China Town

So after the long, hot, pretty much sleepless flight to Beijing, we checked into our hostel near Tianaman Square. It was freezing in Beijing....Average temperature of the stay was -10 degrees. And the hostel was pretty much that temperature inside. The room had a good heater but the BATHROOM omg had a plastic roof which was covered in snow, and the door was also corrugated plastic with a huge hole in it for a nice icy breeze to come in. Showering was pretty painful!!

Apart from being very COLD for most of the stay, we had a great time in Beijing. Day 1 we just wandered around Tianaman Square as we were pretty jet lagged! The Hostel bar was good, lots of DVDs and games, and LARGE beers for 80p :) nice. Day 2 we took a kind of tuk tuk ride which was mental! And went to the Temple of Heaven and went for a huge walk around town. The next day we visited the Forbidden City, and in the evening we went to Silk Street where we tried to haggle for a few goods. We got a couple of bits. I got grabbed and cornered by Chinese people trying to flog me stuff, shouting "hey you lady come here!!". We then managed to find a nice restaurant that did the 'Best peking duck in town', which we tried, and we thought it was okay, maybe not the best in town. maybe the most expensive!

On our last day we decided to go to the good old Great Wall of China! It involved an early night and very early morning, which was HARD for us as we are well lazy. It was about a 3 hour drive away, which we slept through. When we got there it was pretty damn cold!!! We chose to get the ski lift up which was cool, amazing views! Then we walked up as far as we could one way, which was SO much hard work as some of the steps were massive!! We then had our picnic sat on the wall. Pretty impressive lunch views :) And then walked some more the other direction. We had to meet our driver by about 1pm down the bottom so headed back via TOBOGGAN! Which was totally awesome...You could just go as fast as you like and it was so fun...Makes the Great Wall just that little bit more Great.

When we returned we just hung out in the hostel bar enjoying the tasty cheap food, and then headed toward the MASSIVE Beijing train station. It was more like an airport! Bags get scanned and tickets checked on entry and they have departure lounges for each train. The night train went smoothly, and when we arrived in Xi'an someone was at the station to meet us and transfer us to the hostel, which was nice.

Xi'an felt warmer, didn't quite need the thick thermals, earmuffs and gloves all day :) The first thing I did there was go to Starbucks for a brew, as I had discovered you can get English Breakfast Tea there, thank GOD! We wandered about, and discovered that Xi'an has ALOT of high end shops, like Prada and Gucci, which seemed odd, not what I expected. Didn't do too much, just wandered and took in Xi'an and hung out in the hostel cafe which was lovely, and then had our free beer in the bar downstairs which had a terracotta warrior theme, and was full of drunken Chinese people! Elliot sleep talked in the dorm that night and woke up everyone, was well funny....

Decided to go to the Drum and Bell tower in town. One of which is now on the middle of a traffic island! We got asked to have our picture taken with a Chinese couple which was very odd, felt famous/like a freak show. When exploring them we found an ace street market where we bought some cheapy cheap souvenirs.

The next day we decided to venture out to see the Terracotta Army, but not on the expensive hostel tour, so we had to get 2 buses there. Was easy, and were there in no time, and after only spending about 80p! They were pretty impressive, loads of em, all different, amazing really. On our way back, at the bus station some KNOBHEAD tried to pick pocket me....I felt my zip on my bag open though and when I turned around he had his hand in my bag, and I screamed "GET THE FUCK OFF YOU SKIVVY BASTARD!!!" haha I am so classy. But he ran off...Proper shook me up as I did not expect it at all, and ever since then I have kept my hand on my zip!! Ended our last night in Xi'an in the bar, where we talked to a couple that we had previously met on the Great Wall! And then played some foozball where a couple of Chinese drunkard men joined in with us, they were wasted, and couldn't speak a word of English. Very entertaining!

As it was a last day in Xi'an, I was desperate to see PANDAS!! So we hired a private car to take us to a panda rescue centre. It was totally ace, we were the only people there and we got there just in time for dinner time so all the pandas were just coming out. The driver knew all the Pandas names and when he shouted them they would come right over to us! One called Lui Lui came over and started barking, sounded like a cross between a sheep and a dog! There were two babies who were born at the centre, and one came right upto the bars on his enclosure and the driver fed him some bamboo and he sat right in front of us chewing it. He was close enough to stroke! It was so cute and amazing ^_^

When we got back we left about an hour before our train was due to leave, which was a MASSIVE mistake. We could not get a taxi, and when we eventually gave up and got the bus, which got stuck in traffic, we then saw the mental queue to get into the station, and we had about 10 minutes to get to our train. Luckily a Chinese lad noticed our distress and explained to one of the guards that our train left in about 7 minutes so let us push in! When we got to our train, we literally had 1 minute on the clock before it left, so so lucky, would have been a waste of about £100 if we missed it!!

