Tokyo pt1

OMG Japan WTF. Everything is so expensive! In my first two days Ive spent over 200 pounds, thats hopefully not gona be the start of a trend.TBH though some of those things were real one off events, For starters the train cost me about 25 pounds to get from the airport to the center of tokyo Then there was the ticket for a band I wanted to see. Both of those were unavoidable, the band is one of my faves and just by chance they were playing in Tokyo the same time as i was there. ive never seen them before either. The ticket was just over 60 pounds, and there was an obligatory drinks charge of 4 pounds ontop of that. They wouldnt let me in the venu without paying it. I dont think not having a drink was an option. Anyway, the Show was awesome and well worth the money IMO even if its the most ive ever spent for a single show. I also caught one of the drum sticks at the end.
Upon ariving all I did was get lost in the subway, then when i got to the correct stop on the subway I got lost down small backstreets trying to find the Hostel.I didnt see much of anything that day. The second day I woke up late due to staying awake in an airport all night the day before, but I managed to get to the famous padestrian crossing. No pictures because I was tired of carrying a bag about, I willgo back at a later date as I have enough time here.
On the third (second full) day I went to the electric city. Its named for being THE main location to get computer parts and electronics. i only bought a PC mouse because my other one broke. But its not a tourist atraction for its computer hardware stores.The main draw of electric city is the masses and masses of comic book shops, figurine shops, videogame arcades and other things of that nature. The scale of it was insane and its the sort of thing that could only happen in japan. seeing hundereds of men in buisness suitsshopping for plastic figurines ranging from mech robots to girls in bikini tops is truely sureal. The Videogame arcades were huge, but mostly full of retro stuff and japanise language games that made little sence looking at them. some of the stuff was realy cool though like huge capsules for Mech suit games with over 180 degree screensand a chair and levers. It was tough to get a photo as the security were on you in seconds and asked you to delete any photos you had taken inside the building (and looked over your shoulder to see that you were deleting them).
I'm not that keen on japanese food. I dont like sushi, and it seems to be part of almost every meal (you can get sushi at McDonalds). Even in the 711's they have rows and rows of Bento boxes. The one thing that I'm dissapointed about is the lack of conveyor belt sushi resteraunts. There are sushi resteraunts every 20 meters, but the sushi isnt moving in a clockwise direction. I will need to look harder as they must be here somewhere.

Beijing 2

saw the grand palice
saw the summer palice
saw another temple thing
saw a food stall street with lizards and star fish on sticks etc
trainers broke and got some new ones (propper swish)
blew four days budget in one evening clubbing at some posh beijing club.

Gubeikou (The great wall)

The graet wall, only without the tourists. I didnt want to spend all my time in beijing central and chose to spend a couple of nights in a small village near the wall.getting there was easy, but had the potential to be a real pain. When i got the bus from beijing there was a nice lady waiting at the bus station to ask where I was going and help me get there.She showed me to the bus i needed to take (It was easy to find yourself) and then informed me that the next bus I needed to get to Goubekou had been stopped and I needed to take a taxi. About two thirds through the bus jourmney A guy came onto the bus at a bus station and called at me to get off and take a taxi.I stayed on the bus as The hostel instructed me to stay on the bus till the end of the line. When i got to the end there were another bunch of taxi drivers telling me ther is no bus 25 and i needed a taxi. I got on the bus 25 about 7 minutes later.
Near Gubeikou Is a small village that has one hostel that is run buy a chinese woman. The village is like a very old village (small streets and old buildings) mixed with a very modern village (there were solar pannels and half built houses) in an old style. Its sometimes hard to tell which are the old buildings and which are new. There were apparently three small resteraunts in the village along the main street, but I couldnt find any of them as they looked like the houses. I was told by one canadian girl that was there that you just have to walk into what looks like someones house and hope for the best. I gave up looking for them and crossed over into Gubeikou main town (which was still just small old buildings) and found a more obvious resteraunt.It took about 10 minutes using a translator on the computer to get some food. The translator was confusing and all the translations made very little sence. eventualy it translated something into "Pork omlet" I didnt really want a pork omlet If I were given a choice but I would take any food they would give me. so i nodded my head and they gave me that.I climbed the Great wall on both sides of the village and only found one group of chinese kids (and what i think what was their fat friend trailing about 300 meters behind them) in many hours of walking. Everyone else was just local villagers spreading their seeds on the ground to dry them out.the views were good and the light at the end of the day also looked great on the bricks. It would have been great for some photos but my camera battery died after like 5 minutes in the morning so it wasnt possible to take any pics. I got a couple of souvaneer shots at the top of the Tiger wall.

The day afterwards A bunch of canadians and an english girl who happend to be staying at the same hostel as me in beijing turned up, I went with them to do the great wall again before going back to the city.

