewers!!), eat well, give presents etc. From a tourists point of view that is already kind of a bad start because it mean that most of the places close their doors as people leave from Beijing. Of course in a 20 million people city there is always people around but they are scattered around, not gathering in one place. For example one of the most famous bar streets (Hou Hai), more than half of the places were closed, and those one which were open, were mostly full of internationals… So now parades or parties on the streets/bars in China on New Year’s Eve.

Fireworks, yes and red lanterns, yes. Even that here have been fireworks going on for the past couple days nearly 24/7, the firework set in New Year even wasn’t a stunning big show (compared for example last New Year eve in London.), but  there was lots of them. Here it was more like everyone were shooting fireworks on their own all over the city and I really mean all over the city, even in a middle of the roads... Interesting time for taxi drivers. Red lanterns are everywhere, because Chinese people believe that the meaning of red lanterns is to scare dragons away and fireworks to invite good luck during festivals as driving evil spirits away.

The first day of the Luna year, there are temple fairs all over the city. That is more like of a real way for Chinese to celebrate Spring Festival. I would say that there were easily more than ten different temple fairs going around in different parks all over and around Beijing. It basically is like a big city festivals: Endless amount of stalls where (again) everything can be imagined are on sale, different games to play to win prizes (like in amusement parks) or many many different food options to buy (the best part). Then of course in the middle and between there were several stages where traditional performances were taken place: dancing, acrobatics and singing (or that is how they call it, but I would call it something else…). Oh, and remembered that in China is always important to ask price before buying something. I bought a filled pineapple half for a double price because didn’t ask the price beforehand and also didn’t pay attention on actual paying process… Alright, I lost around 20rmb (3e) so it is not end of the world, plus at least those pineapples looked cool :D

Overall experience of the Spring Festival was… On the other hand it was a slightly disappointment because I was kind of expecting more, Chinese New Year in China. But kind of same happened to me in Ireland as I was slightly disappointed for St. Patricks day celebration in Ireland.. So I guess it is kind of normal feeling. But still it was an interesting experience to see it (especially temple fair) and as I said, this Spring Festival still lasts almost a week so everything can come up.

Chinese Kung Fu Show

Red Theatre in Beijing, the show called 

“Chun Yi – The Legend of Kung Fu.”

The lotus blossoms silently ;
The sunshine is weaving a rainbow;
A drop of water feeds in to an ocean;
A split second becomes eternal.

Thousands of years ago, in a mysterious land called the Middle Kingdom, many legends were created, martial arts was one of them, made famous by its name KongFu. In an ancient temple perched high on the side of a mountain, we encounter a little boy, through practicing Zen Buddhism and Kong Fu, our little monk eventually grows and finally reaches the sacred goal of enlightenment

It all started great before even the show itself because when I went to ticket office pick up tickets I reserved on-line… I was supposed to have tickets upstairs but they (girls in a ticket office) gave me tickets on fourth row of the first floor, not complaining at all! Because its not a tourist season, there were no one sitting in front of us so we had an excellent view on the stage.

About the show, one word to describe: Awesome! Music, lights, the story and skillful actors – all was just built together as a one great show. It was divided in six different scenes lasting 1,5 hours in total, and during that time there were not even a single boring moment.

After the show theatre offered an option for crowd to go on a stage to take pictures with the stars which was so cool! It only did cost 20rmb (about 3e) to do so and if you decided to buy something from the souvenir shop they did compensate the price off from the item purchased, which is very clever I think. I bought the book about Tai Chi, we will see am I actually ever going to read it but at least it remains as a great memory for myself.

Ps. Video trailer of the show can be viewed here: The Legend of Kung Fu Trailer

Chinese Karaoke Evening

The English school where Baiba is working had won some kind of competition between other centers in Beijing so they arranged some leisure activity for their staff. Luckily they told to Baiba to invite also me to spend evening with them… I heard that it was going to be karaoke night, cool!