Train journey was fine, even though the people who got to our cabin first stole our more expensive lower beds (RUDE). When we arrived in Shanghai, we got straight into a taxi with an ass of a driver, who tried to rip us off, but when we insisted on having the meter on, we noticed he had one of the cheeky meters that go up WAY too fast. So we stole his licence card, to which he freaked out and put the meter back to normal. Christy & Elliot ONE, Taxi driver NIL!

Our room in the hostel was the smallest ever. The bed was big, but the floor space was non existent! We stayed in the room for about 3 nights, one of the nights being my BIRTHDAY which was v cool, as we went over to the new business area of Pudong, and had a lovely lunch and dinner, and Elliot bought me a surprise birthday cake which was DELICIOUS! Unfortunately though, both Elliot and I got ill during our stay, which made us not really up for doing much, we moved hostels mid way through our week long stay, and the next place was lovely. We took a walking tour of Shanghai, we shopped, we spend HOURS in a huge arcade and won prizes :D and went to the French Concession. One highlight of Shanghai was going up the Jin Mao tower to the highest bar in the world, Cloud 9, which was above the Hyatt hotel. Was so fancy!! Very expensive (£10 a cocktail) but was a cool experience. Although the view was not impressive due to pollution/mist.

The last day we made our way to the train station NICE AND EARLY. It all seemed too easy, but as we went to board the train we were told we were at the WRONG TRAIN. So typical. So we had to leg it to the other part of the station and get bags scanned, fill in departure forms, and get passports checked cause yes, we were leaving China to go to Hong Kong! We didn't realise that Hong Kong was classed as a completely different country, even though it's part of China, so we could not re-enter as we only had single entry visas!! Oh well....So we happily got on the train, and were with just one other Chinese guy. about an hour into the trip we were asked if we would swap cars with a family so they could all be in the same room, which we did, but we moved in with an old man, and a right moody woman. As soon as we entered they put on face masks and were touching everything with tissues, like we were contaminated or something...Then, when I was sleeping, the old man had left and caused a right fuss, which eventually woke me, where Elliot tells me the old man thinks Elliot has H1N1 cause he was coughing!! He had found a doctor and everything....He refused to come back in the room, but we refused to move, so the old man and moody woman left, which was nice, so we got the car to ourselves :)

Arrived in Hong Kong in the afternoon on the next day, it was warm and lovely.

We Heart Berlin!

Our stay in Berlin was great....Totally loved it! On the first night Arthur the guy who ran the hostel had invited us out to the cinema along with his girlfriend Jess, her cousin Steph, and a couple of other people staying in the hostel. The cinema however, was fully booked when we arrived so we got some Gluhvein (hot wine - Elliot had a beer!) and headed to an old building that locals had taken over and was using as gallery space. Very Cool! Our fave was a guy called Tim Roelfs who did collages. There was a while floor of people who made jewellry, and on the top floor a Russian artist who did massive paintings, slightly dark but very detailed... (we later bought a couple of prints :))

We were then taken to a bar next door which, when I walked in, I obviously didnt notice the huge metal dragon I was stood under and when it started the breath fire - crapped myself! Think the bar staff found it amusing! Was a really ace place though, but could only stay for about half an hour as there was a band on and we hadn't paid the entry fee. We walked back to the hostel in the snow, and went to the Curry Wurst stall that was near by with an Indian guy who was staying at the hostel (who we called Raggy - Raghav). We had seen Curry Wurst advertised everywhere but had NO idea what it was. Turns out its a German sausage, usually cut up into pieces with a tomato sauce on and loads of curry powder! Its DELICIOUS! My new fave food... We went back to bed in our shared single bottom bunk!! Slept rather well to start with but then the Australian guy, Brad from our room (who we had earlier been for a drink with in Belushis) got back absolutely WASTED and kept everyone awake for ages. He ended up crying and eventually being quiet...odd boy!

