Hong Kong

I am sorry that I have not posted anything on my blog in over two months! I have taken a while to settle back into life in Wales after a year in China! I will tell you about that soon but first... I want to fill you in on my time in Hong Kong...

I went towards the end of September. I left literally just before the protests began!
The weather was simply amazing!! It was 30 degrees every day!

I LOVED Hong Kong! I was fortunate to stay with a friend for a long weekend in Wan Chai. Wan Chai is very close to everything so it was ideal for me. My friend Jasmin worked during the days as an English teacher so by day I did my own sightseeing and by night Jasmin showed me around. I also had another friend, Lauren who showed me around too. I knew them both from when I worked the previous summer in Italy.

I am always getting lost, even when I am at home in Wales. Even taking the tube when I am in London is a concern for me as it is like a rabbit warren! So when Jasmin told me that the easiest way to get around on my own would be by the underground system, I became a little nervous. However, after a year of moving around Zhengzhou, a city with absolutely no English translations and finding my way Ok, Hong Kong's bilingual underground system was very easy to use! With everything in Cantonese and English, it is very easy to understand. The system is also quite small, so if you do go to the wrong place, it's not hard to find your way back.

I was surprised at the amount of greenery in Hong Kong. It was so refreshing to see so many parks and trees and wildlife after spending so much time in the pollution, dust and dirt of Zhengzhou. We strolled through Kowloon park, one of the many beautiful parks in Hong Kong.

During the evening we walked along the Avenue of Stars. The view was wonderful and it is very impressive to see. Of course, we saw the statue of Bruce Lee and looked at the hand prints left by other stars from HK.

I didn't go to any restaurants or eat any special food specifically from Hong Kong during my trip. Instead, I let my friends take me to where they knew. They were newbies themselves so they were still getting used to the place. They are both vegetarian so I ate a few surprisingly nice vegetarian meals. We also went to a restaurant known as 'Mr Wang's.' Now I was intrigued by this Mr Wang because Jasmin had said that he doesn't have a license to sell alcohol. So if you want a beer, you must go to a little fridge in the alley outside of the restaurant to get one! Despite this sounding dodgy, the food was very good, Mr Wang was very nice and friendly and there was even a Welsh word on the wall inside. 'Cyfeillgarwch' meaning 'friendship'. This restaurant is very popular with foreigners.

I loved the double decker tram buses that run throughout Hong Kong. They are a very cute and another practical way to travel around.

A lot of the shopping streets look like this...

I visited the Chi Lin Monastery and the Nan Lian Garden. They were beautiful. Once again, I was surprised by how near busy city life was to the peaceful and beautiful gardens and monasteries. 

I went to the Hong Kong Museum of History. It was very interesting and it had a lot of nice traditional things to see...

Taking a ferry is a must!! It's so cheap and it's surprisingly relaxing when you have an alcoholic beverage in your hand...

The night markets are amazing and they seem to go on forever! There's even a women's market! There are so many random things on sale but there are some really nice things too. After a year in mainland China I've realised that I've become good at bargaining!! Trying to lower the price of things is good fun! 

The iphone 6 was brought out while I was in HK. The queues were SO big!...

I went to the Big Buddha and Po Lin Monastery. The nature and scenery was just phenomenal!!...

Even in HK with the number of different cultures...people still wanted pictures with me. I originally asked a German tourist to take a picture of me but a group of Chinese people came and asked me to be in their pictures. Whenever I looked at the German tourist holding my camera, he looked very confused as to what exactly was happening but took some pictures anyway!

                                                                The Monastery...

                                                             The Tian Tan Buddha.

Also, I went to Victoria Peak. The tram ride there alone is memorable. The tram almost feels like it's going vertical up the mountainside as you fall back into your seat.

I went to witness the views of Hong Kong by day and by night. This is something everyone should do!...

                                                      By day....

                                                                           Sunset....

                                                         
                                                            By night....

Lastly, I went to experience some night life in HK. I was not prepared for what I was about to experience. We went to Lan Kwai Fong, which from what I could gather, is the main clubbing area for foreigners. Lan Kwai Fong reminded me of a mixture of Swansea and Magaluf.
The streets were packed with people drinking. It was almost as though no one was bothering to go into the bars themselves and were simply buying alcohol from the shops and drinking them in the streets. Later I wanted to go to an actual nightclub to dance. Unfortunately, I didn't realise that the bouncers would be as strict as they are in the UK and so we didn't even attempt to enter one without our I.D. Never mind, it was a good and interesting night and it was nice to hear some normal Western music for a change! (It was also really nice to have my first night out Indian take away in a year!!!)

Thank you Jasmin, Lauren and Christian for showing me around Hong Kong!
:)

Summer time in Zhengzhou

After coming back to Zhengzhou from my travels, I experienced the holiday blues for a good week or two. Returning to the dust, dirt and pollution of this city after the beautiful sun, sea and sand of Thailand was very difficult.

