Travelling - Part 1
The start of our holidays on January 5th was something I had been looking forward to for a long time and had worked very hard to save up for. I had experienced the extreme temperatures of Harbin (-30 degrees) the week before with my family and was looking forward to some warm weather. I accidentally left the planning of my travels until the last minute which meant that my plans consisted of booking 8 of the cheapest flights we could find around Asia and hoping for the best.
I had a week in Tianjin to prepare for my travels while the rest of the scholars experienced Harbin. I found it strange to be in Tianjin without any classes or exams as ever since we arrived in China I have always had something to do. It was nice to take a week to relax and make sure that I had everything organised as it wouldn't be until March that I would return to Tianjin.
Our travels started on a sad note as we had to say goodbye to a lot of our good friends whom we had met during our first term. They wouldn't be returning for the second term so we had to say farewell as it was unlikely that we would ever see them again. Nevertheless, we had a lot to look forward to!
From the start of our holidays until now (sitting in an airport in Hong Kong) myself and Ana have travelled around the South of China. We travelled in Guizhou province, Yunan province, Chongqing municipality and Sichuan province. We visited two of our Chinese friends in their hometowns and saw some really interesting new places, my favourite being Dali in Yunan province.
I really enjoyed seeing other parts of China as it made me realise how much Tianjin has been influenced by the west - even where we live in Tianjin used to be part of the British concession. We saw many differences to Tianjin - in many of the homes in the South they have squat-non-flushing toilets. They also don't have heating inside as during summer it gets very hot. I was really excited to see some of the countryside and found it hard to believe that the farms and small houses were still part of the same country, it seemed like a different world compared to the shiny mega cities.
I have so many highlights from this part of my travels. I loved being able to visit my friends’ homes and hometowns, seeing their schools and where they grew up. We had a spontaneous trip to the Tiger Leaping Gorge which is one of the deepest canyons in the world. The views were amazing - but only after you climbed a couple vertical ladders up the side of the rock. Dali is my favourite town in Yunan province. It is a very small town surrounded by spectacular mountains and a large lake on one side. We were lucky enough to see this town by moped and hiring one for the day only cost us 30 yuan each! We had never driven one before but got the hang of it very quickly. The hostel we stayed in was amazing, which was probably to do with the fact that for the first time since being in China we tasted western food that actually tasted like home! Chongqing was packed at nighttime and lit up along the river. I saw my first pandas in Chengdu which were very lively and incredibly cute.
It would not be fair to write about the highlights without talking about some of the mishaps! I packed for our time in China way too optimistically. We managed to miss our second flight of the holiday which left us stranded in an airport for 10 hours at Starbucks and seeing how far we could push the limit of how long you can sit after only buying one thing. Unfortunately, I had my first experience at a Chinese hospital. Luckily, it was easily sorted and our Chinese friend could translate for us but took a few days to deal with the side effects. Today I arrived in Hong Kong by myself after saying goodbye to Ana and ready to meet Ellie, only to find that my Chinese bank card had stopped working leaving me with no money or food!
With all of the mishaps we have encountered, all of them were solvable. At the time, it seemed scary but we quickly realised that we could deal with any situation we had to. It is all part of the experience to deal with things by ourselves. I think that travelling by ourselves helped us to mature even more than we already had this year.
(I also think I will win the prize for the most time spent waiting in airports - I arrived here at 10.30am and at 10.30pm I still have two and a half hours until I meet Ellie!)
Ailsa