On our first full day we did as we had promised to do and did the walking tour. This was a free one that took you to most of the historical places. Started at Brandenburg Gate, went to the Hollocaust Memorial, the site of Hitlers bunker, Nazi Airforce building, Berlin Wall, Checkpoint Charlie (some more curry wurst for lunch) then to some cathedrals, a Christmas Market and ended on Museum Island. Was very interesting and the girl who took the tour was great! (if you go on the New Berlin Free Tour try to get Stephanie the New Zealand girl!!) We wandered about some more, met up with Raggy on Friedrichstrabe and walked back to the hostel together. It was his last day in the hostel which was a shame cause he was fun and had very good knowledge of UK football so him and Elliot got on very well! But we said fairwell, and had a lazy night in in the hostel.

The next day, New Years Eve Eve, we decided it would be best if we bought our tickets for the pub crawl! We went to the TV Tower at Alexanderplatz and met up with the tour group who were arranging the pub crawl. €35 each later we had our New Years Evil tickets :D It was snowing really heavily, and we wandered about the area. They had an outdoor museum with info about the war etc which we read through, and we went to a HUGE shopping centre for lunch and a paroooze. Ended up going to Belushis again for a drink where we saw Brad again and he apologised for the other night (LOL). We had booked ourselves in for Avatar tonight, so went back to meet Arthur, Jess and Steph and went off to the Sony Centre IMAX again. The film was very impressive. I enjoyed it a lot. Elliot didn't so much, but was a nice night anyway!

New Years Eve! We decided to take it easy as we knew we had a big night ahead...We went back to Potsdamer Plats where the Sony Centre is, and Elliot dragged me on a huge sledge run (which was totally ace!!) and we just wandered around. There was a big section of the Berlin wall there and an outdoor museum. The snow was SO thick, ridiculous! After several snowball fights we headed back and started to get ready. We had had to move rooms after the first night, and we were sharing a room with some Aussie girls and some Brazilian boys. We had some of the €1 beers Arthur sold and made our way to the first stop of the crawl which was the Yesterday Bar! Very cool with a fake lab set up and mushrooms on the ceiling and fake people sat at the bar :) We were split up into 2 groups and went to the next bar which for our group was the gothic bar (Last Cathedral!) Free shot on your way in. It was very.....gothic. Got called "fucking tourists" as we went in by a local....NICE! After some time there we went to the next bar which was a swing bar, cant remember the name but very nice. Free cocktail and shot on the way in. Lots of dancing done by me and Elliot! Then off to the next place which is where we all grouped up and spend midnight. It was an outdoor complex place and there were 2 bars with different music on, food stalls, and a massive outdoor area (covered in DEEP snow!) with bonfires by the river. It was so lovely and really quiet! We were all very drunk, felt like me and Elliot were worse though haha and when midnight struck we all ran about hugging and watching the fireworks by the river. Was lovely :) A group of people had bought loads of champagne and left it chilling in the snow and pulled it out at midnight to share about. After this lovely joyful New Years I then think I lost the camera. I was so gutted as all the pics from the last few days were on there!! I cried lots and tried for ages to find it in the club to no avail and we lost the group at the metro station! GUTTED! After we got off the metro, Elliot discovers he had it in his pocket all along....OMG I COULD HAVE KILLED HIM! But I was just happy we had it!! Luckily Arthur knew the clubs we were going to and had put them on our map before we left, so although we lost the group we still miraculously managed to find the final club! And just as we arrived the group was just going in the side entrance THANK GOD cause the normal queue was HUGE! We danced a lot and stayed til god knows what time....Got the trains back and went to bed. I think it was about 4-5am?? And we thought we were going to be the first ones back as everyone seemed up for a right big night out when we left, but everyone was in bed!! Apart from one Aussie guy who was staying up so he didn't miss his early flight...Losers! We had an awesome night anyway :)

Obviously not much to say about the next day, sleep, hangover and diet cokes in Belushis - Thats all!! Spoke to everyone else in the hostel who did the Brandenburg gate for New Years and they all had a very disappointing night as it was freezing and rammed full...Unlucky!

For the last full day, we decided to do the Alternative Tour (by the people who arranged the New Years Evil) which was very interesting. Showed you a lot of the Graffiti artists work around the city. He took us to the same place Arthur had taken us on our first night and it ended in the complex that we spent New Years!! But was still interesting.

The next day was our last. It was bitterly cold, the coldest day so far! We walked to the flea market down the road, but was too cold to enjoy it to its fullest!! Although it was very interesting, we had to head back and collect our bags to go to the airport. Was really sad leaving Hostel Aloha and saying goodbye as we had totally loved it and it felt like a home from home...But we left and went to the airport. HUGE queues and a very very long wait as the flight was delayed but eventually got on and settled down for the 12ish hour flight to Beijing!