Beijing and Kunming

Hey everyone! So for this semester there were two places that I had been planning to go to ever since the end of copenhagen: Beijing and the Yunnan Province (one of the most scenic spots in China). So 3 of my friends (Jamie, Weck, and David) and I set out to beijing on the 24 hour train from the Hung Hom station in Hong Kong to the Beijing West station. When we arrived on the train we definitely had thought that we reserved a 4 person sleeper....but it actually turned out that we got split up into pairs. we ended up having to sleep on the top bunks of separate 6 person sleepers. sleeping on this overnight train really wasn't that bad compared to the sleeping on the overnight train to Oktoberfest (see previous post) where we didn't even have a bed. the only downside about sleeping on the top bunk was that they turned on the lights at 7 am, the ceiling was really low so it felt like a coffin, and that the train rocked making you feel like you could roll off the top bunk. but the whole train experience was pretty cool though because it was peaceful; we saw the countryside of China, we met some pretty cool people on the way, and you got swing off the top bunk like on the monkey bars. we spent most of the time in the dining car being old chinese ladies playing mahjong, and reading some books. In anycase, when we got to the train station, we then set off to get on a bus to our hostel. A word of advice, getting on the Bus 823 from the Beijing West station is CRAZY so be prepared. I have never seen so many people pushing and getting stuck into bus doors before. The bus lady was yelling mandarin, which is not pretty when being screamed. also upon arrival at the train station, jamie and I immediately were mistaken for being Korean...this would be the first of at least 10 times. up on the "what nationality am I" list is Japanese and Vietnamese. Also, according to our cab driver in Kunming, I looked 15/16, and according a Tibetan store clerk, Jamie and I look like twins. In anycase, we made it to our hostel called "Sitting on the City Walls" which is the top ranked hostel in all of Asia and ranked number 7 on the top hostels in the world. Buying a beijing guidebook really isn't necessary if you are going to stay here because they have computers and all the lonely planet guidebooks. They also have set tours, maps, and ready information for how to get to the main sites. The hostel is also about a 5 min walk from the back gate of the forbidden city. Also, we met up with two of our other friends at the hostel, Linea and Sabrina. (We ended up meeting up with another two of our friends who were staying at a different hostel later on in Beijing) So pretty much for the next 4-5 days, we did all the major things. We went to see the forbidden city, which is breathtaking when you actually get to the middle part away from the north gate; temple of heaven; hongqiao pearl market; tiananmen square; olympic park; summer palace; GREAT WALL OF CHINA; night life in sanlitun and houhai; and using the bus system, which was extremely helpful. I don't think I will talk about all these things but just a few extensively about some of them. So a few random things about each place. Forbidden City: we came in from the north gate, which is actually quite small and VERY crowded because most people start at the south gate and end at the north gate. It's also not as spacious, but is very maze-like because it was the residential area of the palace complex. Either way, once you make it to the gates in the center of the city, we got such an beautiful breathtaking view. Great Wall: this was by far the highlight of our trip to Beijing. we decided to be adventurous and do the 10 km hike from one portion of the wall to the another portion: Jinshanling to Simatai. We chose these portions of the wall after reading a lot of reviews about which part of the wall we should go to. The hike was intense but amazing because there portions of the wall that were unrestored to the point that if you were not careful, you could fall of the side of the wall, fall backwards while climbing, or fall down steep steps. After climbing to 16 of the 30 towers we took a break in the 16^th tower with sandwiches we had packed the night before. I think that the most rewarding part of the whole hike was how challenging it was and how rewarding it was. I remember distinctly after the first 400 m that we all just looked at each other and were thinking “what have we gotten ourselves into?” but at every moment you could just look off to the side and see the amazing view. at the end of the 10 k hike, we took a zip line down the great wall, which was pretty awesome too.

Summer Palace: Going to the summer palace was also another day excursion out. we pretty spent all day there. aside from the marble boat and the actual palace complex, highlight of this outing was our paddle boat ride. at the very end of the day after walking around the palace, the 6 of us rented a paddle boat for about an hour and just took turns paddling around the lake enjoying hte beautiful weather.

we did a lot of other things as well and would take too long to explain! but all i can say is that traveling with the 5 ppl that i did was amazing because we all got along so well and we all wanted to see the samet hings. traveling with the right people makes a huge difference and I felt that we all got a lot closer after that. not to mention that i also got to practice my chinese and felt comfortable doing so!

