Harbin, China

January 26th-28th 2009

 

Pictures of Harbin can be viewed HERE.

 

Pictures of Chinese New Year in Shanghai HERE.

 

As you may or may not know, Shanghai is a cold place to live during the winter. Not only is the humid cold bone chillingly cold but indoor is even worse due to poor heating system and poor isolation. In the appartment, it’s not uncommon for me to have 3 layers on or to see my breath vapor trail in the bathroom in the morning. Why is a modern city like Shanghai yet to have proper indoor heating system? The answer is the same reason as why plane boarding passes are too big to put them in your pockets, which is "I have no idea but it’s retarded".

 

Anyway, no better way to escape the cold Shanghai winter than to go to Harbin, an even colder place in China’s northernmost major city. However, I’ve heard that indoors was warm and comfortable so it was well worth the try. Oh, and there’s also the Harbin International Snow and Ice Festivals. Karen was afraid of the cold weather but who cares what she thinks I managed to convince her that it wasn’t going to be that bad and it would be ok, which of course was a huge lie. Damn right it’s going to be too cold! But preferbly, I didn’t want to stay in Shanghai for Chinese New Year holiday as it’s quite boring and travelling outside China during that time is expensive. Therefore a 3 day trip to Harbin was what the doctor prescribe.

 

For reference, Harbin’s winter is very similar to Montreal’s winter, with temperatures easily going down to -20, -30 degrees Celcius. However, when it’s cold in Canada, I never stay outside for more than 5-10mins to go from car to destination and vice versa. As for Harbin, the main attractions needed us to stay outdoors for a few hours at a time. I was probably more afraid about the cold than her as I’m pretty fragile, that’s why I wasn’t reluctant to buy warm gear just for those 3 days, including really ugly big winter boots at 159RMB that I donated right after coming back to Shanghai. Even with those boots, my toes were still cold when staying outdoors for too long. Oddly enough, Karen had no problem with her usual Shanghai winter boots costing a mere 70RMB. As you will see in the pictures, we were well prepared by wearing multiple layers and didn’t encounter problem with how cold it was. Karen was wearing a mask (usually used to prevent breathing dusk) and TWO big and long scarfs. We could only see her eyes and she could barely rotate her neck because that area was very bulgy. She looked like a winter ninja with a stiff neck but that’s ok, as long as she’s warm, that’s what matters.

 

As for Harbin, 3 days was just right. We saw the huge illuminated ice sculptures at night, saw the big snow sculptures during day, had bad dinner at a fake russian restaurant which looked really authentic (Harbin is near Russia and has russian influence, so we wanted to try a russian restaurant), had the best jiaozi that I’ve ever tasted, saw a sea lion doing situps, 2 chineses trainers kissing beluga underwater to the tune of "My heart will go on" by Celine Dion and lastly, had a hotel room with warm temperature, yay! All in all, a good 3 day trip.

 

For reference:

Shanghai <-> Harbin round trip during Chinese New Year: 2450RMB

Ice Sculpture entry fee: 150RMB

Snow Sculture entry fee: 120RMB

Aquarium with sea animals performance: 100RMB

Fake russian dinner for two: 250RMB

Best jiaozi meal ever for two: 34RMB

Winter gear for two: 400RMB

Extremely well located Gloria Inn hotel room with friendly tourist guide not trying to rip us out: 400RMB per night.

Seeing Karen with big sloppy ass Carrefour pants with flower embroidery along with eskimo ninja look: priceless!

 

That is all, enjoy the pictures.

 

 

Vietnam, Act III, the North

September 27th – October 5th 2008

 

Pictures HERE.

 

Karen and I went to the North part of Vietnam last week during China national holiday week. We didn’t fly to Hanoi because it was too expensive so instead we flew to Nanning in the south of China and then took the bus to Hanoi.

 

First, whenever you book a flight online and they send you that confirmation email, make sure to check it! Our flight was supposed to be for September 27th but while I was checking at the exact time at 2am the night before, I realized we booked for September 7th instead of 27th! Fortunately, we were able to change the flights by paying some fees.

 

Once we arrive at Nanning, we were lucky to discover that direct buses from Nanning to Hanoi were available on that afternoon. Else, we would’ve had to take a bus to the city nearest the border, then taxi to the border, then walk through the border, then taxi to the next city nearest the Vietnam border, then bus to Hanoi. With this "direct" bus from Nanning to Hanoi, it’s one bus to the border, go through border, then hop into another bus on the other side to go to Nanning. The bus were comfortable, with snacks and water and the organization of the bus transfer very efficient. 3 hours to the border, 45mins to cross both customs and another 3 hours to Hanoi. Something like 160rmb per ticket. BUS COMPANY. 

