It's been more than a year since I went back to China last time. Now it is spring time, the change of season is usually very swift in Beijing during this time of the year. I had been looking forward to this trip back home for a long time, a lot has happened during the last year. The Beijing Olympics was a great success, but then the world recession is hitting the world's factory China very hard as well. I was very keen to find out how things are going in China and I also organized to meet my close friends (one of which was a long lost friend from University time).
Arrived in Beijing on an unexpected rainy day. It was great to see my parents, my sister and her husband. They were joking that we have brought the rain from wet England, as it had not rained in Beijing for nearly two months.
It was nice to be in my flat again, it seems to be quite spacious compared with our flat in Holland Park in London. now there is new subway station within 5 minutes walk. The area has gone through so much new development with upmarket shopping malls and coffee shops spiraling along the third ring road.
We had a lazy lay in the next morning, and then we had a stroll to the French cafe "Le Tout les Jours". It is a new cafe chain, with modern decor and furniture. The staff were very young and friendly, as you would expect in a upmarket place like this in the city. The coffee tastes surprisingly very good, while we sat down by the window table and looking out, we both thought of Paul, the French coffee shop in London. The Paul in Holland park is very nice, but it is more on the rusty side of the old French style. This cafe has more young and chic flavour, equipped with wireless network. Can you see yourself spending lazy mornings here with your laptop, I asked Mark, oh, yes, I can. Mark said, with a smile on this face.
Still jetlagged, we embarked on the train to Guilin. It was Marks' idea to take the 22 hour train down to Guilin. I warned him before we came, "The Chinese trains are not as advanced and modern as these in Europe". Equipped with the idea of expecting the worst, we found the long journey quite bearable. We had an interesting family in our so called “soft sleeper” carriage. The Chinese man was with his mom and 11 year old daughter. He actually works and lives in UK for more than 10 years, the girl speaks perfect native English. They were back in China visiting family and taking his mom for an operation in Beijing and now on their way to their hometown in south China. The girl is very cute and a lively character. We had a chat with them from time to time. Most of the time during the day, we sat by the window and watched the landscapes passing by. At one stop in a small station, we saw a small old man from local village made a swift dive through the bottom of the train, before we moved to the other side of the train to check if he made through safely, he was already through the rail, and climbed up to the road by the side. We smiled, and I said, “that was impressive, wasn’t it?” Mark looked at the little figure disappearing in the narrow country road, said “Yes, he probably had done it hundreds of times, practice makes it perfect.” The food on the train was just as bad as I could remember from 20 years ago on the train, probably worse as the food standard in China has improved significantly in these years. And the dining carriage is still managed very much like as communist canteen although they charge you a hefty price (by Chinese standard) for some terrible meals. But we survived, the train passed the Yangzi River at night, I was drifting in and out of sleep while the train made a few stops in some major cities on the river.
Our spirits were quite high when we got off the train, it was early afternoon, the warm and humid air embraced us. We were very glad to have had this train journey, it was more fun than taking the plane except the tiredness from the long hours. On the way in the taxi to Sheraton, we got a glimpse of the city. Lots of bicycles and motobikes, a green and fresh looking city with a few small lakes and rivers running through. Sheraton is just located by the famous River Li, it started to drizzle a bit when we went out to have a walk along the river bank. It is the “Plum Rainy season” right now in the south, so we expect to get rain here.
The next day we did the usual tourist thing, a group tour on the boat cruising down the river. It was a bit unusual experience for Mark. We were sitting with some people from Northeast region in China, which are known for their rather outgoing characters. They were really enjoying themselves during the trip, laughing and talking quite loud. Fun crowd, we thought although slightly on the noisy side. The scenery we passed is beautiful, with green limestone hills in various shapes. And we were being blasted nearly all the time with broadcasting from tour guide on the different attractions and legendary stories in this region. The view on the 2nd level of the boat was fantastic, you feel as if you were travelling in a giant refined Chinese painting. One highlight of the trip was the “pig haggling”. While we were sitting on the boat, there are a few bamboo rafts coming close to our boat, and after hooking their rafts on our boat, they started selling various art objects to the passengers on board. The objects are some crafted stones looking like cabbage, Buddha and some animals. One thing caught our eye was a pig, it has a cute looking around face and body with an innocent smile. We waved to the vendor who was holding the pig in his hand, he came close to us and showed us the pig, it was a lovely silly creature, we asked the price and within a few minutes, the deal is done, we got it for 50 yuan (5 pounds). Pleased with our purchase, we put it on the table and play around with it. This pig drew some huge attention, soon everybody at our table asked for a pig, they started bargaining with the vendor as a group, within 10 minutes, all the pigs on the bamboo rafts were sold out. We had a real good laugh about it and gave the pig to my parents when we came back to Beijing. Both of them and my sister love it. Well, it is a very small price to pay for a simple pleasure.
