WORK VERY HARD

I’ve only got the most old-hat excuses in the book to offer you up here for the lack of recent updates, so I won’t even bother wasting your time with them; we’re all busy people after all! However, my new watch word is “time-management” and regular updates here are the way forward. I’m also contributing regularly to the Trekiz blog (I work at Trekiz – we’re a platform for planning travel around China – there’s a real mix bag of stuff coming up for the blog so check it out!) and I’ve got an article coming out in the next issue of The World of Chinese magazine. Exciting times!

So, what have I been up to in the last month? Well, my parents came to visit China for the first time, I’m apartment hunting and I’ve taken up Heyrobics! More on all of that in the next week...

Wilsons vs China part 1: Beijing

“You let them out on their own?! It’s their first day in China!” The incredulity from my colleagues was palpable. Well, yes, yes I did. I had absolutely no qualms about sending Mum and Dad off on their own to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City while I was finishing up the office before going on holiday. China might seem intimidating to get around without any command of the language and a mass of people to get around (even if you can see over pretty much everyone’s heads, score for the tall-gene) but Beijing is really easy to get around on the subway – it’s 2RMB to go anywhere and all the station signs are in English as well as Chinese. I think it gave Mum and Dad a boost of confidence to be able to get around without me. Plus, I’ve done the majority of the properly touristy stuff I’m interested in doing in Beijing so instead I tried to show them the Beijing I know as a local lǎowài.  

 I’ve seen loads of pictures from my friends who pass through the hostel of them having a beer with the donkey that lives on the Mutinayu Great Wall. That section also has the toboggan run down, how could we not go?! Plus, I did the Badaling section of the Great Wall (closest to Beijing) when I got here last summer. It was too restored and touristy for my taste, so to Mutinayu we went.  I’d love to say I’d had a beer with a donkey but did I find the damn animal? No. Big disappointment, but the toboggan made up for it, even though we queued for the best part of an hour for it to be dry enough for safety after a shower of rain. It would have been so much better if there hadn’t been a complete wuss of a Chinese woman four people in front of me (any hint of speed and she’d scream and slam on her breaks, just as the rest of us behind her were starting to have fun) but I did get to hear some choice swear words from the German couple in front of me though; there’s always a silver lining!

We also did Summer Palace as a family (it was hot, sunny, over-crowded and thoroughly beautiful, but under appreciated by slightly hung-over me) but that was the last properly touristy thing I did in Beijing - the Lama Temple, the Bell and Drum towers and the Olympic Stadium Mum and Dad negotiated on their own. Two cultural experiences I made sure they got before we left for the train to Yangshuo was to see hutongs at Nanluoguxiang and to have a proper Chinese massage. I think they appreciated the massages more; what made the biggest impression at Nanluoguxiang was the sign in the restaurant where they had lunch that said simply “no pooing!”

Chinese massage can be somewhat intimidating for tourists. Tales of “happy endings” in massage parlours and “scissor-less hairdressers” are rife, but, as long as you steer clear of pink lights, massage here in China is a ubiquitous, inexpensive and wonderful thing. I’ve had full body (fully clothed) massages for as little as 30RMB, but I picked more salubrious surroundings for my parents, and for the weekend we were in Beijing, at least one of us went every day. Dad’s crocked shoulder was eased, the knots in Mum’s bad-back were kneaded out of existence as were the ones in my feet and shoulders and, relaxed to the consistency of the noodles we had eaten for lunch, off we went on the second leg of our holiday… the train to Yangshuo.

The weekend we didn’t go to Qingdao

Oh China… you’re a great country but your train ticket system is a MESS. (You can only book up to ten days in advance and it’s a complete scramble to buy tickets because it’s you vs the rest of the Chinese population – who, it must be said, know how to use their elbows and have no shame about doing so. Also, you can’t do any of it online.) Add this to Tomb Sweeping Festival, and Claire and I were stuck in Beijing rather than heading down to the beaches and beer of Qingdao with our friends Kat (German) and Rafer (Kiwi). So, since the office was closed Monday/Tuesday I decided to treat the weekend as a holiday anyway, albeit a holiday where Saturday counted as a normal work day. We’d threatened to make seagull noises while drinking cans of Tsingtao and paddling in buckets, but in the end we saw bits of Beijing I hadn’t been to before and quite a memorable staycation.