Beijing

Lots of gray. The sky was gray, the floor was gray, the buildings were gray. It was mysty and you couldnt see very far, only a few lamps could shine through the myst.There was a large number of goverment (I dont know if they were police or army) in big thick furry trench coats walking through the streets, mostly in pairs but a couple of timesthere were groups of about 16 walking in two parallel lines. Once again It felt like being in a WW2 film. It was really cool though. The myst, gray surfaces, soldiers, and a handfull of Red dim glowinglights gave a great effect. Around my hostel Many of the buildings were modern but in a traditional style as this was a big shopping area for general stuff.
The next day I wandered about and whent to the Theneman square (wrong spelling, and probably totaly the wrong name) where the Chairman Mao portrait hangs.

Hangzhou again (kinda)

Took the bus from Shouzhou to shanghai then took the bullet train back to Hangzhou... I kinda lost the laptop battery. I remember droping it offthe bed then the battery must have dislocated. So that cost me another 16 quid in bullet trains to get that back.
I got the bullet train from shanghai to Beijing and it took 5 hours, the seats were good and after so many 15+ hour trips in crappy seats it felt like a blink of an eye.

Souzhou

Souzhou is a "water town" Its not vennice but it does have a number of old streets and bridges over water. Most of them are lined with coffee and tea shops and only a couple of places to eat. The water area is only a small part though. If you walk over to the west side of the inner part of the city it turns into a shopping area roughly resembeling Las Veagas. Huge flashing signs everywhere and high end shops, fast food resteraunts and other stuff all allong it.
I stayed there for three nights, I arived in the afternoon without a reservation, the bus droped everyone off outside the center of town so i didnt know where I was (Later that day I learnt that many of the inner cityroads were being rebuilt so the trafic in the city was bad, the locals probably knew this but nobody could tell me what was happening in english so I just had to deal with it).
I found one of the hostels I had noted on my map but they were full, I walked to a second one that i found by chance and they were full other than one dorm bed. I only wanted a dorm bed so that was cool, But they only had it for one night.I tooke the room anyway and later found another place for the next two nights. The temples and the gardens around the area were good, but not as interesting as anything in Hangzhou. One of the gardens was Labled as the fourth most beutifull garden in China, but I wasnt that impressed. It was nice, but nothing special. It might have ben better if ther werent 100 other people looking at the gardxen at the same time. There was also a cool tower in the style of the two in the lake at Guilin.

Hangzhou

Took the bullet train from shanghai which peaked at 350kmph, took an hour and cost 8 quid.
hangzhou is a city that makes birmingham feel like burton though one chinese girl i was talking too described it as cozy.big lake in the south west of the "downtown" area. with various temples scattered about. i stayed in a hostel that was in a newlybuilt area that imitated the style of old buildings, it looked nice but it was kinda like disney land.lots of little stalls and shops selling chinese souvaneers (chopsticks/tea/fans/traditional clothes etc).
behind this newly built street was a real old street with many traditional medicen shops. they looked like temples from the outside and had big doors and long corridoors to get into the main sales area. This looked like it could be a touristy type thing, but it was very seroius. the staff were all in white coats and had photo ID tags. they had traditional interiors, but in some of the shops things (such as cabbinets) were electronicly locked with key cards. During the day there were ques of people holding tickets and waiting for consultations.It was realy a doctors clinik. In the back you colud see other staff getting the prescriptions and then collecting the ingredients and putting them into differentcontainers then baging and labeling them. There was another area where you could buy items without perscrption. some of the prices were about one pound for a bit of rootwhile others were up to what i think was about 500 pounds for a pice of dried fungus.
There was a nice park in the area with some smaller temples, I saw it on the first evening and came back the next morning to take some photos of an empty area of concrete infront of a temple.It was full of OAP's doing a workout to some Happy hardcore. It wasnt quite the atmosphere i was expecting.

Shanghai

meh...
an ok city but nothing ive not seen before. it has roads, a couple of museums, parks and some shops.
i stayed here for one night.

China Guilin and train to shanghai

Left ping an at about 12 on the local bus to longshen, got the bus from longshen to guilin about a minute after i arived.When i got into guilin I was at the wrong bus station so needed to get a taxi to the correct one for 2 quid. This was the main bus station in the center of town.This was the third station i was dropped at in guilin. First was the coach storrage area for the main station, I think the second was the station for local busses (for trips less than about 200k).The third and final was the main station which i found out was about a 15 minute walk from the bus storage station that i was first dropped at. It was quite confusing and annoying. The Main station was next to a shopping area and some touristy type stuff. I booked a bus back to guangzhou for 22:40 so i could spare a nights accomadation. This gave time to wander around guilin. It is actualy quite a niceplace when youre in the right area of the city. I found two towers and a park with a zoo, caves, waterfalls and some other bits. It cost 5 quid for entry, but then another 4-8 pounds to get into the zoo or cave or waterfalls. It was a little cheeky for them to charge just to get into the park. it was a nice park, but it was only a park, the one in hongkong was 10x better and totaly free. I only paid for entry and refused to pay for anything else. It helped me kill my time though. The landscape of guilin is fairly crazy, it is mostly flat but with mountains that look like swords sticking out the ground all through the city. Buildings built around them. I climed to the peak of one of them in the park (while carrying my whole rucksack).
I got into guangzhou at about 5:30am, I looked for an ATM that took visa cards, this took 40 minutes, which is fairly crazy considering its next to the major bus and rail station in a huge city. Again, there were many banks, but none took anything other than the banks own cards. I had heard you need to book tickets for overnight trains about 3 days in advance to get a bed rather than a seat. I hadnt booked one, and managed to get a hard bed (didnt ask for a soft as they cost more) for only two hours after I booked the ticket. It was 35 quid, blowing my daily budget, but its not like i can choose not to spend money on transport. Guangzhou to shanghai seems like a fairly huge distance for 35 pounds, without looking at a map i would assume its about the same as getting a train from the uk to italy? Anyway its a 21 hour trip. I then went for breakfast at Mr.Lee.

