Heeey!
I feel a little, actually a lot guilty about my lack of commitment to our blog, but I guess that just means the Uni side of things is winning at the moment in the whole game of Gap Year Vs Uni. I do have a bit of an excuse though, I didn't have any access to the site over in China, or facebook cause it was banned or something. So yeaaaah... But I did write down stuff that we did everyday so you wont miss out on anything my brain fails to remember... It really doesn't feel I even went, but then again it doesn't feel like I've been back for long! But I do have some awesome memories and 2000 + photos to prove it :D Soooo I have no idea what week this is... but its my second post. Wooo lets do this!
Alrighty, (hehe Brim ;] ) I got offered to go on this amazing four week trip around October last year by my Uncle Dario and his partner Sarah, and the plane tickets for the three of us were booked the next day! It was pretty random and spontaneous and impulsive and GAPYEARISH hehehe, (I think we're back on our way to being better than Uni) :P I'd never really looked into travelling to Asia or had a massive interest in it all, but Sarah lived there for most of her life and we would be going to visit and stay with her family in Shenyang (North East, near Russia and North Korea); a huge cultural opportunity.
We made the most of the 20 days we were in China and did something cooool every single day... So I kinda can't compete with Brim's amazingly detailed description of her awesome trip to Balli (not saying she and her mum didn't do something cooool every single day, but she had a better way of writing all that coolness down), but I've got a plan (well it was actually Dario's suggestion)...
TOP TEN AMAZING EXPERIENCES IN CHINA!
1. CHINESE NEW YEARS
The whole reason we were going to China was to spend time with Sarah's family for Chinese New Years, and OhMyGoodness it was amazing. Just the best. It lasted pretty much the whole time we were there too. Now I fully understand why some business' in Australia close because of the Chinese New Year... How could you not!!!?? The first day we were in China we went to the shops to buy food... I just cannot describe how incredibly and ridiculously busy it was; like Christmas in Aust, times 10000.
New Years Eve was the third day we were there, on the 22nd January, and the atmosphere of the whole day was also just like Christmas at home. Decorating the windows with cut-outs using tooth paste and eating as much fruit as you can and spending the whole day with all the family. You could just tell there was something special happening... I dunno, it just didn't feel like any other normal day. Sarah, her sister and her mum spent the whole day cooking for dinner, which ended up being around 18 dishes for 5 people. Wooo! And it was delicious, except I wasn't keen on the silk worms. The jelly fish salad, pigs trotter and rabbit was good though! (Dario and I made a pact that we would try everything we were offered... and more, and also to use chopsticks the whole trip- we got pretty good at it too!) We were definitely very thankful that we didn't have lunch. That night it was tradition to make dumplings and eat them at midnight, we also made a few lolly ones that meant good luck if you randomly picked one to eat. It was also good luck to wear new socks into the new year and leave on lights in the rooms. That whole day sounded like a war/rain because of the amazing amount of fireworks... just incredible. Everywhere, they were just going off! We lit some that night too, but more on that laterrrr. Outside that day was completely different to the shops the first day, it was like a ghost town (except the fireworks) because everyone was with their family.
New Year's Day was also family-orientated, and we spent the day visiting Sarah's family and bringing fruit and juice as gifts, it was funny because there were all these other people walking around doing the same thing carrying heaps of fruit haha. But it all just went around in a huge circle cause when you visited each family they just stuffed you with heaps of fruit and nuts anyway hahah! Yum!
There were so many traditions and I really enjoyed experiencing everything that Chinese New Years had to offer, the culture it showed was really great to see, definitely memorable, and way more than any text book, or I guess internet page, could ever offer.
2. FOOOOOD
As I said, Uncle Dario and I made a pact from the beginning that we would try everything we could... and we really did. Dog, donkey, pigs trotter, jelly fish, silk worm (definitely not silkworm'S), lilly stalk, boiled blood clot (dunno what of), fish from the Yalu river (border of North Korea/China), rabbit (I've tried it before but it was just sooo gooood), snails (even though that was in Melbourne), ducks tongue, liver aaaaand sea cucumber. I think it was the first day we all tried the dog dish, I didn't know it was dog (even though I have to admit I was keen to try it just to say I had) and I thought it was just a chewy, stringy bit of beef... Sorry Barney. My absolute favourite was these sticks that had quangdongs or strawberries on them, and they were all covered in toffee. So simple. So delicious. The quandongs were good cause it was like a sweet and sour taste and the strawberries were good cause they're strawberries.
The whole time I was in China, I think I was only hungry when I was purposely starving myself because I knew there was a massive lunch or dinner planned for later on. Everybody there just wanted us to eat and eat and eat. It was so different to my usual menu, and yeah, I really did miss the food here- we may or may not have binged on Aussie junk food as soon as we got home hehehe.
3. FAMILY
Again, the whole reason we were there was to visit Sarah's family. As soon as we met them, they made us feel reaaally welcome. They sacrificed heaps to make every single bit of our stay comfy and fun. Even Sarah's sister's in-laws were incredibly friendly to Dario and I. They were really happy to have us, and we couldn't even communicate with them, except for a few gue ne how's and xie xie's (happy new year and thank you). But laughter's the same in every language and there was plenty of that everywhere.
