A birthday in China

If you’d told me last year that in one year’s time I’d be full-time living and studying in China 中国I wouldn’t have believed you.

I turned 18 on the second of October and it was strange not having my family there to celebrate, especially since my mum and I had made plans to stay in London for a weekend to celebrate just before I found out I was moving to 中国. It was still a really enjoyable birthday, because this group has become my new family. We celebrated the weekend before and I got chocolate cake (which I didn’t realise I missed until I got a whiff of the chocolate icing) and it was just a really nice weekend.

I spent my actual 18th on a twenty hour train to Xi’An 西安. That’s right, twenty hours. Without stopping for longer than 15 minutes. I know, looking back I’m wondering what we were thinking too. The carriage was filled with around 70 people standing or leaning against your chair as well as every seat being filled, and didn’t really clear until the last few stops to 西安.

Once we arrived in 西安, my friends and I had one priority—sleeping. Others did a bike ride around the city walls, but at that point I could barely remember my own name so I knew what my priorities were.

西安 is an incredible city and I would thoroughly recommend anyone go see it if they can. It’s one of the most historic cities in 中国—which is saying something considering how old 中国 actually is—and is filled with temples and traditional Chinese buildings. Unlike Tianjin, there are only certain areas, which are more metropolitan. Tianjin feels a lot more modern, 西安 feels like some unique traditional/modern alternate universe, which seems to come alive at night.

In 西安, there’s not just the allure of a dazzling city, it’s the perfect tourist destination too. I sound like review on TripAdvisor, but it’s the truth. It’s got everything you could want if you’re looking for a ‘city break’, so it was ideal for us, a group of students looking to have a taste of the ‘real 中国’ but also stick close to what we’d come to know in Tianjin if we were feeling a bit homesick. The city had a mix.

We did lots of things in the five days we were there (though we had to discount two days from that considering they were spent on a train there and back)—one of the biggest and most ‘touristy’ things we did in 西安 was visit the Terracotta Warriors.

Although it meant a 6am start, the warriors were definitely worth it. It was difficult to comprehend how old and how detailed they were. They looked good for being trapped underground for the most part of 2000 years. There were different buildings which held different artefacts—building 1 sat on top of the main group of preserved foot-soldiers and buildings 2 and 3 had the smaller statues which had also been dug up. All in all, it was pretty cool.

My favourite moment of that day however was when a smaller group of us went to get the bus back to our hostel, but decided to take a detour up a mountain.

Li Shan mountain was absolutely incredible and although the cable car ride up was what I considered a brush with death, the view from the top took my breath away. All of the smaller city of Li Shan, very near 西安, was stretched out in front of you, as far as the eye could see—the high rise buildings mixed with the green of the trees and foliage atop the mountain made for an interesting muddle of colours.

We were lucky the day was so clear; because of pollution levels in China this is not a regular occurrence. There were night-time shows when we returned to 西安, but we were all burst from the trip so we decided to save that for our last full day. On this day, we visited a massive and busy food street, watched a big lights parade in the city centre, and then went home the next day. You can imagine the pure exhaustion that hit us as soon as we realised we had another 20 hours on the train.

If you think the travelling stopped there, however, you’re wrong. Later in the month, we also managed to fit in visiting the longest glass bridge in China.

Now I didn’t get many pictures of the bridge, because after trekking nine miles worth of steps up and down the mountain connecting the bridge I was still trying to remember to inhale and exhale properly. Even breathing seemed to hurt, so you can imagine the state my legs were in.

Something that soothed our aches and pains and lifted our spirits even more were the hot springs we all visited later that evening. Because of Chinese rules of modesty, we had get...well I’d call them pyjamas…to cover up our bodies until we got to the water.

My friends and I looked like something out of a dodgy girl group, but it was a laugh. That’s been it for us, travelling wise. Halloween was uneventful, it just isn’t a big deal here. Just wait for next month though—guess what we’re climbing? 

You got it, another mountain! I seem to enjoy putting my body through rigorous amounts of exercise in short spans of time.

See you then, 再见！