On Friday night, we went out for a few drinks which almost inevitably (since I had no intention of going out) turned into me rolling into bed at 5.30am and struggling to keep my eyes open all morning at work. Fortunately, I’d scheduled myself a day of catching up on admin stuff requiring zero brainpower. Ah foresight! Saturday night we had a quiet one and on Sunday, Claire and I went for our Usual at the Den. We’ve been there pretty much every weekend since the dawn of our friendship and always have the same thing so Susan, the waitress, is just going through the motions when she gives us menus. She knows it, we know it… one day I’ll surprise the world by NOT ordering a Sunday Roast with orange juice and tea. Not for the foreseeable future though. (In case you’re interested, Claire always has a bacon sandwich.)

After Bacon Saturday (belated) we walked down to Ritan Park, which is possibly my favourite place in Beijing. After cycling down and parking up Delilah and Bill (the bikes) we wandered around with the families in the sunshine. I’m going to write more about Ritan Park another time, but we sat for a while by the lake and did some people watching, strolled past the fishing ponds to see kids catching goldfish with lines and nets then toddling past with their catches in plastic bags and I joined the hordes of people taking pictures of the magnolia trees. No climbing on this occasion.

Kat and Rafer came back on the Sunday night train which arrived about 5am. Fortunately, they waited until 8 to pester us for entertainment. I left the three of them making a plan and went for a run down to Ritan Park (even awesomer in the morning) and by the time I’d done that and showered, after much procrastinating they’d decided on wandering around Yashow Market and getting icecream at Coldstone Creamery. The day passed lazily away in the sunshine – after icecream we wandered back to one of our staple eateries, known to us as “Turkish” even though it’s Xinjiang food and nothing whatsoever to do with Turkey. They do the best chicken wings this side of the moon though, have cold beer in the fridge and always say hello when we walk past so it’s quite a good place to hang out. We were there for a few hours catching up before heading back to the hostel and eventually deciding that two-for-one burgers at Blue Frog were the way forward. Blue Frog burgers, apparently, are the nicest in Beijing… unfortunately I fell asleep in/over mine (the burger was rescued before I face-planted it) so I couldn’t tell you. The others enjoyed theirs though, and had so much fun making fun of me that you wouldn’t believe.

After the laziness of Monday came the supreme awesomeness of Pedalo Tuesday. We headed out to Houhai (a lake in the north west of Beijing’s central area i.e. inside the 2^nd ring road) and straight to the docks. Kat speaks Chinese, but I ended up talking to the guy in the hut and managed to get us a four person duck headed pedalo with my carefully honed miming skills and a smattering of basic Mandarin. Proud? Me? Yeah! Well, you try miming pedalo and not looking mental!! Rafer and I “drove” first while Kat and Claire took in the scenery. 

Unfortunately weren’t properly prepared for the high seas – no picnic, no beer and no cutlasses or pirate hats for pedalo boarding antics. We still managed to have a good giggle though. Piracy another day perhaps… We went for a pizza lunch at The Hutong Pizza afterwards; awesome pizza according to the Beijinger and to us. We ended the day with a Leverage marathon and so endeth the weekend that we didn’t go to Qingdao.

Staycation in your hometown? Have you found something cool and new in the city you live in?

Beijing blues

Since getting back from Hong Kong I’ve been homesick. Blue, out of sorts, quiet; I can’t even hide this away gracefully and plough on – my face is a traitor and apparently it doesn’t matter how much I lie to myself, no-one’s fooled that I’m in anything approaching a good mood. 
Things just seem to keep going pear shaped, and i'm not just talking about my figure. Claire and I had planned on moving to a twin room, but MEIYOU - no money left this month. We'd planned on going to Qingdao with Kat and Rafer (German and Kiwi/Aussie crossover) this weekend, but MEIYOU - no train tickets. I'd planned on going running at least one morning this week, but MEIYOU - no sleep, no energy, no motivation.


I'm not sure what's happened to me - I've just lost my mojo. It's not like I'm missing my family, friends or anything about England any more than usual, I just can't cheer myself up. I feel like I'm sailing the ocean, I've just discovered my boat has turned into a collinder and the crew hasn't noticed yet. Water's unexpectedly coming in from all sides, and there's nothing for it but to admit that I'm about to get wet and I wasn't prepared for this eventuality. I mean, why would I be? Collinders are not sea-worthy and I am usually cheerful. 