I got pretty close to Sarah's niece and nephew, 6 year old twins. They could read and write English at about the same level as an Aussi 6 year old, but they only spoke a little, but they did get heaps better at it by the time we left. They were really smart and cheeky, and for the whole trip I was "sister" :)
4. THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA
The Great Waaaaaaall! It was pretty great... and no, I did not see any rabbits on either side of the wall... jeeez, the amount of people that have asked that :P We went to the most Eastern end of the Wall, the very start of it, 3 hours away from Shenyang. This bit was 1000's of years old, but it was not joined to the longer, famous bit of the wall when the emperor joined all the province's little walls together. This bit was by itself and protected China from Japan. It was over a huge hill/mountain and had a few death-trap-steep stairs that really could've been quite lethal... we couldn't stop imagining all the people who built the thing, or the soldiers who ran up and down those stairs that took you up and down the mountain... without railings! The views were amazing... and looking back at what you'd just walked was like looking at a post card. We kissed the Wall and did a dance on the Wall and then at the end we did victory snow angels :D (The cute little blue camera the girls got me for my 18th got a good work out this day- what a perfect present for my gap year adventures xx).
On the way to the Great Wall, we stopped at the Yalu River Broken Bridge. The Yalu River is the border of North Korea and China, so technically, because I went onto the other side of the bridge, I visited North Korea in my travels hahaha (even though the end bit of the bridge was blown up by American's ages ago and there was security or whatever on the other side so I didn't touch land... It's still their bit! Ha). It was a little eery cause they had built fake three story houses and chimneys and even a ferris wheel just to show China (which by the way, was just casually sporting around 50, 20 story buildings and what not) that they could build stuff too. No one lives in these houses cause they're not allowed to see the border... Yep.
Anyway, The Great Wall- that's gotta be a point for team gap year right!??! I feel so lucky to have had the opportunity to experience something so... hard to describe...and Great.
5. FIREWORKS
All. The. Time. Just, all the time. Everywhere, anywhere, anyone. Because it was New Years, everyone was taking advantage of the temporary cease of the fact that they're illegal... It was pretty cool to walk down the street and hear distant explosions of crackers and bombs and what not and then to have the absolute sh-life scared out of you cause someone just lit one off a couple of meters next to you.
We got to light some too hehehe >:D There was booths on a lot of the corners of the city's streets selling heaps of different kinds of fireworks, from little ones to 600 Yuan ($100) massive box better than the Silver City Show ones. We lit so many with the help of Sarah's brother in law, and we had to bend back just to see them in the sky. One night I decided (actually no, I didn't decide, I was actually asleep when Dario rang me to say they'd gotten some fireworks and to look out the window to watch them) to stay with the kids and look at them through the 7 story high window, cause they were lighting them in the little courtyard kinda thing in between the buildings. One kinda looked like it went off a bit low, then when I asked them later Dario said it hit a tree going up so it pretty much exploded right in front of them... fun. And "total disregard for our safety". Hahahaha, more so fun.
At night you could see fireworks everywhere you looked, we were pretty much (when I say we, I mean Dario and I, not the 6 year olds) running from window to window all around the house to look at each one exploding... preeeettyyyy. In the morning's you woke up to crackers that kinda sounded like really really really heavy rain on a tin roof because the shop owners would let them off in front of their door when opening up their shop after New Year's Day, apparently this was to scare away bad spirits. It was just everywhere. And then Sarah's mother tells us there definitely isn't as much as there used to be.... WHAT!?
6. TORTURE CHAMBERS... Oh I mean the day/night spa thingy...
Yeaah... a tad awkward. But super cool. Kinda. So, Dario goes with Sarah's brother in law (Cinn) and comes back with these huuuuuge bruise things all over his back and has tails of bottles sucking up his skin and showering with all these men and getting his feet skin cut off and being "massaged" and washed all over, and decides that I just have to go experience the spa house, or whatever they call it. I was pretty keen for a massage, cause I'd never really had one before, and I just pushed out any doubt I had in my mind about what violating stories they had told me.
Ok so, I go into this place with Sarah and I take my shoes off, we go into a locker room and apparently this is where you are meant to get undressed. Yep. So next is showers, which is a room with shower heads around the walls, and massage table type things in the middle... yeah about that later. So showering and sauna-ing and being stared at by people because you usually get stared at fully dressed just cause you're a westerner so of course, this just must be so much more interesting for them. Now to the tables, I hop on and they exfoliated me, a lot, with milk. Enough about that. Then we got dressed into cute matching pj's and went up stairs and found Dario and Cinn in this snazzy little room with four beds and fruit. I then watched one of the most gruesome sites I have ever seen which is described as sucking the blood through the back muscles and then I guess just under the surface of the skin. The doctor (" ") gets these little bowl, bottle suctiony things and quickly puts a flame into it then takes it out and slams it onto Dario's back (repeat like 15 times) and then waits until you can see the skin rise/get sucked into the bottle like a big red mushroom thing and then they just pull it off.. how enjoyable. I got a full body massage, which included feet, legs, thighs, bum, head, shoulders, back... and I got my tummy rubbed. I know..?