Most of the foreigners left Zhengzhou for the summer, either to return to their home for a quick break, to go travelling or to leave the city for good and move on to the next chapter in their lives. In my contract it says that I could not have any time off during the summer holidays because it would be the busiest time for the school. Every time I told my foreign friends that I was staying here for the summer, they would either laugh and wish me good luck or say that it will be hard and quiet for me.

But I survived! J

Despite some final goodbyes to good friends, I wasn’t completely alone because I still had a few friends who stayed behind!

Here are some funny events that have happened to me and friends during my summer in Zhengzhou…

I was brave and decided to buy a bike from an American girl who was leaving ZZ for good. I bought it for 300RMB (just under £30). As soon as I bought it, I realised I must be crazy. As I have mentioned before, driving, cycling and even walking can be dangerous because there are basically no rules here. Still, the traffic has been getting worse and worse, the buses more unreliable and the taxis are still…well…unpredictable. I am glad to say that I am still alive after using it. I used it a lot for about five weeks but then it got far too hot to ride and now it is too wet to ride. (It’s rained a lot over the past two weeks. The drainage system in the city isn’t very good so all the roads are flooded!) I currently don’t know if I still have my bike…I haven’t checked to see if it’s ok for a long time. Like many cities, bikes are stolen all the time…I should really check to see if I still have it…

Me and a friend of mine were riding our bikes to a bar one evening and cycled past a man on his bike with his ipad resting on a jacket in his basket. He was watching a Chinese TV episode while cycling. We almost fell off our bikes laughing. This is an example of one of a million things that I would never see at home in the UK.

An American girl I know had me laughing when she said that she had been on a new bus and realised that chunks of pineapple had been attached to walls inside the bus. When she asked what was going on, people replied that the smell of a new bus was not very nice. This is an example of how dirty things and places are here! People aren’t used to the smell of ‘new’ things and prefer smelly, old and rotting things!!

There is often a strange smell near where I live and I was walking recently with another friend when I asked her if she had noticed it. I thought that it reminded me of a farm. She laughed and replied that it was the smell of tofu being cooked from the street stalls. Good thing I haven’t tried them! I hope they don’t taste like they smell!

I had a naughty teenage class for a month during July. They were at that awkward age where they didn’t care much about anything. This was the naughtiest class I’ve had here! I shouted at them many times and had to ask them to leave many times (although they never did). The boys in the class would always ask racist questions (that I can’t write here for obvious reasons). Therefore, I had to tell them off for being racist as well as naughty! The boys would always buy so many packaged chicken feet and eat them during break time in my class. They told me how they could buy one chicken foot for 1RMB (about 10p). Probably the grossest things a person could eat?

 Many of us went to a restaurant for a friend’s leaving do. I had eaten at this restaurant before and liked it very much, However, I got food poisoning from there and spent a week not being able to eat or drink anything. It was horrible!! My friend had broken her foot (by dropping a heavy table on it during class) and went to the doctor’s surgery across the road from our living area with me. The place was strangely empty but despite the empty rooms that I could see, the doctor chose to examine me in the entrance hallway. Inevitably a small crowd had gathered to watch and listen to the foreigners! The doctor asked if I would like to get better with pills or an injection. I went for the pills of course!! My friend went to have her bandage changed and while I waited in reception, I saw a boy of about four years old have a gigantic needle put up his bum.

I spent a week at a horse riding school teaching English at the beginning of August. The place was very posh and had horses who had won competitions during the Beijing Olympics there! Very impressive! I was basically the children’s babysitter for a week. It was so strange being in the countryside and seeing green. However it was strange to still see the towering buildings and building work not far away. It was annoying hearing the never ending noises of construction all the time.

                                                (If it rains in China, use a giant leaf!)

                                               (mmmmm...Chicken head and feet....yummy!)

    (Not the most appetising thing to see in your bowl I have to admit).

Babies and young children still waddle around in public with bare bottoms. I don’t think I will ever get used to seeing half naked children everywhere! A friend and I were discussing how we would like to go around giving nappies to the babies of China. Saying that though, if the babies of China did wear nappies, I’m pretty sure China would become a wasteland of nappies very soon because of the amount of people in the country!

Coming from a country that fines people for dropping litter in public, seeing people casually drop rubbish on the floor is always something odd to see. I don’t know if it’s because people have become lazy since every street has street sweepers who clean up dust and rubbish with long wooden brushes? It can also be annoying during classes, having to repeatedly ask children to put their rubbish in the bin and not leave it on the floor!

I think these are enough summer stories for now…

I will tell you about some more soon…

The most amazing month ever...Thailand

Thailand was so amazing! I only went to Koh Phangan so I need to go back to explore the rest of the country! I can’t write about everything that happened on my holiday but I will tell you about most of my adventures!

                                                (View from my first hotel).

My sister and I spent a night in Bangkok while we waited for our flight early the next morning to Koh Samui to get a boat to Koh Phangan. The hotel was very nice and a little expensive. It was ideal for us because it was so close to the airport. The room had a free mini bar with oreos, coca cola, beer and water. We didn’t go crazy and party in the city because knowing my sister and I, we would have never made it on our flight if we’d partied the night before! So I guess I will have to explore Bankok another time!