My usual strategy to cope with this kind of thing would usually be to run until my legs give out, bury myself in fiction, or generally take myself out of the game until I've recovered my sense of perspective and/or humour. No such respite here. One very noticable thing about Beijing is that it's bloody full of people. 


I guess this is where I need to work on endurance. I'm coming up to the three month mark of my job and three months does tend to be my sameness threshold. Something's going to change soon because something has to. I'm not sure what yet. 


It's the Chinese Ching Ming Tomb-Sweeping Festival this coming weekend (hence meiyou zhan piao to Qingdao) when the Chinese remember the dead, honour their ancestors and sweep the tombs. Well. I had planned on honouring my ancestors (particularly the maternal ones) by going for a paddle in the sea, but I guess I'll have to take the high-road and remember it's "Mind over Matter" and to put on a smile and carry on regardless instead. You'll still get to Scotland before me though.


Having relations to look up to and all the good, sensible advice to live by that I've accrued from them is kind of a comfort when I'm in danger of getting stuck in my head and taking life too seriously. I daresay it's all part of my being British not wanting to either let standards slip nor let myself or any of my ancestors (living and dearly departed) down. Right now I might be sailing a collinder, but damnit, the Union Jack is flying from it and I will carry on bailing until the damn thing is a boat again. There are other weekends for paddling.

Hong Kong

I’ve got my blue dress, I’ve got my backpack, and … I’m out of Beijing! WOOHOOO!! I do love Beijing, but I’ve missed being warm, smelling flowers (did I not mention that Beijing plants plastic flowers over the winter? It’s weird) and seeing the sea. Oh, I have missed the sea. Armed with hastily gathered “what should I do in Hong Kong, I have to go this weekend!” tips from everyone I know, I hopped on the airport express and flew to Shenzhen on Sunday, crossing the border and arriving in time for seeing the Filipino maids of the city lounging around anywhere there was space on their afternoon off. Shenzhen Airlines, incidentally, don’t do the safety demonstration but they DO have a synchronised “thank you for flying with us” dance just before landing. The mind boggles.

So, Hong Kong is mental. It’s like someone hit London with a jungle. Hong Kong Island especially – Kowloon (where I’m sat writing) is more Chinese. I know everyone who likes Hong Kong likes it because you can have both China and England in one city, but the only thing it’s done for me is tinge everything with a hue of homesickness. It’s never been easier to live Dad’s “Remember you’re British” travel advice. Anyway. Since I only had three nights in the place I’ve been cramming in the sightseeing and absorbing the Hong Kong atmosphere. On Monday I dropped all my visa stuff off at the processing centre first thing, then (learning a mountain based lesson from Cape Town) I headed straight for the Peak because the weather was nice. The mountain lesson, by the way, is if it’s nice, you GO – you never, EVER, wait and assume the weather will be the same tomorrow. EVER.  



I got the tram up to the Peak, even though it’s super touristy it’s totally worth it. It’s so steep in places that it feels like the weirdest crank up to a roller coaster ever. The top of the Peak wasn’t what I was expecting, but the wifi in Starbucks meant I could text Mum from Skype like I did from Table Mountain. It’s always nice to follow in travelling traditions! Unfortunately I didn’t time my visit well enough to see sunset and all the lights, and I couldn’t be bothered with sitting round on top of a mountain (even one with a Haagen-Daaz café) to wait. I got the tram down again and wandered the streets of central, indulged myself with a browse of H&M and got a tram back along to Causeway Bay where my hostel was. After cleaning up and chilling out for a while, I hopped on the MTR (subway, metro, underground, whatever) along to the piers at Central to catch the Star Ferry across the water to Kowloon so I could go to the Temple Street night-market. I had a good wander around the market, got dazzled by neon and managed to avoid buying all manner of random tat, mostly because Hong Kong (on a Chinese wage) is horrendously expensive and I only had a small backpack. I wish it was because I know I have no need of or use for random tat, but I’m proud of my restraint anyhow.

In a very British fashion, the next day I went to the beach in the rain. I caught the bus to Repulse Bay on the south side of the island (6X if you’re interested, but you can catch the 6, 6A or 260 from Exchange Square in Central) which took about 45mins. I didn’t quite get the front seat, but 2^nd row isn’t bad for looking out the window and, fortunately, the tourists in front of me were pretty short so they weren’t too much in the way. Repulse Bay is so named because pirates were repulsed from there in 1848 (I think) – it’s claim to fame is a shrine at the South-East end of the beach and a “Longevity” bridge that claims to prolong your life by three days every time you cross it. There are also Baywatch-style lifeguard towers, a shark net and a 7-Eleven right over the road, but they’re not nearly so mystical.