 

We arrived in Hanoi around 8pm local time and got greeted by a horde of taxi drivers. I asked one of them for the price to our hotel and he said 10 050vnd. Our hotel hostess said it should be around 40 000vnd to 60 000vnd so the price given by the driver was suspicious, especially for that extra 50vnd. So I confirmed with him in Vietnamese about THREE times before going with this guy. My south vietnamese canadian accent and hearing of north accent might not be great but Nam knows his numbers! I know we agreed on 10 050vnd! Even though we didn’t use the meter, I looked at it and got suspicious when it started at 13 000vnd. I didn’t say anything during the ride because maybe then he would take a long route or whatever. Upon arrival, he unsurprisingly announced that it was 150 000vnd. I refuse to pay because we agreed THREE times that it would be 10 050vnd. After some arguing, the hotel hostess came out and help us settle the argument. We agreed on 100 000vnd. The meter indicated 75 000vnd so it wasn’t so bad.

 

Our initial plan was to go to Halong Bay and then Sapa but the hotel hostess said that it would be better the other way around since the weather was bad in Halong bay at the start of the week so we booked our Sapa 3 nights 2 days trip (sleeper train to Sapa, 2 days 1 night in Sapa, sleeper train back to Hanoi). Sapa was beautiful and the 1 1/2 day of trekking was good. The hotel, the Summit Hotel, was very nice but the food included with the hotel was pretty bad.

 

We came back at Hanoi at around 4am and had our Halong bay tour start at 8am. We booked a 3 days 2 nights in Halong bay. The tour included a visit of 1 forgetable cave, some swimming at a public beach, kayaking, lunch and swimming at private beach, trekking, 1 night stay on boat and 1 night stay in a hotel. We upgraded the package for better hotel, the Sunrise Resort, which was an extremely nice hotel with great view from room, swimming pool and massage service but might not be worth the upgrade cost considering we were there only from 5pm to 8am the next morning.

 

All in all, it was a good Halong Bay tour except for the traverller’s diarrhea (diarrhea + fever) that affected me for most of the tour. Thanks to the New Zealanders on the boat with us for the medecine that help me recover. The boat was nice and each room had it’s own clean bathroom. The other tourists on the boat were friendly, especially 2 Israelian guys we spent most of the time with.

 

In Hanoi, we stayed at the Hanoi Guesthouse, recommended by my Swiss cousin. The rooms were ok and the service was extremely friendly. We booked all our tours through them and all went smoothly. I was mainly concerned by scams tours but the tours provided were as advertised and good service in general.

 

All in all, it was a great trip, the few letdowns being the food and the diarrhea. I was warned that the food isn’t as good as the South and it’s true. Too bad most of our food was provided by the tours because thoses are somewhat expected to be not so good. As for the language, I think it’s pretty friendly to people who speaks english as you will get by fairly easily. As for my Vietnamese, I think most of them had a hard time understanding me and I didn’t understand them quite well either. Sometimes, I think they were wondering what language I was speaking. "hmmm, it’s not Vietnamese, not French… I will reply in English to this handsome tourist". 

 

Again, here’s the link to the pictures. CLICK.

 

 

Beijing 2008 Olympics

 

August 22-24 2008

 

For pictures, click HERE.

 

I always thought I would stay away from the Beijing Olympics because it would be too crowded and I don’t really like Beijing. However, after watching the Olympics for more than a week and realizing that my chances to easily access any other Olympics would be slim, I decided to go have a weekend trip to Beijing with Karen, even without any Olympics tickets in hand. So on a Wednesday night over dinner, we made the decision to go, on thursday we bought train tickets to go, plane tickets to return, booked the hotel and on Friday night, off we went!

On Saturday, we arrived at 7am at the train station. After a few hours there, it didn’t feel like Beijing or any major city in China. Sky was perfect blue, streets/subway were clean, no traffic, friendly volunteers all over the place and not crowded at all. Blue sky was in part due to factories on the outskirt of Beijing being completely shut down for the Olympics, no traffic because on any given day half of the cars were prohibited from being driven, no huge crowds because lots of tourists got their visas denied and also many Chinese were relocated (migrant workers, beggers, prostitutes) by the goverment in orderto give out a better image.

Since we didn’t have tickets and didn’t want to pay huge money to scalpers, we tried our luck at lower profile events. First off on Saturday, we went for canoe/kayak competition. We needed information on how to get there and we had a few encounters with the volunteers. They are very friendly and try their best but not always very accurate on information provided. It was not uncommon to get different answers from different volunteers for the same question. Without too much difficulty, we arrived at the canoe/kayak venue some 45minutes away from downtown Beijing. It was about 1 hour before the start of the event and we didn’t have tickets yet so the hunt for tickets began. Face value was 80rmb and some of the scalpers were trying their luck by selling them from 400 to 1000rmb. The frustrating part was to see a bunch of school kids disembarking from buses all with tickets in their hands. I’m guessing this might be the unsold tickets that were giving out to them to make all events "sold out" and have stands filled out. I thought about bullying some of the kids but my mandarin is not good enough to say "give me your tickets you little punks before I beat you up!" In the end, we bout tickets from a guy at 150rmb then exchange that ticket + 200rmb for a pair of tickets from an old lady. Bottom line is 2 tickets for 350rmb, face value being 160rmb which isn’t that bad considering we got in the event just in time for the start of the event. Seeing canoe/kayak live is pretty boring and athletes are too far to really see them clearly. Aside from being an Olympic experience, I don’t see why anyone in their right mind would want to go see canoe/kayak except for cheering for someone. 

