So, thanks to the wonderful freedom of information rules in paranoid China, and the banning of Facebook, this blog is ridiculously late!! Well, that's the excuse I'm going to use anyway... lol
We left Thailand for China on the 30th May, and arrived in Nanning, Guangxi a couple of days and 1 stopover later. My bestest buddy and our ex-flatmate Kara is currently living in Nanning, and after pretty much exactly a year of straight travelling, she didn't really need to try hard to convince us to stop and put our feet up at her place for a bit. Before we had even arrived we had sent our resumes around and lined up a couple of interviews with different English Schools, so we were excited by the prospects of not only having a real home and a base to explore Guangxi and southern china, but also the chance to even earn a little bit of under-the-table money!
The first week went by in a blur of interviews, cheese-and-wine catch ups with kara, and chopsticks. The whole job-hunting process was a lot easier than we had expected, helped by the fact we were willing to work over the busiest time of the year, the summer holidays. And so we said goodbye to our aspirations of travel and exploration of Southern China, and instead settled to get to know Nanning!
Nanning is a really nice little city, proudly known as the “green city” to the locals. And it is quite green, well atleast its main road, Minzu Dadao is lined with big trees and green parks with lots of flowers. There are a lot of trees throughout the whole city which was a welcome first impression of china. Apart from just trees, the Nanning government has actually banned the purchase and sale of motorbikes! Which means that just about everybody owns an electric bike and that even the little rickshaws are rechargeable! Which is great for the environment! But, alas, in true Chinese style, nothing is quite perfect. The electric bikes are simply a pushbike with a battery-pack attached to them meaning that anyone can ride them without a license, regardless of age or mental stability. They can reach up to 60KM/HR, and, being technically a pushbike, people ride them on both roads and footpaths, in whatever direction, and at whatever speed they want, causing a lot of accidents. Still, its a first step that a lot of other places in the world should think about aswell!
As far as entertainment goes, Nanning isn't really a cultural melting pot. There are a couple of bars, one run by an expat, called “The landing zone.” For a reason completely beyond Roh, kara or myself, this place is actually quite popular even though the drinks are overpriced, the place has less atmosphere than the bus station, and the owner is, well..... hehe.. We much preferred to hangout at home, drinking beers or wine, or vodka with friends in our garden! Yes, a real garden in matchbox-home China!! Its a beautiful brick patio with a wall of bamboo (thanks to roh's efforts) for privacy. As far as food goes, Nanning is a great place to eat! There are heaps of little hawker stalls selling entire meals big enough for 2 for 6-7RMB (about $1). The BBQ street was also a favourite, with shop after shop displaying every possible animal imaginable (and a few veges) that they will then barbecue up for you in a garlic-soy-oil sauce. For special nights out, there was even a really funky and delicious Italian restaurant, or a cool bar selling pizzas and burritos. But for the most part, after not having a kitchen or the ability to eat what we actually felt like for a year, we opted to cook our own meals! And if we did decide to go our for a few drinks, we had our favourite little bar, hidden behind the “minorities museum” and set in a beautiful garden with ponds and old temple-style buildings. Or if we were really desperate there was always the option of the bar/restaurant (good food- and free delivery!) where all the sleazy old expat men gather.. hmm..
For the most part our 2.5 months in Nanning was a blur of work-eat-gym-study chinese-sleep-work. At one point Roh worked a total of 78 hours in one week!! We were really lucky and were able to work in some great schools with fantastic students and staff and had a really great time! And believe it or not, we both had in a strange perverted way, actually missed working, and the normal humdrum routines of living in a house and, yes, even cleaning! And it was really nice to be stopped somewhere long enough to actually be able to learn more of the language than the normal travel dialogues.
As far as exploring Guangxi or Southern china went, we only managed 1 day trip to Beihai, the “beach resort of the south” with its Silver Beach – self promoted as “the best beach under the heavens”.... hmm.. It must have its own private heaven... (^0^)
We did manage to escape to Hong Kong for a weekend though which was lots of fun. We took the boat across the harbour, visited Jackie Chan's hand print, saw the skyline and did A LOT of shopping!
