Could National holiday week be salvaged ??
Trip Start
Aug 30, 2011
1
3
8
Trip End
Aug 30, 2012
What I did
Ancient water town
Zhouzhuang, Jiangsu, China
Monday, October 3, 2011
So it was the national holiday week we had been hearing all about since us Interns arrived in China. However I think it is safe to say that we all under estimated the whole occasion, this wasnt just a typical bank holiday that we are well use to back in the UK, more like 900 million having an entire week off, in hindsight we should have expected some sort of disruption with our plans but our niavity once again let us down.......well let some of us down anyway.
A week off in October, happy friggin days, the weather was still going to be great so all 8 of us were unnanamous in our decision that we were getting the hell out of Suzhou for national holiday week. Our first thoughts turned to Hong Kong, an obvious choice, there would be beaches and a really cool city we hadnt seen yet. It was only early september, so no rush to book our flights eh............WRONG.. initally we had seen flights from Shanghai to Hong kong for around 1000 RMB return and given its relatively close proximity we thought prices wouldnt go much higher. This was most certainly a mistake as in the weeks we spent deliberating about how long we would spend there valuable booking time was lost and in the end it became financially impracticle to travel to hong kong at this time....awww well maybe next time. ( tip for others, make sure you book flights to anywhere within or outside china well in advance of national holiday week, our original hong kong flight prices trippled in cost)
Anyways not to be beaten our thoughts turned to Beijing, It looked as if we were on to a winner as well, there was cheap available accomodation and we could get the fast train there for around 500 RMB......so next question, how many of us was going???
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WELL , this seemingly easy and innocuous question turned the week prior to national holiday week one filled with unnecessary confrontation and frustration. main problem was getting 10-11 people to make up their minds was never going to work. Some thought Beijing was a fantastic idea, others sat on the fence awaiting their collars to be tugged and arses wiped for them. Someone had to try and make this work or it was going to be our first week off together and we would all be sat resenting eachother. Now Im not trying to portray myself as some travel saviour but I firmly believe that more is lost through indecision than a wrong one so time was off the essence and my feet were well and truely itchy so hanging about wasnt the right thing to do.
After much deliberation all 8 off us interns decided to go to Beijing, however the main gamble was that we would have to book our Accomodation and our outward ticket first as we had been told that you cant book train tickets more than 14 days in advance, a VERY strange policy we thought but OK this is china after all everything is just strange. So Sadie and Nicole got on with the accomodation bookings. I on the other reluctantly offered to go and get all our train tickets from WenXing Plaza during our work break.... (NEVER AGAIN)
It turned out to be an infuriating 45 minute queue, whos tedium was further enhanced when I was told our bandwagon was to be increased by 4, without any extra funds I might add. So needless to say that really pissed me off given the fact that I didnt even know how much one ticket would cost and everyone had just handed me what ever cash they thought the ticket would be. Thankfully Iain came along to help out, as I probably would have been even more screwed because as i came to the front of the queue it became aparent that the tickets were NOT the 400 RMB price we initaly were told but in fact 550 or something......Try explainining to a grumpy ticket office woman to wait whilst i got more money in chinese, Go on I dare you (haha)............... OK well i didnt have to do that part lol, as luck would have it one of XJTLU's english teachers was there and she spoke fluent chinese and was able to explain our situation and hold the Queue as Iain and I ran to the ATM.
So after a quick sprint to the ATM we eventually had enough cash to cover the now 10 tickets..... getting hit with stupid bank charges in the process.. But at least we had out tickets eh, the 1 and a half hour ordeal was over !! Bejing was HAPPENING...whoop whoop.. Just had to collect our tickets and book our return train in 2 days.
So for 2 days we planned what days we were going to vist the Great Wall and all the other sites...Then it came time to collect our tickets, and once again disaster struck............No return train from Beijing available.... Ugh ohh !! this was not guna go down well with the others. And it really didnt. My office told me that that in china each province has different processing times for train tickets, in jiangsu province you can book up to 14 days in advance......in the Province Beijing is in you can book up to 20 days in advance..........therefore the day we went to book our tickets we could have got a return and it would have been fine......2 days later no tickets = NO Beijing.