I am my mother’s daughter so naturally I had a paddle, but I was the only one. Not quite as cold as the North Sea or the Channel, but pretty nippy nonetheless. It was a pretty miserable day weather-wise, so I hopped on another bus round to Stanley to check out their market. I was chilly and a bit cheesed off by this point (I’d been hoping for an afternoon sat on the beach) so I didn’t get anything except for a hugely disappointing lunch. I decided to call it quits on sightseeing then and got the bus back over to the north side. In the evening, I met up with my friends Will and Mark (from teaching) who live in Hong Kong now. They took me to see Lang Kwai Fung, Hong Kong’s equivalent of Bar Street, and even though it was Tuesday evening, we still managed to drink until the wee hours.

Wednesday morning I stumbled bleary eyed and cursing the evil pixie on my shoulder that thought tequila was a good idea last night to the visa office to collect my passport. I nursed a hangover, a sausage roll and an iced Hibiscus tea in Starbucks and wrote some postcards for the rest of the morning then headed over to Kowloon to have a mosey in daylight. I wasn’t in a museum mood, so I sat in the park for a while and listened to some kind of tropical bird that sounded like an climaxing swanny-whistle before embarking on the epic trip back to China.

(In fairness, the “epic” trip was a subway ride to the border then a taxi to Shenzhen airport. I’m such a traveller…)

Bikes in Beijing

Nine million bicycles in Beijing eh? Well, now there are nine million* and one – mine! The other weekend I decided that I’d had enough of not getting enough exercise and the smell of people on the subway, so I went on a bike buying mission. Armed with a copy of Time Out Beijing magazine, which had a helpful where to buy a second hand bike article, and my Beijing map I set out to find myself some wheels.

Guess where Boris got the idea from...

The internet was being temperamental at the hostel (yes, I still live in a hostel) before I left, so I for the first time in ages I was relying on following my nose and reading a map, rather than being prepared with directions in advance. I walked west along Gongrentilu to Zhangzizhonglu subway station, then explored north and south along Dongsi Beidajie looking for the place in Time Out. I’d never been to that bit of Beijing before (it’s north east of the Forbidden City, along Line 5 if that’s how you care to navigate) and the Chinese equivalent of an English high street. I wasn’t in any rush, so I strolled around a bit, munched on a sweet potato from a street vendor and had a coffee before looking for my intended emporium. I found it without too much trouble, and had a poke around. I don’t really know anything much about bikes – my tick list went something along the lines of two wheels, chain, breaks, saddle – so I avoided the rusty and (much more picturesque) second hand bikes inside and went to the guys outside, one of whom spoke some English and was insistent that he had the bike for me. Turns out, he did. Who am I to argue with fate? I’m not sure whether my bike had fallen off the back of a rickshaw or not, but it was clean, big enough for me and the price was right – mission accomplished.

My new ride has the required two wheels, chain, breaks, saddle… and a BASKET! I just need something to customise it a bit – spray paint? Stickers? Stuff for the basket? I haven’t decided yet – so it stands out more in bike parks and then it’ll be perfect. The second I handed over my cash, Beijing got a little bit more awesome. I called Claire once it was mine, she hired a hostel bike and we rendezvoused at Wangfujing, browsed a bookshop for a bit then rode home together. I haven’t looked back! I’ve ridden to work every day since, and I love it. (Incidentally, the ride to work takes about twenty five minutes pedalling at a relaxed pace. Beijing is flat as a pancake, so it’s an easy ride although somehow the way to work always feels slightly more uphill... psychological maybe?!)

It feels surprisingly safe cycling out here too. Beijing is well set up with cycle lanes, but traffic-wise, everything is relatively free and easy. As soon as you get your head round that, and deal with the fact that although motorists are happy to cut up cyclists there’s no malice in them – then cycling here is great. I was riding to work along the almost deserted canal road on Friday, behind a westerner wearing a helmet, reflective stuff and cycle-clips on his trousers who was gesturing in an insistently British fashion at the Chinese woman riding up our side of the road towards us. With my hair streaming behind me and not a reflective patch in sight, man, I feel like a Beijinger.