So May 6, the 6 of us split up. David, Jamie, and I took an airplane to Kunming in the Yunnan Province, Weck went home, and Sabrina and Linea took their own tour of China and would meet up with us later with the rest of us in Shanghai for our GLOBE study trips. So when D, J, and I arrived in Kunming we were a little hesitant about what we should do because of all the places in the Yunnan Province (one of the most scenic spots in China) Kunming is not considered the best. but we did some research and we found a couple of things that we could do that would be fun while we were there.

So on our first day in Kunming, we decided to go to the local art district, which turned out to be one of the best things that we did. we first went to a swedish/chinese collaboration gallery and saw some beautiful artworks. and then we proceeded to walk through a number of art galleries and studios and even got to meet one of the artists. it was definitely one of those out-of-asia experiences because I felt like I could have been in the MoMA in new york. what was really cool was that there were pretty amazing pieces painted in 1949, 1950, 1951 during the civil war and those during mao's cultural revolution when artists were persecuted. So after the art gallery, we went to a restaurant called Mama Fu's and had hamburgers. Jamie and by that point had been so homesick for western food that we had to get hamburgers at a Chinese restaurant. We called it in early after that as we had woken up extremely early that morning for the flight from Beijing to Kunming.

The next two days we went to 3 really cool scenic spots. We hired a personal driver for pretty cheap who would drive us to the Dadieshui waterfall and the Stone Forest since it was a bit outside of the kunming. When we first arrived at the waterfall, we actually thought it wasn't that cool because all you could really see was the top of hte waterfall and that was it, not to mention the fact that there was basically no one there but us (which actually turned out to make the experience better). But eventually hidden behind the trees we saw a small cable car that would take us down to the bottom of the waterfall. I was really hesitant at first because the cable car looked like it hadn't been used for decades, but the man working the cable car was really nice and actually rode with us. It was only until we got to the bottom of the waterfall that we really saw how beautiful the waterfall and the area around it was. we were literally at the bottom between valleys. i can't really describe how beautiful it was, but it was just a wash of green and red earth everywhere with a cool breeze/spray from the waterfall.

After visiting the waterfall, our driver then took us to the Stone Forest. Like the waterfall, the beginning of the stone forest was a little iffy because it just seemed like a regular park with a couple of tall stones. but when we walked around more and got to the core of the stone forest, it was AMAZING. the stones were probably about an average of 10 meters high, and its something so different than i've ever seen before. there were a lot of walking paths that the park had created including one that led up to the top of the stones, which we did. you might not be able to tell how high were in the pictures, but were definitey a good 10-15 meters above the ground. it was ridiculously scary and jamie and I were hugging the stones as were climbing. but again it was challenging and rewarding at the same time.

The places we saw in Kunming was definitely one of those places where everything we did topped what we did before it. Speaking of which, the next we decided to go to the Western Hill Park, which we had heard was pretty amazing. but like the two things before it, it started off rocky because the "trail" that were walking on was really just a huge road that circled the mountain. it was only until about 2 hours into the hike that it really got amazing. for next 3 hours, we literally climbed up and up the moutain side with each spot giving a beautiful view of the city of Kunming. The first amazing spot we got to was a pavilion that overlooked hte city (see picture below of jamie and I). the breeze felt great and view was everything that we had read about it. the next spot we went to was actually called the "mini stone forest." we sort of expected it to be like stone forest we had just gone to the other day, but it was actually entirely different. we basically climbed on top of stones that were of varying height (1m to 2 m high). walking through this stone forest was challenging in a different way because 1) we were at the top of the mountain and at the edge of the mountain and 2) we had to walk on top of hte stones and had to try not to fall in the cracks. jamie and I couldn't make it to the top because were too tired, but david kept going to the top only to realize that when he reached the "top" there was a taller mountain next to him hahah. We ended our kunming trip with a lift down the moutain. the next day we caught an earlier flight back to the Hong Kong, where we would ride the last A41 bus back to Shatin from the airport and unpack and pack up for our study trips to Shanghai and Tokyo in 2 days.

its hard to explain what those 9 days were like because it was a whirlwind of adventure. but if i had to If I have to sum up this whole travel experience i'd say, I went to amazing places and saw AMAZING things.

Here are some pictures to go along with the blogpost.











hopefully i'll get to writing about Shanghai and Tokyo in the next week or so!

~Jenny