After the big boat cruise on the river, we decided to take a less commercialized scheme to see more of the countryside. We got a small bamboo raft the next day. Most of these bamboo rafts are run as a family business. We met a woman on the river bank, who turns out to be the sister of the guy who owns the raft. We had a brief chat with her while she walked us to the other side of the river to meet her brother. She told us he couldn’t pick us up on this side of the river because the local police patrol are in operation around here and they are prohibited from taking customers here. She and her husband have a boat as well, and they have a son who is finishing University this summer but fears there is no jobs for him due to the Economy downturn in China. In the past, these new graduates usually go to Canton, a more prosperous region driven by the export business in the south coast, but now even there the jobs are drying up. I feel bad for her and her son, they have worked very hard to send him to University but now there is no job for him.
We got on a bamboo raft and started our second day of cruising down the river. This turns out to be a more interesting trip. It started raining very heavily, so it became very quiet and peaceful on the river. All the tourist boat seemed to have gone and only us the mad ones were still on the boat enjoying the tranquillity and beauty of nature. We were actually sheltered from the rain as there is a roof on the raft. The water is very clear, with reflections of green hills. We stopped from time to time to visit local fishing villages and have a look around. It must be tough life to be a fisherman here compared with more lucrative jobs these days in the city. There is one ancient town called Da Xu is the most intriguing one. There is one narrow alley running through the town, with wooden houses by the side which are 300 years old. Some of the houses are in quite distressed condition. We saw one young woman making a bamboo basket in her yard, and we tentatively stepped in when an old granny looking woman waved at us. She must have seen us looking very curious, she smiled us and asked us to come in and have a look. We walked into the house, she started showing us around – the interesting small hollow yard in the middle of the house, where the rain water drops through to the ground. I guess it is designed to get more light inside the house. She pointed out some well-crafted old wooden furniture on the side and said it is 200 years old. “this is where my grandchildren live”, she said it pointing to the small loft on the top. We can see the whole house is in a very bad shape, needing some major renovation work. While we were at the back garden, she proudly showed us the potted plants she has, “aren’t they beautiful”, she said to us. Out of curiosity, I asked where the toilet is, she must have misunderstood me and said “just here”, pointing to the back where there was a small brick walled shed, “do you want to use it” she asked me. I felt a bit embarrassed. “No, actually no”, I replied. We left her with 20 yuan, she thanked us graciously and we said goodbye. Walking back on the alley running by the side of the river, we noticed there were some new houses being built along side the houses on the street. It is really like seeing new China clashing with old China in one miniature version here. Obviously the villagers who decide to stay in this old town have not had the equal fortune as the ones ventured out to the cities, but on the other hand, who is to say the city life style is necessarily better and they might be more happy here where their ancesters have lived for centuries.
