Monday, October 6, 2008
End of a trip
Well, I'm back from my 10 day trip...and what can I say about it? It was a whirlwind from Shanghai to Beijing to Xi'An and back again. And it is no wonder I am tired. This trip was one that exemplified my favourite Murphy's Law: Anything that can go wrong WILL GO WRONG!
1) We missed the train to Beijing because of dinner. Hence, we had to source for a way to get there, by hook or by crook. The solution came in the form of sitting/standing tickets from Shanghai to Beijing. An unworthy subsitute of our original first class tickets there.
2) A lot of us lost our tempers during the trip due to the rowdy Chinese people who squeeze and shove and cut queues as naturally as they pee and spit on the roads. I didn't lose mine at them though...
3) The tour guides at Xi'an kept wanting us to spend more money and even tried to cheat us of it. We didn't fall for that though...but it was irritating to say the least.
4) We had planned to go Hua Shan. It turned out, the queue for the cable car was too long...3-4 hours. We ended up only riding the cable car up and down without even stepping on the mountain.
5) The taxi that was supposed to send us to Beijing Airport Terminal 2 sent us to 3 instead and still wanted us to pay the extra amount.
But there were perks too...Beijing is beautiful (I am comparing it to Shanghai which now seems like a hole in the ground). The people are friendly, the sights are great and the streets are clean. Free and easy rocks. I reckon we took the most photos there. I went without my housemates who visited inner Mongolia instead and so got to know those peeps I met at Huangshan even better. (Siying, Charlene alan and terry.) I took an airplane from Beijing to Xi'an which is probably the smoothest part of the entire journey. Food at Xi'an was cheap as well. I learnt that my 80 litre bag can last me for more than 10 days.
If there's any lesson to learn from this trip, it is that we all learnt to be more 'kiasu'. If we hadn't missed the first train to BJ, it is highly probable that I will still be in Xi'an right now. We had the foresight to cut our tour short on the last day and hired a black car to take us to the train station. Along the way, the taxi driver tried to swindle us after we gave him the money. On the way there, traffic was barred by passing trains for about 20 minutes. He told us to hove it to the train station, saying "it is very close! Walk straight turn right! Only 2km!"
It was by a stroke of luck that we didn't trust him because the barriers lifted shortly after. His face was visible black and he sped us there. AND IT WASN'T 2KM! When we were about to reach the station, he suddenly stopped inside a underpass and told us to get out. We yelled at him because the tunnel had no pedestrian walkway. Getting out would have meant death by a charging bus. His face turned blacker and he went up to street level and tossed our lugguage out. We didn't complain. When we saw the train station, we started to congratulate ourselves for our decisions in the taxi. If we had done either of those, we would have missed our train because the damn place was packed with ATs shoving and pushing. It was chaotic with a brutal bottleneck at the entrance. Once the train gates opened, it was an amazing race all over again where we had to run for the train amidst the damn ATs and we only managed to make it in time. And I'm thankful I was not dragging a luggauge.
~Enjoy~
Now back in Shanghai, I feel a bit flat...weather here is cold now, almost like Beijing with biting winds. The sun is setting at 5 plus these days which means the temperature will definitely drop even further.
~shiver~
Photos are here! http://picasaweb.google.com/zeroheero/BeijingXiAn#
1) We missed the train to Beijing because of dinner. Hence, we had to source for a way to get there, by hook or by crook. The solution came in the form of sitting/standing tickets from Shanghai to Beijing. An unworthy subsitute of our original first class tickets there.
2) A lot of us lost our tempers during the trip due to the rowdy Chinese people who squeeze and shove and cut queues as naturally as they pee and spit on the roads. I didn't lose mine at them though...
3) The tour guides at Xi'an kept wanting us to spend more money and even tried to cheat us of it. We didn't fall for that though...but it was irritating to say the least.
4) We had planned to go Hua Shan. It turned out, the queue for the cable car was too long...3-4 hours. We ended up only riding the cable car up and down without even stepping on the mountain.
5) The taxi that was supposed to send us to Beijing Airport Terminal 2 sent us to 3 instead and still wanted us to pay the extra amount.
But there were perks too...Beijing is beautiful (I am comparing it to Shanghai which now seems like a hole in the ground). The people are friendly, the sights are great and the streets are clean. Free and easy rocks. I reckon we took the most photos there. I went without my housemates who visited inner Mongolia instead and so got to know those peeps I met at Huangshan even better. (Siying, Charlene alan and terry.) I took an airplane from Beijing to Xi'an which is probably the smoothest part of the entire journey. Food at Xi'an was cheap as well. I learnt that my 80 litre bag can last me for more than 10 days.
If there's any lesson to learn from this trip, it is that we all learnt to be more 'kiasu'. If we hadn't missed the first train to BJ, it is highly probable that I will still be in Xi'an right now. We had the foresight to cut our tour short on the last day and hired a black car to take us to the train station. Along the way, the taxi driver tried to swindle us after we gave him the money. On the way there, traffic was barred by passing trains for about 20 minutes. He told us to hove it to the train station, saying "it is very close! Walk straight turn right! Only 2km!"
It was by a stroke of luck that we didn't trust him because the barriers lifted shortly after. His face was visible black and he sped us there. AND IT WASN'T 2KM! When we were about to reach the station, he suddenly stopped inside a underpass and told us to get out. We yelled at him because the tunnel had no pedestrian walkway. Getting out would have meant death by a charging bus. His face turned blacker and he went up to street level and tossed our lugguage out. We didn't complain. When we saw the train station, we started to congratulate ourselves for our decisions in the taxi. If we had done either of those, we would have missed our train because the damn place was packed with ATs shoving and pushing. It was chaotic with a brutal bottleneck at the entrance. Once the train gates opened, it was an amazing race all over again where we had to run for the train amidst the damn ATs and we only managed to make it in time. And I'm thankful I was not dragging a luggauge.
~Enjoy~
Now back in Shanghai, I feel a bit flat...weather here is cold now, almost like Beijing with biting winds. The sun is setting at 5 plus these days which means the temperature will definitely drop even further.
~shiver~
Photos are here! http://picasaweb.google.com/zeroheero/BeijingXiAn#
Labels: Ah Tiongs, Beijing, GIP, NTU, Xi'an
# posted by Jason @ 10/06/2008 08:37:00 PM 
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