After finishing up our 2-month contract in Nanning, we decided to head north to Beijing. A 30 hour train trip sounded like a fun idea at the time! And it was for the first 4 hours when we had the 6-bed cabin to ourselves! Then the other passengers got on, and our quiet, clean, smoke-less cabin was transformed to a smoky (even though it was a non-smoking train!) feet-stinking, gambling cart with a shopping bag full of chicken heads and chicken feet each. Another one of those “Welcome to China” moments.
In Beijing we had arranged to couch-surf with Katherine and Nolan, an American couple who had only arrived in China 2 weeks beforehand. Still trying to get to know Beijing themselves, they welcomed us into their apartment and we had one of those rare “feeling like you have known each other for years” moments. Not surprisingly we had a lot of fun staying with them, and ended up spending the whole 5 days at their place. We applied for and got our Mongolian visas, and then spent most of our Beijing days getting to know the subway and bus lines really really well as we frantically shopped for warm-enough clothes for the Mongolian cold. We spent a whole day visiting “Tiananmen Square” and wandering around “The Forbidden Palace,” and taking lots of photos in front of the big picture of Mao that finally made Roh realise that we were actually in China. It's such a strange feeling when you visit somewhere that you've seen on TV and in movies and books your entire life. The Hutong district was somewhere truly beautiful aswell and we spent hours walking through the mazes of old and restored brick houses, paved streets, and funky shops and cafes.
Finally with a backpack full of winter clothes, we said thanks to Katherine and Nolan and jumped on a night bus to Arlian, on the border with Mongolia. The bus trip itself was an experience, after leaving the bus station practically empty, it drove to a random shopping centre carpark somewhere in Beijing where it filled up with Mongolian merchants and then spent 4 hours packing the bus full with their purchases!! Finally in Arlian just before 5am, we were taken to the home of some taxi driver where we waited for 4 more hours for a dilapidated, falling-apart Russian jeep, packed full with dead chickens to pick us up and take us to the border, where the Chinese authorities went through only our daypacks with a fine tooth, and asked lots of questions as to why we were leaving China (?!), before the Mongolian officials smiled and stamped us into their country, home of Roh's hero, Chinggis Khaan. Zaa zaa, Sain Beno!
We left Thailand for China on the 30th May, and arrived in Nanning, Guangxi a couple of days and 1 stopover later. My bestest buddy and our ex-flatmate Kara is currently living in Nanning, and after pretty much exactly a year of straight travelling, she didn't really need to try hard to convince us to stop and put our feet up at her place for a bit. Before we had even arrived we had sent our resumes around and lined up a couple of interviews with different English Schools, so we were excited by the prospects of not only having a real home and a base to explore Guangxi and southern china, but also the chance to even earn a little bit of under-the-table money!
The first week went by in a blur of interviews, cheese-and-wine catch ups with kara, and chopsticks. The whole job-hunting process was a lot easier than we had expected, helped by the fact we were willing to work over the busiest time of the year, the summer holidays. And so we said goodbye to our aspirations of travel and exploration of Southern China, and instead settled to get to know Nanning!
Nanning is a really nice little city, proudly known as the “green city” to the locals. And it is quite green, well atleast its main road, Minzu Dadao is lined with big trees and green parks with lots of flowers. There are a lot of trees throughout the whole city which was a welcome first impression of china. Apart from just trees, the Nanning government has actually banned the purchase and sale of motorbikes! Which means that just about everybody owns an electric bike and that even the little rickshaws are rechargeable! Which is great for the environment! But, alas, in true Chinese style, nothing is quite perfect. The electric bikes are simply a pushbike with a battery-pack attached to them meaning that anyone can ride them without a license, regardless of age or mental stability. They can reach up to 60KM/HR, and, being technically a pushbike, people ride them on both roads and footpaths, in whatever direction, and at whatever speed they want, causing a lot of accidents. Still, its a first step that a lot of other places in the world should think about aswell!