Our last day in Guilin, we went to see the terraced mountains in a county with 2 hours drive from Guilin. We got a taxi outside the hotel. The driver is an outgoing character and very keen to learn English. He surprised us with the English words he knows. It is not easy to learn a foreign language for an adult if you haven’t studied the basics, but he managed to learn a lot of words from his customers from English, America, etc, just little by little. I admire his drive for learning, I wish we have more taxi drivers like him in China, that would make the foreign tourists life much easier in China! The terraced fields were very impressive, they are rice fields built on hills, there are so many of them in that county. There are two minority ethnic groups living there. Their hard work from 500 years has created a very unique and breathtaking landscape that thousands of people admire today. Now this place has become a tourist attraction as well, there is a village in the centre of the terraced hills where there are guest houses and restaurants for the city people to “experience the farm life”. We walked all the way up to the highest fields, it was a nice walk with terraced fields running up and down the hills around this. We noticed there were some road work going on the other side of the mountain. Later on we learned from the driver this is another road being build which will take tourists to other villages as well. We feel a bit sad about this, soon the unique landscape here will be cut to pieces by the big roads crossing through. In a developing country, it is not easy to get the right balance between development and environmental reservation. A typical example is in Yang Shuo, a beautiful small town with a lot of limestone mountains along the River Li, there is a big motorway going through the town, with very little traffic on it. This was a very controversial project when it started, a lot of scientists and geologists objected to the idea, but it still got built partly due to the ambitious local government.
When we came back to Beijing in a week later, spring has leaped into the summer, it was sunny and very warm. We went to the art district 798 factory, where the Chinese modern art is really thriving. Since our last visit a year ago, some of the Chinese artists have become well known in the International arena. We also went to see a contemporary art exhibition called “Art Beijing”, which was apparently a commercial scheme to push the sales of modern art. On the way out, we saw a few guys selling the exhibition catalogue. The official price is 180 Yuan but we got bargain from them for 35 yuan. It is not fake, judging from the fine paper and good print quality. We suspect they got them very cheap from people who got them free, so this is China – you should always look around and shop for a bargain!
We spent a day at my parents townhouse in the countryside, there has been new additions to this huge luxious development. Apart from the existing town houses and detached houses, they have built a lot courtyard houses mocking the southeast China style, with grey brick walls, bamboo by the pond, and some rock sculptures in the garden. The new rick in China is definitely still growing at impressive speed everyday. We played Ping Pong with my parents, my dad is still very good at it, we had a few double games and a few mixed double games, of course most of the time the Chinese team beat the English team...
Before we arrived in Beijing, I booked us for two hiking trips in the mountains around Beijing with my favourite hiking group “Beijing Hikers”. They have been doing very well, now the founder’s sister is getting married with a New Zealander. They certainly don’t have to worry about lacking of customers, since I left China, they have bumped price by 80% but they are still fully booked in every trip. I was just so happy to be back hiking again, walking on the old wall, looking at the broken towers on the rolling hills, enjoying the perfect combination of nature and culture. The second hike was quite hard-core, Mark and I had to take turns to carry our rucksack as there was some very steep path going up. But the view was fantastic on the top and we enjoyed the climbing as well. Lunch was arranged in a village after the hard climb, the food was surprisingly good, a lot of fresh vegetables and some barbecued fish. As usual, the crowd was friendly and quite sociable.
When we were in Beijing, most of the evenings we were busy meeting up my friends. A few of them had babies in the last two years, and I can see the focus of the family certainly have changed a lot. One of the evenings we went to have a drink in a swanky bar on top of the tallest building (so far) in Beijing, it is part of Hyatt hotel. The view was nice, but the cocktails don’t come cheap, actually they almost charge you London price. We ordered two cocktails and one non alcohol cocktail, it came 400 yuan including service charge.
One of our favourite places in Beijing is still the Hu Tongs, we had a good day out going around the Hu Tongs, this is where you still get a glimpse of “old Beijing” which is moving over for the big modern developments. One evening we went to the Vienamese restaurant Nuage for dinner, excellent food wand great view, just as I remembered.
Our spirits were quite high when we got off the train, it was early afternoon, the warm and humid air embraced us. We were very glad to have had this train journey, it was more fun than taking the plane except the tiredness from the long hours. On the way in the taxi to Sheraton, we got a glimpse of the city. Lots of bicycles and motobikes, a green and fresh looking city with a few small lakes and rivers running through. Sheraton is just located by the famous River Li, it started to drizzle a bit when we went out to have a walk along the river bank. It is the “Plum Rainy season” right now in the south, so we expect to get rain here.