As soon as we walked through the airport after arriving in Bangkok, I couldn’t stop staring at the amount of westerners everywhere! For the first time in six months I was walking through crowds of people who were not staring at me for being white!

The first hotel we stayed in on the island of Koh Phangan was lovely!! We stayed in a basic hut right on the beach. It was a little out of the way from the main clubbing area of the island but we were happy with it. It gave us some peace and quiet to relax when we would have a break from partying! The hut was very basic and it was very hot because the air conditioning was a little fan on the ceiling! Also, during the day, ants would appear and live on our bed! During the night they would disappear. This was annoying though because we would be out during the night so my sister and I had only a few hours to sleep on the bed before daylight appeared. We had to take turns to sleep in the hammock on our balcony and on the hard wooden bench next to it! It was very basic accommodation but the location was amazing so we couldn’t complain much really!!

                              

                                                   (The beach our hotel was on).

I only stayed in Koh Phangan for one week because I had to go back to China to work! My sister stayed in Thailand and continued travelling for six weeks. She also went to Malaysia and Singapore. Out of the three countries her least favourite was Thailand! She said it was because there were too many British tourists in Thailand. This is understandable but when you have spent a lot of time away from British people it was nice to mingle amongst them! There were also tourists from all over the world! I enjoy meeting new people from different places and hearing their stories! Unlike other British tourist destinations in Spain and Greece, there is a big variety of different types of people to meet. My sister and I loved confusing people about where we were from by speaking in Welsh to each other. One minute we would speak in English and the next we would be talking in Welsh. I love doing this!!

We heard many funny, dangerous and interesting stories about people’s travelling experiences. I loved taking a taxi on Koh Phangan. They are blue trucks and as many as ten people can sit on the back of one. (Maybe more)! This is a good place to meet people! We heard drug related stories of silly boys getting in trouble and having to pay a lot of money to the undercover police or risk getting put in prison! We heard stories of the many beautiful beaches to see. Everyone loved talking about the beach from the film ‘The Beach’. I didn’t get to see it unfortunately as it is on another island, Ko Phi Phi. This will be another place I will have to visit on my return visit to Thailand in the near future!

We also heard stories of people being injured on motorbikes (apparently a girl was killed on one while we were there) and people having things stolen. We heard on more than one occasion of girls having everything stolen from them (including money, phones and sometimes even their passports)!!  During the Full Moon Party, someone tried to rob from my sister. She had a good travel bag so we kept our few possessions of the evening with her in her bag. We walked through a big crowd of people and on reaching the end of the crowd she realised that her bag had been opened. However, her bag is a clever invention and there are so many zip pockets on it. The thief had opened a wrong pocket and had taken only a free map that we had got from the hotel! Lucky for us we didn’t lose anything or have anything stolen! A tip for future travellers and party animals…don’t take anything valuable!!!! Also, don’t ride motorbikes like a crazy person…you’ll get hurt!!!

The parties in Koh Phangan were so amazing! I won’t bore you about how much of a good time I had but it is definitely worth experiencing!! One of the best parties I have ever been to was the Full Moon party! I want to go back there for New Year’s Eve but this is a dream at the moment I think! My sister and I had our arms painted in neon paint. I had a big dragon down my left arm and a Welsh flag put on my right arm! We drank from the famous cocktail buckets.

                                    
                                    

The Full Moon party was fantastic! There were different DJ’s all the way across the beach playing different kinds of music. There were the usual fire games. We didn't take part but watched the brave (and stupid) people who took part skipping over fire ropes and jumping through a hoop on fire.

My sister and I made it to the end. We saw the beautiful sunrise and poked fun at certain people who had got too drunk and had gone to sleep on the sand. We also were aware of Thai children running around staring at the floor looking for valuable items that drunk people might have dropped by mistake! We made it home by 9 AM and went to sleep on the sun loungers. Due to our hotel being so quiet, we didn’t once have to fight for a place on a sun lounger!

We saw many animals during our stay including monkeys, giant iguanas, tiny lizards, massive toads and a ridiculous sized horn beetle.

We also went to a jungle party and a Waterfall party (there was no waterfall there). These parties were also a lot of fun!

After the main parties on the island, most people move onto the next islands for the next parties. My sister and I stayed behind and carried on relaxing. There are still tourists in Koh Phangan during this time but it is a lot quieter! We moved to another hotel for a change of scene. This hotel was much grander than the last one! Our hut was really big and modern. The owners were French and were really friendly. The huts were right on the beach again. It was so beautiful!!

We went to a beautiful beach on the north of the island called Blue Bottle beach. It was very quiet and peaceful! 

                                      

We also went to Amsterdam Bar. The view from this bar is incredible!...

There was a big storm one night and it rained for hours. My sister and I watched the thunder and lightning from a bar on the beach. It was a memorable storm to watch! Even before we left our hotel we could tell the weather was turning. You can see the clouds in this picture gathering and the wind moving the trees.

I cannot describe how relaxed I was on this holiday! It was just amazing! On returning to the overcrowded, dirty, polluted city of Zhengzhou I had the holiday blues for ages! Thailand I hope I will see you again very soon!!