*inflation notwithstanding… there are more like 22million people in Beijing, so I’m going to take a punt at 12 million bicycles, at least.

Spring Festival in Beijing

Spring Festival (Chinese New Year to you and I) is the biggest and most important festival / holiday of the year in China. For some Chinese people it’s their one trip “home” in the year, so this time of year the entirety of China is on the move. The nation went on the move in the first week of February, but Lantern Festival (Feb 18^th) sort of marks the end of the festivities, so Beijing is starting to get back to itself. Unfortunately, I haven’t done any travelling over the festive period. On one hand, there are far worse places to spend Spring Festival than Beijing and actually it was good to avoid the crammed trains and planes and all the stressed, sweaty people that go with mass migration. On the other hand, it seems like everyone around me is travelling, and I’m going nowhere fast.  Not home, not travelling, not even leaving Beijing at the moment! Thinking positively though, I saw a different side of Beijing too, and got to do some of the touristy stuff that I’ve missed around the city.

China is famous for fireworks. I know this, you know this; what I hadn’t realised is just how prolific they are. The entire week was like living in a fairytale warzone, bangs and glitter all over the city. Official statistics are that over Spring Festival there were 2 deaths, 388 injuries and 194 fires from fireworks – and that’s just the reported ones in Beijing alone! I’m pleased to report that I suffered nothing worse than surprise from a cracker falling on my nose, though a former roommate of mine wrote off a down jacket from cinder burns. For New Year itself there wasn’t an official firework display as we’d have it back home, anyone and everyone can buy them and set them off pretty much anywhere, so that’s what happens! The one that exploded down the drain was quite entertaining... At New Year (2^nd Feb) the hostel set some off at midnight – we all stood round, watched them explode and dodged the fallout of the crackers. All you really have to do to see fireworks this time of year though is look out the window. The hostel was busier for Spring Festival than I saw it at actual New Year and Christmas (mostly because everywhere was closed and backpackers have to have somewhere to party!) so it was a really fun atmosphere, and the fireworks literally just stopped going off yesterday.

For New Year’s Day (Feb 3^rd) we went to Chaoyang Park International Carnival. I can’t think what I was expecting (except for a throng of people, but it’s China – that’s a given) but the number of end of the pier sideshow “hook-a-duck” style games and thousands of stalls selling really weird tacky stuff wasn’t precisely it. It was a fun day though – Claire and I went with four guys from the hostel and we spent the best part of the day wandering around, trying to win stuff and sampling random food from the stalls. I could’ve done some jugglers or acrobats… lanterns, dragon dances – anything a bit more stereotypically ‘traditional Chinese’ than inflatable mallets, but heyho. 

The day after, in search of something a little more ‘cultural’ Claire and I went to Dongyue Daoist temple fair about a twenty minute stroll south of the Workers Stadium. 

Daoism is cool. It’s Buddhism with fire and brimstone – around the edges of the temple were rooms with statues illustrating exactly what will happen to you in ever department of Hell. ‘Department’ of Hell no less – you have to love how insidious bureaucracy is in every facet of Chinese life, both now and afterwards!! My personal favourite was the room with one poor guy having his tongue cut out by an astonishingly red demon and another guy whose intestines were just falling out of his mid-section. Nice. The temple fair was a funny combination of devotion – people lighting incense and reflecting quietly – and travelling show. We caught the second half of a puppet show, missed some acrobatics and were invited to try and win ourselves some manky looking giant cuddly toys. There were loads of souvenir stalls too; choice examples were posed cockroaches in glass jars, nodding dog style plasticine models of your face, and anything and everything with a rabbit theme. FYI, it’s now the Year of the Rabbit.

After that, we decided we’d had enough of culture for a few days, so the next thing of note I saw/did was go to the Temple of Heaven on the last day before going back to work. It was good to get out into some greenery for once – Temple of Heaven, apart from the temple, is a huge park all filled with cyprus trees. It was surprisingly peaceful, even filled with tourists. It just made me realised how much I need the outdoors in my life! Chinese people and parks have a wonderful relationship that I think I’ll muse on at a later stage, but the best thing about my visit to Temple of Heaven was just wandering round outside. I didn’t bother going into the temple itself – people watching is way more interesting! I think the best bit was chatting with a tiny old Chinese man who was writing English riddles on the ground in water.

I’m back to the grindstone now (as you can probably tell from how far away from events this was posted!!) – more to come as soon as I can!