The next day we did the usual tourist thing, a group tour on the boat cruising down the river. It was a bit unusual experience for Mark. We were sitting with some people from Northeast region in China, which are known for their rather outgoing characters. They were really enjoying themselves during the trip, laughing and talking quite loud. Fun crowd, we thought although slightly on the noisy side. The scenery we passed is beautiful, with green limestone hills in various shapes. And we were being blasted nearly all the time with broadcasting from tour guide on the different attractions and legendary stories in this region. The view on the 2nd level of the boat was fantastic, you feel as if you were travelling in a giant refined Chinese painting. One highlight of the trip was the “pig haggling”. While we were sitting on the boat, there are a few bamboo rafts coming close to our boat, and after hooking their rafts on our boat, they started selling various art objects to the passengers on board. The objects are some crafted stones looking like cabbage, Buddha and some animals. One thing caught our eye was a pig, it has a cute looking around face and body with an innocent smile. We waved to the vendor who was holding the pig in his hand, he came close to us and showed us the pig, it was a lovely silly creature, we asked the price and within a few minutes, the deal is done, we got it for 50 yuan (5 pounds). Pleased with our purchase, we put it on the table and play around with it. This pig drew some huge attention, soon everybody at our table asked for a pig, they started bargaining with the vendor as a group, within 10 minutes, all the pigs on the bamboo rafts were sold out. We had a real good laugh about it and gave the pig to my parents when we came back to Beijing. Both of them and my sister love it. Well, it is a very small price to pay for a simple pleasure.
After the big boat cruise on the river, we decided to take a less commercialized scheme to see more of the countryside. We got a small bamboo raft the next day. Most of these bamboo rafts are run as a family business. We met a woman on the river bank, who turns out to be the sister of the guy who owns the raft. We had a brief chat with her while she walked us to the other side of the river to meet her brother. She told us he couldn’t pick us up on this side of the river because the local police patrol are in operation around here and they are prohibited from taking customers here. She and her husband have a boat as well, and they have a son who is finishing University this summer but fears there is no jobs for him due to the Economy downturn in China. In the past, these new graduates usually go to Canton, a more prosperous region driven by the export business in the south coast, but now even there the jobs are drying up. I feel bad for her and her son, they have worked very hard to send him to University but now there is no job for him.
We got on a bamboo raft and started our second day of cruising down the river. This turns out to be a more interesting trip. It started raining very heavily, so it became very quiet and peaceful on the river. All the tourist boat seemed to have gone and only us the mad ones were still on the boat enjoying the tranquillity and beauty of nature. We were actually sheltered from the rain as there is a roof on the raft. The water is very clear, with reflections of green hills. We stopped from time to time to visit local fishing villages and have a look around. It must be tough life to be a fisherman here compared with more lucrative jobs these days in the city. There is one ancient town called Da Xu is the most intriguing one. There is one narrow alley running through the town, with wooden houses by the side which are 300 years old. Some of the houses are in quite distressed condition. We saw one young woman making a bamboo basket in her yard, and we tentatively stepped in when an old granny looking woman waved at us. She must have seen us looking very curious, she smiled us and asked us to come in and have a look. We walked into the house, she started showing us around – the interesting small hollow yard in the middle of the house, where the rain water drops through to the ground. I guess it is designed to get more light inside the house. She pointed out some well-crafted old wooden furniture on the side and said it is 200 years old. “this is where my grandchildren live”, she said it pointing to the small loft on the top. We can see the whole house is in a very bad shape, needing some major renovation work. While we were at the back garden, she proudly showed us the potted plants she has, “aren’t they beautiful”, she said to us. Out of curiosity, I asked where the toilet is, she must have misunderstood me and said “just here”, pointing to the back where there was a small brick walled shed, “do you want to use it” she asked me. I felt a bit embarrassed. “No, actually no”, I replied. We left her with 20 yuan, she thanked us graciously and we said goodbye. Walking back on the alley running by the side of the river, we noticed there were some new houses being built along side the houses on the street. It is really like seeing new China clashing with old China in one miniature version here. Obviously the villagers who decide to stay in this old town have not had the equal fortune as the ones ventured out to the cities, but on the other hand, who is to say the city life style is necessarily better and they might be more happy here where their ancesters have lived for centuries.
