Highlights

Wow, this holiday has gone by so fast.  It has been absolutely brilliant.  I have loved every minute in Beijing, and definitely want to see more of China and Asia.  Just fantastic.

The highlights... there are so many of them!  Seeing the Great Wall of China, that has to be right there at the top.  The Lama Temple, the Temple of Heaven, visiting a local market, the 798 art district, the Forbidden City, the Summer Palace, Confucius Temple, Botanical Gardens, negotiating the subway... just incredible places.

A local market

Jessie and I in the Forbidden City

But for me, seeing my two friends Brad & Kimberly, was just awesome.  I hadn't seen them in so long, it was great to spend time with them, and get to know them again after almost 10 years!

Kimberly & me

Brad trying out the new hat I bought

What an awesome holiday this has been!!

Learning

Things I have learnt about China so far:

• Chinese people do NOT queue.  This is a strange and alien concept to me.  After all, I’m British, and if it’s one thing us British folk are good at, it’s queuing.  In China however, you do not queue, no matter how British you are.  The Chinese will push, pull and shove to make their way to the front and if you just stand there patiently waiting for your turn you will be standing there for a long, long time.
• Chinese people stare.  Like, really stare.  White people are not a common occurrence in China.  Especially tall white people like me.  Children literally stopped and stared at me.  Grown men stopped their conversations as I walked past and turned around to watch me walk away.  Women look at me in confusion.  Today, Jessie and I were sitting at a café, and I noticed that a woman had stopped to take a picture of us.  It is very odd.  But, as my friend Kimberly says…
• See no evil, hear no evil and smell no evil.  For it does smell here.  Quite a bit.  Not everywhere (particularly the tourist places), but in a lot of parts.  It is no wonder really, when toddlers do not wear diapers, but instead have holes in their clothes where their bottoms are, and are expected to squat and relieve themselves anywhere.  You have to shut your mind off to the smell, otherwise it will drive you mad.  After a while, you don’t notice it.  Which makes me wonder… I’m becoming immune to the smell, and smell lingers.  Do I smell?  Will my parents greet me at the airport by hugging me and holding their noses?
• Food.  Food is very different here.  Obviously – I’m in China.  However, if you come to China and you expect to eat the type of Chinese food that you would have delivered to your door back home, you are badly mistaken.  Tonight, I’ve had bean sprouts and noodles with a friend egg.  Last night I had grated potato, cauliflower, omelette and blanched tomato.  Eggs and tomato are a staple part to the Chinese diet.
• Driving is CRAZY here.  The roads have lanes, but they’re more of a guideline to follow rather than a requirement.  Cars swerve all over the place, and you’re unlikely to go two minutes without hearing a car horn.  People do not look before they change lanes and cars are forever swerving to avoid a collision.  It’s terrifying.
• People spit.  All the time.  This is normal and accepted.  You must be aware of your surroundings, or you risk being spat on.  Not just normal spit either - big hunks of phlegm.  Children, women and men do this.  Anywhere (though I have yet to see this happen inside).  The belief is apparently, that your body is filled with evil toxins, and spitting them out gets rid of them.

The Great Wall

My alarm went off at 7.30am.  I looked at Jessie who did not look amused to be awoken at this time and thought ‘bugger this’, and swiftly switched the alarm off.  I closed my eyes, and the next thing I know, Jessie is waking me up telling me it’s 8.30am and the driver will be here in 30 minutes to take us to the Great Wall of China.

A bit of rushing followed as I had a shower, grabbed a bite to eat, packed my backpack, put on make-up and had my morning cigarette.  We were 15 minutes late.  Oops.  The drive to the Great Wall was uneventful – mainly because I was asleep the whole time.  Though somehow I still managed to get motion sickness.

Once we arrived at the Great Wall, we needed to buy our tickets.  Easier said than done.  We didn’t fancy the walk up to the wall, so we opted to go on the cable car instead.  We each bought our own ticket.  Then we realised we hadn’t bought the same ticket.  There was much confusion as we tried to figure out which cable car we had booked and how to return one of the tickets.  The cashiers were not impressed with us.

But we managed to sort it out – eventually.  Then we came to the cable cars.  They didn’t stop for you – you had to stand in front of it with your back to it and lean back and jump up then quickly pull the safety-bar down over you before you left the safety of the platform and were faced with the very, very long drop down in to the trees.  The ride itself was very nice and relaxing and the view was excellent.  Then we had to get off.  There were signs that said to lift the safety-bar before you got to the platform.  We ignored those – there was no way in hell that we were going to sit in a chair with nothing stopping us from falling hundreds of meters to our death.  So once we got to the platform we had to quickly push up the safety-bar and jump of and run to avoid the cable to car from knocking you over.  I’m ashamed to say that we both squealed as we made our way to safety and away from the cable car.

The Wall itself is amazing. It took my breath away.  We spent a good few hours exploring it.  We saw huge insects, and I saw a massive spider about the size of my hand eating an insect of about the same size.  As my knee was starting to hurt a bit, we decided to take a break and have our lunch.  Then Jessie explored the wall further.  I lay down in the shade, enjoying the surroundings and fell asleep.  The next thing I know, 45 minutes had passed me by.  I had fallen asleep on the Great Wall of China.  My parents have always said that I could sleep anywhere – and now I know it’s true!

The Great Wall

Me posing

Toboggan ride!

To get back down from the Wall, we went on a toboggan – which is SO MUCH FUN.  I wanted to go back up the Wall just to go back down again.  It was brilliant.

