Ok, lets try to wrap this thing up!
Last time I left you our heroes were on a train which would, after only 15 hours or so, take them to the big city:
Shanghai!
We had hardly arrived and stepped out of the Subway before we were approached by 3 lovely young Shanghai-ites who wanted to practice their English. Sally, Stephen and Sophia - yes I know, I was very confused as well when I heard their names but its apparently fairly common in China to have a western name. In this case they got them from their English teacher. We talked for a bit and we found out that they were going to a tea ceremony close by, right now there is an expo in Shanghai (you can see the mascot, "Haibao", his name made out of the kanji for 'person', everywhere you go) with the slogan "better city, better life" and so many cultural events are being held all over the city.
We decided to join them and so marched with all our belongings (very meager compared to all other backpackers we met) and went into this small tea ceremony room where a Chinese lady gave us five different kinds to try and our new friends translated for us the history of each tea and the story behind their names. At one point she picked up a small yarn-like ball, put it in the glass and told us to watch carefully. Before long, it started to open up before our eyes, revealing first a small white flower and then a few seconds later a long stemmed yellow flower burst out from the white one and stretched all the way to the top of the glass. Very pretty.
When we left they gave us two each as a souvenir.
We found our hostel, checked in and hit the streets. I quickly fell in love with Shanghai with its tall buildings, each more magnificent than the next. It is really such a multicultural city, walking around I saw more foreigners than in all my time in Japan. The sun shone, people did Tai Chi in the parks, played hacky sack, lounged around on the grass talking and eating and just seemed so darn happy!
We went to the Bundt district which has some very tall, modern buildings, planned to go to the tallest tower but it was incredibly expensive so all such plans were canceled.
The next day we switched hostels because of springy mattresses and found a better one, albeit a bit far from the center. That day Svanni had a bit of a misunderstanding with the washing machine, apparently there was toilet paper in one of the pockets of the clothes she was washing so they were now all completely covered in little snippets of paper. Unfortunately for me, I had put my shirt in there with her clothes so it stayed half-white until we got back home to Japan.
Donning her now only set of clothes, Svanni went to the mall and bought a new shirt. I must say I was impressed with the destructive power of toilet paper and will be careful in the future not to recreate this little mistake.
The 19th we woke up early and went to the train station. With the help of some more of Shanghai's youth we bought tickets to Guangzhou in the south of China - we would be leaving Sunday as all other tickets were sold out. This meant two more days in Shanghai.
That day we went to see Longhua temple - of course it was being renovated like every other sightseeing spot of the trip! Because of this though the admission was very cheap - 10 yuan - so we happily jumped between overturned pieces of cement (apparently they were re-doing the whole floor of the grounds) and climbing into the many halls of the temple. One of the most beautiful I have visited.
Next on our schedule was an old catholic catheral - Xijiahuí cathedral - and guess what? It was under renovation so you could barely bask in its splendor outside so we ventured inside after being given a green light by one of the construction workers. Surprisingly though he sent the Chinese couple behind us away, maybe he let us in because we were foreigners.. I don't know. But anyhow we had the whole cathedral to ourselves, which pleased me to no end.
That evening we had dined on tasty Chinese dumplings and noodles at a local restaurant.
The 20th of March we bought tickets to see the circus! As I have never been to the circus before, the rest of the day I was beside myself with excitement. In the meantime we went on a very short tour bus ride, where the nice woman gave us murky water to drink and barked information in Chinese. Since when were tour buses all about the locals? After some general walking around and looking for pants that fit (by this time my only jeans had been ripped almost to shreds) we went to the circus where I was completely mesmerized. One day I will run away from my life and join the circus, I'm sure....
Our last day in Shanghai we went to the Science Museum where we saw animals from all over the world, survived an earthquake, became scientists for a day and had some fun with the interactive part of the museum. The space and robot section was pretty lame though, I was hoping for a glimpse into the future of technology but only got ancient robots and a laughable and confusing dance performance by those robot arms that are used to make cars. After having killed some time we rushed to the train station. Somehow we almost missed the train, we had to run through the station and jump on board five minutes before it took off. The trains in China are serious and wait for no one...
Same as last time we got some cozy top bunks and took to discussing all possible ways to continue our travels. Should we take a bus from Guangzhou to Laos? Cambodia? Vietnam is out of the question, how about flights to Bangkok? Ponder, ponder.... Wish we could have made it to Tibet and Nepal...
Such conversations, sitting in a tiny seat in an impossibly narrow corridor, traveling in a rickety train to somewhere I have never been before, not knowing where I'll be staying the next night or even where I'm going or how I'll be getting there... such are moments of complete bliss beyond words. This I wrote down in my travel book, staring out the window into the darkness outside, thinking of all I had already seen, wondering what the future had in store.
Finally, we have arrived into the heat. A bit further south, all the way to:
Guangzhou!
I don't have all too much to say about Guangzhou, we were situated in a very quiet location, on a street that promised lots but offered so little. Neon signs, empty houses, other buildings that looked like restaurants/clubs/interesting places but were .. well I don't really know what kind of service they provided. Everything was completely empty until the evening. We spent a lot of time walking around, seeing nothing much really, exploring alleyways and taking a boat trip over to the other side of a big river that runs through the city, although there was not much to see there either...
One of the highlights of the day was walking through a park where we sat down and listened to a man and a woman singing traditional Chinese theater songs in a big gazebo by the river. We took a much needed break and sat down, listening to some sweet tones. Its pretty shrill but still very entertaining.
That day we ate nothing but noodles and come dinnertime, we finally found a restaurant and tried to make ourselves understandable with sign language and simple kanji drawings (tried to draw the kanji for "beef/cow") and finally just asked them to bring something they wanted to. We had asked for rice or beef but were told there was none but a few minutes later we saw a waitress walk past with 6 bowls full of rice and a huge bowl of beef for the next table. Maybe its a foreigner thing...
People still said hi to me on the streets - you would think they never get any foreigners in China.
The next day we took a taxi to the airport and said goodbye to China. It felt a bit strange after having spent so much time there but it was time to move on. Next up: Thailand!
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Oh no, the time has run away from me yet again. I have homework to do so I'm going to be a good student and go study. You will have to wait a bit more for the next segment!
Besos y abrazos!
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