Our last day in Guilin, we went to see the terraced mountains in a county with 2 hours drive from Guilin. We got a taxi outside the hotel. The driver is an outgoing character and very keen to learn English. He surprised us with the English words he knows. It is not easy to learn a foreign language for an adult if you haven’t studied the basics, but he managed to learn a lot of words from his customers from English, America, etc, just little by little. I admire his drive for learning, I wish we have more taxi drivers like him in China, that would make the foreign tourists life much easier in China! The terraced fields were very impressive, they are rice fields built on hills, there are so many of them in that county. There are two minority ethnic groups living there. Their hard work from 500 years has created a very unique and breathtaking landscape that thousands of people admire today. Now this place has become a tourist attraction as well, there is a village in the centre of the terraced hills where there are guest houses and restaurants for the city people to “experience the farm life”. We walked all the way up to the highest fields, it was a nice walk with terraced fields running up and down the hills around this. We noticed there were some road work going on the other side of the mountain. Later on we learned from the driver this is another road being build which will take tourists to other villages as well. We feel a bit sad about this, soon the unique landscape here will be cut to pieces by the big roads crossing through. In a developing country, it is not easy to get the right balance between development and environmental reservation. A typical example is in Yang Shuo, a beautiful small town with a lot of limestone mountains along the River Li, there is a big motorway going through the town, with very little traffic on it. This was a very controversial project when it started, a lot of scientists and geologists objected to the idea, but it still got built partly due to the ambitious local government.
When we came back to Beijing in a week later, spring has leaped into the summer, it was sunny and very warm. We went to the art district 798 factory, where the Chinese modern art is really thriving. Since our last visit a year ago, some of the Chinese artists have become well known in the International arena. We also went to see a contemporary art exhibition called “Art Beijing”, which was apparently a commercial scheme to push the sales of modern art. On the way out, we saw a few guys selling the exhibition catalogue. The official price is 180 Yuan but we got bargain from them for 35 yuan. It is not fake, judging from the fine paper and good print quality. We suspect they got them very cheap from people who got them free, so this is China – you should always look around and shop for a bargain!
We spent a day at my parents townhouse in the countryside, there has been new additions to this huge luxious development. Apart from the existing town houses and detached houses, they have built a lot courtyard houses mocking the southeast China style, with grey brick walls, bamboo by the pond, and some rock sculptures in the garden. The new rick in China is definitely still growing at impressive speed everyday. We played Ping Pong with my parents, my dad is still very good at it, we had a few double games and a few mixed double games, of course most of the time the Chinese team beat the English team...
Before we arrived in Beijing, I booked us for two hiking trips in the mountains around Beijing with my favourite hiking group “Beijing Hikers”. They have been doing very well, now the founder’s sister is getting married with a New Zealander. They certainly don’t have to worry about lacking of customers, since I left China, they have bumped price by 80% but they are still fully booked in every trip. I was just so happy to be back hiking again, walking on the old wall, looking at the broken towers on the rolling hills, enjoying the perfect combination of nature and culture. The second hike was quite hard-core, Mark and I had to take turns to carry our rucksack as there was some very steep path going up. But the view was fantastic on the top and we enjoyed the climbing as well. Lunch was arranged in a village after the hard climb, the food was surprisingly good, a lot of fresh vegetables and some barbecued fish. As usual, the crowd was friendly and quite sociable.
When we were in Beijing, most of the evenings we were busy meeting up my friends. A few of them had babies in the last two years, and I can see the focus of the family certainly have changed a lot. One of the evenings we went to have a drink in a swanky bar on top of the tallest building (so far) in Beijing, it is part of Hyatt hotel. The view was nice, but the cocktails don’t come cheap, actually they almost charge you London price. We ordered two cocktails and one non alcohol cocktail, it came 400 yuan including service charge.
One of our favourite places in Beijing is still the Hu Tongs, we had a good day out going around the Hu Tongs, this is where you still get a glimpse of “old Beijing” which is moving over for the big modern developments. One evening we went to the Vienamese restaurant Nuage for dinner, excellent food wand great view, just as I remembered.
On the day leaving Beijing, I realized how much I enjoyed being back in my home town and home country. It is an exciting place to be in, and we are planning to come back for a holiday next year as well. Who knows, we might decide to relocate to China one day, not a bad idea, uh!
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