I have to admit that I did quite enjoy the experience, mainly just to say I've done it hahah...
7. COLDNESS D;
Sooo... amazing doesn't always have to mean good amazing, but the temperatures really deserved a mention, it was the kind of mind boggling amazing. Keep in mind my favourite season is Summer, well was, until this trip kinda messed up my body thermostat kinda thing and I'm pretty much an ectotherm now and cannot, CANNOT tolerate heat like I used to.
It makes me sad to think of how cold it was. I knew it was going to be cold, and I was expecting it, but you can never imagine what that cold is going to feel like. It hurties. It just hurts... hahah, -28C, and the highest we got to was 0- on one of the last days. It was so cold, it couldn't even snow (until around the day it got to about 0). It was so cold, I wore 4 pairs of pants, 5 at night time. 5 layers of tops, minimum. And you know those doctor mask thingos that you see people overseas wearing because of the pollution and stuff? Turns out, they're just so you're nose doesn't fall off, and at least, if the cold does get through, and your nose does detach itself from your face, the mask will catch it and you wont have to go looking around the frozen spit covered street searching for it :) Very early on in the trip, when I wasn't aware of how incredible this cold was, even though I was wearing gloves I'm pretty sure I got like the very first, early signs of frost bite or something (hehe maybe, or maybe I'm a drama queen), I literally could not move my hand, and it was just so painful... SO painful. I could not go through that every winter, but then again, the twins didn't seem to mind too much, they're used to it I guess.
The cold was definitely worth experiencing the Chinese New Year festivities, but it would have also been nice to enjoy the museums and the city in Autumn or Spring. But I wouldn't have changed it.
8.SNOW SKIING
Woooo! Snow skiing! Funfunfunfunfun! Hahahah, although we did not go onto massively huge or steep slopes, I am proud to say that I have found a sport I am at least ok at. Hahahah the only time I fell over was my first go down, when I'd just completely surprised myself that I'd survived and I'd kind of slowed down next to Sarah and was waiting for Dario to come down and I could hear someone saying (maybe shouting) something in the distance. In hind site, I now realise this was probably GET OUT OF THE WAY in Chinese, but anyway, he took me down, good. And that's the only time I fell over :D So proud hehe. Even though I looked hilarious bending my knees and wearing my long orange coat, I enjoyed it so much I went again with the family and without Sarah and Dario.
9. BENXI WATER CAVES
Preeeeettty!! The water caves were really awe-inspiring. It was like a small boat ride through caves of rock formations and stalactites and stalagmites on crystal clear water, actually, it was exactly like that. It was really nice because they had placed coloured lighting in places to highlight the formations and it also made the water reflect off the rocks (and also because it wasn't too cold hehe). They also had signs that said the names of some of the rocks to describe what they looked like, like "water creatures bathing" and "waterfalls" (in English too!!). There was also a small lake outside the caves and you could see the steam rising off the surface of the water because of the temp- that was cool.
10. SHOPPING
All the shopping was really cool cause of the currency exchange ($10 = 60 Yuan) but there was one place that was just, incredible. I don't even know why it exists... But it does, and it's amazing. Whenever we went shopping in the malls or whatever, if I picked anything up Sarah or her sister would say "nah, don't buy it, we'll find something better and cheaper at the markets". The markets... They seemed to say this so many times that Dario and I were beginning to think the place didn't exist, and if it did, really, how good could it be? Turns out, pretty good. We went to a kind of shopping centre place that had around 3 stories to go souvenir shopping. In the building was row after row of around 2 meter square stalls that sold everything. There was just so many of them, like 1000's on each floor. Apparently there are other markets as well, like leather markets, clothes markets, furniture markets and postcard markets... ? I even started to haggle a bit towards the end, even though we spoke completely different languages, that lady knew I wasn't going to pay the extra 10 Yuan because that bag was from the floor and not packaged! And she definitely knew after Sarah came to my rescue and actually told her that... yeeep, I sure showed her. Wooo around $2 saved :D
Soooo I am REALLY glad I did that 10 AMAZING THINGS thing cause, even though I thought it would limit my rambling... that's a lot of words, and if you're still reading now, kudos to you. Very proud.
I feel incredibly lucky to have been able to go on this trip and Sarah and Uncle Dario were amazing to take me, it was definitely the experience of a lifetime... even with the coldness :P I might even mention it was great to see people in Melbourne in the few days before and after the trip, like Uncle Armando :)
Again, a very sincere sorry for the delay, but I hope it was worth the wait. I hope to make it up to you as well, heaps has happened since this, but this post is just so massive... Anyway, thanks for reading and happy year of the dragon to you all!
Gue Ne How!
-Licul
P.S more photos on facebook ;D