Ping an (Rice terraces)

the ping an rice terraces are like a little bubble of extreme tourism in an otherwise tourist free area, and by area I mean like the south of china, Or at least what ive seen of it.its still great though, the terraces themselves were huge and stetched for miles. It was a shame you couldnt see much of it due to being in a cloud about 50% of the time and having all the landscape covered in a slight mist all of the time. There were huge mountains on the other side of the valley that you could just about view on occasions but most of the time its like they werent there.
The village is a maze of small stone paths between storage houses and hotels and resteraunts. I walked the streets a good number of times and never took the same rout twice to get to the same locations.As usual even though the village is one of the nicest i have ever been in the enviroment is better the further you get fron it. On my walk away from ping an through the rice terraces i saw an insect that was the best insectI think i have ever seen. Most insects are strange and i dont have a clue what they are but this one i recognised instantly.
took some photos of the terraces but none of them were very good.

CHINA, this time its for reals (HK to Ping an)

Left HK on the subway to get to china and entered china at a totaly different port than i intended too. When i entered initialy there was a huge area on either side forcoaches waiting. This one had nothing. i entered from the hongkong side through a subway and walked over a bridge into china. On the chinese side there was nothing, other than a subway, I took the subway to a station with an airport symbolwith the hope there wold be a bus station there, It took about 40 minutes and cost about 80p to get to that station. There was a bus station at the airport so i took the bus back to guengzheng (My Spelling for every Chinese city will be wrong) the 2nd city i was in in china.Annoyingly the bus station we were droped at was the most inconvinient place, it was miles away from the main trainstation and bus station. I was heading to the rice terraces so needed a night bus and according to the net this was the only place to do it. I got a pice of paper from the woman at the information desk with the statin written in chinese symbols. I used this to show cab drivers but about 5 in a row declined to take me (some said no, other just looked at the paper and drove off) finaly one guy took me but he was moaning the whole way as the trafic was awfull. I was taken to the opposite side of the cityalong the main motorway and it cost me about 6 pounds, this trip took well over half an hour. I got a ticket to Guilian and had 3 hours to kill, I went for food and found a Bruce Lee fast food resteraunt but the food looked like crap in the photos so I walked further to a Mr Lee resteraunt. The Mr Lee resteraunt was good. The portions wer4e huge and costed half of a KFC or MD's, it was basic stuff like noodles and rice with chicken but it was good, and you got free tea.
I got to guilin at 6am in the morning while it was still dark and i got a bus to longsheng which took two hours but i realised i fogot to get more money out. I had a look around longsheng for a bank and found about ten of them but they were all local banks that wouldnt take a visa card. They had names such as "The peoples rural bank of China", I'm not sure why this was in english.this meant a trip back to guilian in the hope there was a better bank there, if not i would need to go back to guangzhou where i knew there was a HSBC as i had used it before. I found a bank in guilian that worked after about half 40minutes of searching around the bus station. It was a simmilar situation as Longsheng as there were many banks about but not any i could use. i wentto longsheng again and then got the bus to the rice terraces. you cant get a scheduled bus so you got in a minivan with a bunch of locals with crying babies and waited foir it to fill. I got to the terraces at about 6pm.

Hong Kong (2)

I went to "the peak" on the hong kong tram that works its way up the hill at about 45 degrees, the view from the top was fairly good other than the smog/fog in the distance.walked through some street markets full of fish mongers and butchers, this wasnt a new experience other than that they were on the same street as some fairly mid range clothing shops.seeing a slaughtered pig being unloaded from a truck infront of a shop selling fur coats is quite strange.
There has been a noticable shift in food styles since i got into hong kong mostly in the way of fish being more previlant on menues and the noodles are a different style to the south east.The food here is still not that expencive, even though it is a step up from Vietnam/Thailand. There are plenty of low end resteraunts scattered about but there are posters for high end establishments too.There seem to be a good number of places for over 30 quid for a starter and about 60-80 for a main course.
The overall atmosphere here is good, it is very clean compared to everywhere I have been to so far and there is almost nobody trying to approach and sell you stuff of get you to ride their taxi. The only area where you do get hassled is near chuking mantions where middle eastern guys are all hanging about in groups trying to sell you Owlex watches. Even though its on a few lists of things to see in HK I dont think its a place worth visiting.
I went to the walled city park which was ok.
Crossing the street is interesting here and the polar opposite of places like Hanoi. Here people wait for the green man to cross the street even if there is nothing on the road. Sometines there is a long open road with nothing on it and there are two or three peoplewaiting at the side of the street.