Saturday night, we tried to get some tickets for track and field to get inside the Bird’s nest. Unfortunately, all we found were scalpers selling the tickets at around 2000rmb a piece. We could’ve tried harder but Karen and I were both tired and hungry and plan B was Beijing roasted duck so we didn’t hesitate to fallback on that plan. I read from a few places that Da Dong was the best place for roasted duck and it lived up to the expectations. It is simply the best roasted duck Shnamghai has ever had, bar none.

Sunday we tried for handball. Again, lots of tickets going for between 1000rmb and 2000rmb but we managed without too much difficulty to get tickets worth 300rmb at face value for 400rmb (2 for 800rmb). These tickets were for the bronze medal match followed by the gold medal match. I always thought handball was a boring sport to watch on TV and let me tell you, now that I’ve watched it played live at Olympic level, I can confirm that’s indeed very boring. We didn’t even stay for the gold medal match. It doesn’t really matter, it was fun to be there and having tickets gave us access to the Olympic Green which contains the Bird’s nest and the Water Cube. The Olympic green is huge and with only people with tickets allowed on it, it makes it a bit empty and not very festive. It was the day of the closing ceremony so security was tight and we couldn’t even make it within 50m of the bird’s nest. 

 

All in all, I had a very good trip and albeit the competitions I saw were not the most exciting ones, living the Olympic experience is quite cool, especially when Beijing was transformed so radically for the games.

 

Train: 480rmb

hotel:400rmb (for 2)

Plane to come back: 1100rmb

Tickets for 2 events: 450rmb

Beijing Roasted duck: 198rmb (for 2)

Beijing Olympic experience: priceless around 2628rmb

 

For pictures, click HERE.

Shanghai pictures

Here are some random Shanghai pictures from the last few months, including from Chinese New Year where I stayed in Shanghai.

 

PICTURES.

 

Enjoy,

Nam

Beijing

November 30th – December 2nd 2007

 

After more than a year in China, I finally visited Beijing last weekend. There was never anything that attracted me to Beijing except for the Great Wall and their roasted duck. After visiting Beijing for a weekend, I can say the Great wall is truly Great, the rosated duck is a dissapointment, the city is a bit boring and one weekend was enough for me. People will say that Beijing has so much to offer in terms of history and culture and that’s quite possible, however that’s just not my thing. I’d rather experience/do/eat things (i.e paragliding in Annecy, eating street food in Bangkok, Scuba Diving in Thailand, clubbing in Tokyo) than see/learn things about a city (museums, forbidden city). Since my Canadian friends Linda & Tien were going, I decided to join them for the weekend.

 

From the few taxi ride that we took, Beijing’s not very modern and not very colorful. It’s more traditional than modern which is not a flaw per se, but I didn’t feel like it was a "cool" city to be in. Surprising was how large some of the streets were (6+ lanes per way), how the buildings were massively big but not very tall and how some people don’t wear that much clothes even when so cold. We were 3 Canadians used to having much colder temperatures and we were the ones with the most layers!

 

There are a few sections to choose from to visit the Great Wall, the most touristy one being Badaling (or as Linda once thought, "Bagdaddy") where most tourist bus go to and where the wall has been renovated. Since my main goal was the Great Wall, I picked to stay away from that one and go for Simatai which is further, more challenging physically but also with less people and with the Great Wall still in its original construction. It was about 120km from Beijing center and took 2 1/2 hours by bus. Upon arriving there, to see the Wall from one side of my view to the other and on top of the mountains was truly amazing. To know that this was contructed hundreds of years ago made it even more impressive. Even after cable cars and a mini-train ride up, we still had to climb a few stairs to reach the wall. Once on the wall, there were sometimes even more stairs. I can understand why I read on the Internet that Simatai was a bit physically challenging but all in all, we stayed for 2 1/2 hours and it wasn’t too hard but very well worth it. I’ve never been to the other sites of the Great Wall but it wasn’t crowded at all at Simatai and very enjoying experience.

 

We had our Beijing Roasted Duck at Quanjude which is one of the famous branch for this. They have this branch in Shanghai also so I was a bit familiar with how it was served. Unfortunately, the roasted duck didn’t blow me away. It wasn’t bad, just not that great. Maybe my expectation were too high.

 

On sunday, we went to visit the forbidden city. We spent 1 hour to go from one end to the other and that was enough for us. It’s fun to be there and see the palace of the emperor for real but no more. Forbidden city is now "been there, done that, got the pictures!" for me!

 

Lastly, we went to the site of the new Olympic venues to kill the time left before my flight since we didn’t really know what else to do. It was still in construction so we couldn’t go close but they did look very nice from far away.

 

Pictures HERE.

Guangzhou, Hong Kong and Macao

November 18th-25th 2007

 

Guangzhou pictures HERE.

 

Macao pictures HERE.

 

Hong Kong pictures HERE.

Tokyo (Visit No2)

October 27th – November 4th, 2007

 

Picture of my 2nd visit to Tokyo can be viewed by clicking HERE.

 

Flickr has been unblocked by the Great Firewall of China so everyone can now enjoy with no hassle!