As far as entertainment goes, Nanning isn't really a cultural melting pot. There are a couple of bars, one run by an expat, called “The landing zone.” For a reason completely beyond Roh, kara or myself, this place is actually quite popular even though the drinks are overpriced, the place has less atmosphere than the bus station, and the owner is, well..... hehe.. We much preferred to hangout at home, drinking beers or wine, or vodka with friends in our garden! Yes, a real garden in matchbox-home China!! Its a beautiful brick patio with a wall of bamboo (thanks to roh's efforts) for privacy. As far as food goes, Nanning is a great place to eat! There are heaps of little hawker stalls selling entire meals big enough for 2 for 6-7RMB (about $1). The BBQ street was also a favourite, with shop after shop displaying every possible animal imaginable (and a few veges) that they will then barbecue up for you in a garlic-soy-oil sauce. For special nights out, there was even a really funky and delicious Italian restaurant, or a cool bar selling pizzas and burritos. But for the most part, after not having a kitchen or the ability to eat what we actually felt like for a year, we opted to cook our own meals! And if we did decide to go our for a few drinks, we had our favourite little bar, hidden behind the “minorities museum” and set in a beautiful garden with ponds and old temple-style buildings. Or if we were really desperate there was always the option of the bar/restaurant (good food- and free delivery!) where all the sleazy old expat men gather.. hmm..
For the most part our 2.5 months in Nanning was a blur of work-eat-gym-study chinese-sleep-work. At one point Roh worked a total of 78 hours in one week!! We were really lucky and were able to work in some great schools with fantastic students and staff and had a really great time! And believe it or not, we both had in a strange perverted way, actually missed working, and the normal humdrum routines of living in a house and, yes, even cleaning! And it was really nice to be stopped somewhere long enough to actually be able to learn more of the language than the normal travel dialogues.
As far as exploring Guangxi or Southern china went, we only managed 1 day trip to Beihai, the “beach resort of the south” with its Silver Beach – self promoted as “the best beach under the heavens”.... hmm.. It must have its own private heaven... (^0^)
We did manage to escape to Hong Kong for a weekend though which was lots of fun. We took the boat across the harbour, visited Jackie Chan's hand print, saw the skyline and did A LOT of shopping!
After finishing up our 2-month contract in Nanning, we decided to head north to Beijing. A 30 hour train trip sounded like a fun idea at the time! And it was for the first 4 hours when we had the 6-bed cabin to ourselves! Then the other passengers got on, and our quiet, clean, smoke-less cabin was transformed to a smoky (even though it was a non-smoking train!) feet-stinking, gambling cart with a shopping bag full of chicken heads and chicken feet each. Another one of those “Welcome to China” moments.
In Beijing we had arranged to couch-surf with Katherine and Nolan, an American couple who had only arrived in China 2 weeks beforehand. Still trying to get to know Beijing themselves, they welcomed us into their apartment and we had one of those rare “feeling like you have known each other for years” moments. Not surprisingly we had a lot of fun staying with them, and ended up spending the whole 5 days at their place. We applied for and got our Mongolian visas, and then spent most of our Beijing days getting to know the subway and bus lines really really well as we frantically shopped for warm-enough clothes for the Mongolian cold. We spent a whole day visiting “Tiananmen Square” and wandering around “The Forbidden Palace,” and taking lots of photos in front of the big picture of Mao that finally made Roh realise that we were actually in China. It's such a strange feeling when you visit somewhere that you've seen on TV and in movies and books your entire life. The Hutong district was somewhere truly beautiful aswell and we spent hours walking through the mazes of old and restored brick houses, paved streets, and funky shops and cafes.
Finally with a backpack full of winter clothes, we said thanks to Katherine and Nolan and jumped on a night bus to Arlian, on the border with Mongolia. The bus trip itself was an experience, after leaving the bus station practically empty, it drove to a random shopping centre carpark somewhere in Beijing where it filled up with Mongolian merchants and then spent 4 hours packing the bus full with their purchases!! Finally in Arlian just before 5am, we were taken to the home of some taxi driver where we waited for 4 more hours for a dilapidated, falling-apart Russian jeep, packed full with dead chickens to pick us up and take us to the border, where the Chinese authorities went through only our daypacks with a fine tooth, and asked lots of questions as to why we were leaving China (?!), before the Mongolian officials smiled and stamped us into their country, home of Roh's hero, Chinggis Khaan. Zaa zaa, Sain Beno!
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