It was early evening by the time we arrived back home.  After everyone had gone to bed, we thought it would be fun to watch a DVD.  Could we get the DVD player to work?  Of course not.  We were unplugging things, plugging things in, fiddling with things and trying to work out the TV control.  The TV control is in Chinese.  We soon gave up and watched a DVD on Jessie’s laptop instead.

The next day (having learnt from my mistake from the previous day) I got up at 8am.  We went to the Temple of Heaven and the Lama Temple.  Both were absolutely amazing.  We did manage to get lost in the Temple of Heaven – not our fault though, the map was wrong!  And in the end it was nice – it meant we had our lunch in a lovely park part of the Temple.

Me in posing again

Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests, inside the Temple of Heaven complex.

The buildings were stunning, absolutely beautiful, and the history of the place is fascinating.  We both loved it, and of course posed for lots of tourist style pictures.  After a few hours, we returned to our driver (but not before exploring a small local market) who took us to the Lama Temple.  Also amazing.  I watched some locals light up their incense and pray.  Took pictures of the various religious buildings and statues, and soaked up the atmosphere.

Part of the Lama Temple

Locals praying

China is great!

Flying to China

I’m currently in China and it is absolutely AMAZING.  Am having such a good time.

Jessie and I arrived at Newcastle airport in the afternoon, whereupon I had a quick smoke, fearing it would be my last cigarette for quite a while.  I also wanted to take a picture to document our adventure.  I couldn't find my camera.  Panic ensued as I desperately searched through my bag trying to locate it, with Jessie trying to comfort me by saying she had packed two cameras so I could use one of hers.  For those of you that know me at all (and since you’re reading this, I assume you do know me!), I am never far from my camera.  Luckily, I found it in the end.

We checked in, passed through security without a problem.  But as we sat by our terminal, panic set in again – this time it was Jessie fearing she had lost her passport and ticket.  We had been in a few shops, and Jessie was terrified that somehow she had manage to drop it or forget it somewhere.  So out came everything in Jessie’s bag – and I mean everything!  Seriously, Mary Poppins’ bag had nothing on Jessie’s bag.  Again, luckily she found it.

Jessie struggles to find her passport...

The short one-hour flight to Amsterdam was uneventful.  Apart from this really obese (and I mean, really, really obese) man staring at me.  For the whole flight, he was staring at me.  I looked up from my book – he was staring.  I looked up from eating my lunch – he was staring.  It was a tad bit uncomfortable, to say the least.  Then as I was getting out of my seat, he was grinning at me.  Standing in the aisle, waiting to get off the plane, I was pushed back in to him by the man in front of me.  I was afraid to turn around to­­ see his reaction.  Luckily, the doors opened and I could make a quick exit.  But as I turned around to wait for Jessie (we were sitting in different parts of the plane), he winked at me.  It was terrifying.

In Amsterdam we only had an hour to wait for our next flight, so we quickly made our way to the terminal (after I had had another cigarette of course – and this really was the last cigarette of the journey).  There was a brief moment of worry when the air hostess claimed that Jessie’s ticket had already been used, but luckily that was soon rectified.

The flight itself was uneventful, though long – about 10 hours.  I only managed to sleep for about 30 minutes, so instead I kept myself occupied by starting and finishing The Hunger Games (which I enjoyed) and watching some movies.  One of the movies made me cry, which made my neighbour give me a slightly confused and worried look (again, Jessie and I were in different seats).

Then, finally – we arrived in Beijing.  The first thing on my to-do list?  Go outside for a cigarette.  By this point I hadn’t had a cigarette for about 11 hours.  It was torture.  Jessie laughed and shook her head at my desperate dash outside to find somewhere where I could smoke.  I could almost hear her smug (but lovely!) thoughts as she sat down in a relaxed manner waiting for our friend to arrive to pick us up.  Where Jessie was relaxed, I was a nervous wreck – jumping from foot to foot, fidgeting and trying my best not to be snappy with anyone (which wasn’t easy when a very nice but all-knowing English couple chided me for smoking).

We met up with my friend, Kimberly and her driver.  I hadn’t seen her in almost 10 years and she looked exactly the same – cool, calm, collected and somewhat crazy.  I have definitely missed her!  As it was only 1pm Beijing-time, we decided to accompany her on some chores.  We went to this awesome market place.  Jessie and I had fun exploring, exclaiming at various different exotic articles for sale – paintings, portraits, furniture, vases, a turtle…

Map of the market

Turtle for sale - in a far too small cage :-(

We stopped at a few more places, but by this point I was exhausted and was struggling to keep my eyes open.  I was in dire need of a bed.  Or a seat.  Or, to be honest, the pavement was looking like a pretty good place to lie down in my sleep-deprived mind.  After a tour of the house (which is amazing by the way), I collapsed on the bed and slept for a few hours.  Bliss.  I only woke up briefly to feed myself and then returned to the land of nod.

Antarctica

Note: this entry is written over a number of days - the start of a new day is after the pictures.

I've just been to the Stanley on the Falkland Islands.  Awesome place.  It feels so British, and most residents have a very vague London accent - bizarre!  Loved it.

It's amazing here.  The air is crisp.  The sky is bright.  I feel alive.  The scenery is breathtaking.  It's absolutely gorgeous.  The penguins are so cute!  I think I want to stay here forever.

Oh my word, I feel so sick.  The sea is incredibly rough.  It's Christmas and I feel like I'm dying.  I can't do anything, just feel incredibly nauseous.  Don't even mention food.  Urgh.

Was taken to the hospital on board ship... severely dehydrated due to no food & water intake for a few days.  Took the doc a long time to find a decent enough vein to re-hydrate me.  Horrible.

Back at home now - what an incredible experience!  Almost 14 days of travelling and seeing some breathtaking sights - wow.