(so another little tip, DONT always listen to chinese people and if you know a return date, just bloody well try and book it regardless)
So after the inital disapointment some of us decided to pay the premium and book a flight from Beijing back to Shanghai whilst others chose just to get refunds.
.Sadie, Nicole, Iain, Jordan and Michael all went on the train to Beijing on 2nd october and were due to fly home on the 7th-8th?? ( unfortunately this time I would have to pass on Beijing because I had just booked my phillipines trip and was short of cash).............Emily, Ellie, Ruth, Adam and I all had to get refunds......This was not a good start to our first holiday in china, and following a drunken TGI fridays night out tensions were running quite high to say the least.
Seeing the others leave for the train I was suppose to be getting on was depressing, something had to be done..............NATIONAL HOLIDAY WEEK MUST BE SALVAGED !!!
Monday 3rd Oct
Adam and woke up early that morning and collectively agreed that we would just pack our backpacks and just go with the flow, lets see what China has in store for us. Stepping on that bus towards the station I once again had that feeling of stepping into the unknown. Getting caught in the massive high way traffic jam only added to this sense of adventure, we really didnt know where we would end up this week. Our first stop though, the ancient water village of Zhouzhuang.
( small digression, but as Adam and I awaited our bus to Zhouzhuang in Suzhou North long distance bus station nature called. I had always been a bit tentative about using chinse public toilets after watching karl pilkington's "An idiot abroad series", but thinking nothing of it i just went for it...and you know what, it was actually one of those moments that you stand there and say to your self sometimes "fuck me what you see on TV can actually be true" .......there before me as i waited to use the toilet i witnessed two chinese men in the squat toilets with no doors, squatting having a shit whilst smoking and having a chit chat.......still for the life of me I cant imagine what they would be discussing....definattely a vey surreal moment, coupled by the smell that just offended my still western aclimatized nostrils.
A couple hours later we were in Zhouzhuang.......I had seen it refered to online as, "The Venice of the Orient" so I did have quite high expectations as ive already been to the real venice and it was utterly mindblowing...........and you know what, in all fairness it did actually hold its own. We walked around and it really did feel like an old chinese village, although the obsene number of people there did take away from it a little. At one point crossing over one of the bridges I was convinced I was going to end up in the canal because of all the pushing and shoving.
But hey, the only good thing is you can shoulder barge them back and they wont even bat an eyelid........give it a try :P
good points : Unlike suzhou there was more temples and more traditional chinese boats.
Bad points: UNAPOLOGETICALLY COMMERCIAL...... I suppose to be compared to the venice of the east you have to step up the commercialism just to compete, however for me this went just a bit over the top, there was far too many tourist attractions. The first one you see is the pearl fishing at the entrance.......next you have the shops that try and drag you in at all costs......thirdly the temples, they are as much about praying to Buddah as the man on the moon... it was all purely a comodity, one that they bloody wel charge for as well........three insense sticks and a quick chat with the man himself will set you back around 300 RMB if your not careful...... unfortunately for those monks there was no way i was paying that and i managed to get away with paying jut 30 rmb.......still pissed off with that though..
dont eat in the hostel, terrible, terrible pizza, worst ive ever eaten
overall we had a great day here at Zhouzhuang despite it not being as traditional and mind blowing as we had imagined....the fact that everyone was trying to get their hands on your money was very off putting and right to the very end where we had to pay a 140 rmb taxi back to suzhou we felt as if we had been ripped off.......(Another tip...buses from Zhouzhuang to Suzhou are regular but try and get back to the bus station before 5pm, as we were told no more buses would come at that time, still to this day im not sure whether or not they were lying to us) ok so not quite the start we had hoped for but i guess thats all part of taking that step into the unknown.............
(MY tip....................go to the real venice ) or Tongli ( havent been here yet, but aparently its much better and less touristy)
THAT EVENING HOWEVER..........we never expected one movie would change the course of our week.........................................................................................