After everyone had finish their work the whole group (around 15 people) head towards one KTV (which means karaoke in here) place. First of all, karaoke places in here are something completely different than I have seen before. When we first entered the place, there was a front desk and a bar/shop for drinks. They will guide people according their reservation to some designated room that have been booked. Yes, a room. Here you go with a group (work colleagues, friends etc.) and rent a room for karaoke so there is no need  at stand on a stage in front of all people. The room we were in was about 10-15sq meters, it had two flat screen TVs on both sides and a video projector to show chosen karaoke songs on a big screen, plus nice couches with bar-tables. Everything worked with touch screen where it was possible to adjust volume, choose songs etc. Oh and not to forget, there was even a mirror ball on the sealing to create some atmosphere.

When you book the room, you can order some drinks there already but in the case they ran out or anything else is needed there is only one thing that you have to do: Press “service” button next to the door and a staff member will run there and you can order some more drinks (or whatever is the case)… How handy is that!  

Chinese seems to like sing karaoke and even I was brave enough to give it a go (or actually I was kind of forced under the pressure) since there were also good collection of English songs… When playing a karaoke song, it is possible to choose how the song will be played, instrumental or not. As my turn came up the song was only instrumental but after I started to sing few lines, someone did a friendly favour to everyone and turned the real vocalist voice on so my voice kind of disappeared. I knew already that I can’t sing and now it is proven again. After my song I concentrated to play a drinking games by using dice with two other guys… That was more for me.  

Despite my singing skills, evening itself was a really great experience!

The Forbidden City

The Forbidden City – Home of 24 Chinese emperors during Ming and Qing dynasties, nowadays UNESCO world heritage site. It is also the largest palace complex in the world covering in total of 74 hectares surrounded by a 52-meter wide moan and a 10-meter high walls. Yes, in China everything seems to be big.

First part of the palace is called the outer court which mainly served as ceremonial purposes and second part was the one where the Emperor and his family used to live and take care of day-to-day state administration. Of course if going more special than the main divide for two parts, there are also Six Eastern and Six Western palaces, Imperial Garden etc. If there is more than 8700 rooms, you might guess that there would be plenty of names to mention...

Entering through the gates into the Forbidden City a view of five small bridges crossing a water and after huge bronze lions guarding the stairs to the palace where the emperor used to sit down on his throne. All round the the Forbidden City there were many of those bronze statues because they were meant to scare the evil spirits away. I read before that recommended time of visit would be 3-4 hours but I thought it was slightly over timed, but after passing those gates (and few palace halls) I realised that it actually was a real estimate, maybe even a bit too less. That’s why this post is called part 1 because so far I saw main palaces, treasure hall and Qianlong Garden plus NW residence area…

What I didn’t see, for example Imperial Garden and “few” more other things, I just have to check later on spring. And in total so far my visit took around three hours and I would say that few more is needed. Now it wasn’t even a season time so I can imagine that during the season when the place is crowded it could take even more, because already now there was a need to few times fight the way through of taking a picture – being a tall in this case comes very handy ;-)

The main palace building had more or less same kind of architecture than for example Temple of Heaven had, but that is because both are built around same time and used for ceremonial purposes, for example yellow is quite dominant colour that can be seem even in roof tiles and that's because yellow colour represents power so it was also the main colour of emperor.  While walking around the area there was few times as we were stopped when someone wanted to take photo with us. Most nicest one was a Chinese family (or small group, who knows..) whose kids wanted to be in a picture with two tall Westerners. Those kids were so happy that smile on their ears were all way up to their ears, maybe they have now something to show in school for their friends. And yes, even in China, most of the tourist seems to be Chinese (at least on their family roots)

The treasure hall / Qianlong Garden part was worth of going. There were some jewellery, jade statues with amazingly detailed carvings (f.ex. one piece weighted 5 tons and carving work had took six years to complete) and a theatre stage which was for emperors amusement purposes, plus many other beautiful areas / rooms / palaces…

I will return on that place later on to see rest of the things but already one thing is for certain, that palace complex would be an ideal place to play hide and seek.