China Trip 2014: I've been Shanghaied!

So, another year, another big trip to Asia. It hadn't been my intent to come back to the Far East so soon. As much as I loved Vietnam and Malaysia in 2010 and my trip with Shane last year (for which I will eventually finish the blog posts), it had meant that my last two major trips had been to Asia. Katy and I had discussed where we'd wanted to go, and Ethiopia was actually the fore-runner. But then Katy got on a training course with her work that involved a week in Shanghai and the opportunity for use both to fly for the cost of her flights alone was too tempting to pass up. So, China it was!

We flew separately, because her course would go for a week before we'd meet up and start our travels. In addition, her company was generous enough to fly her Virgin Atlantic business class; my personal budget was more in the range of "whatever is cheapest on Kayak", which turned out to be a FinnAir flight with a sixteen and a half-hour layover in Helsinki. This sounds like a terrible option, but actually was OK: the stopover was long enough that I got a hostel room for the night, wandered around a rainy Helsinki for a few hours, had some brunch and pottered off back to the airport. Helsinki seems really lovely, and it was a Saturday night and the nightlife seemed really interesting as well; I have bookmarked it as a city to visit again some day.

My outbound flight landed me in Shanghai at about 7:00 in the morning on Monday, after one of the worst flight I've ever had, trapped smack in the middle of a three-family travel group with seven children aged about four through eight. The child next to me, notably, had an amazing ability to spend all flight flailing around and elbowing me in the side every ten minutes. I was also two rows in front of two toddlers, which didn't make things any easier. So I was pretty tired for most of my first day, but determined to soldier on so as not to get badly time-shifted.

I would spend the first two days on my own before meeting Katy, so I tried to cram in as many sights and to-dos as I could, especially ones she'd done before her course started or that I knew wouldn't interest her. So I did a walk along the Bund, the area that abuts the river on the west side and overlooks the stunning ultra-modern business district with its iconic and dominating skyline. I have a deep love of cool modern skyscrapers, so really loved the view, despite the greyness of the day. To me, this skyline alone defines much of the reality of modern China: precious little of it existed as recently as 35 years ago. If you do a Google image search for "Shanghai then and now", you will see the difference and it is striking; surpassed only by the transformation Dubai has undergone in even less time. China's growth, truly is rampant. With the largest population in the world and the second-largest economy, China has embraced growth and capitalism with a fervour you rarely see in communists. Pudong, the business district of Shanghai, is hugely emblematic of this; growth from nothing into one of the world's premier centres of finance in a few decades, shining glass monoliths scraping the sky with more being built, but very little sense of history; everything old being relegated to the far side of the river, isolating the old from the new (and progressively bulldozing the old to make room for more of the new).

In addition to the Bund, I had a stroll through a portion of the more-traditional Old Town on my way to the Yuyuan gardens and bazaar. The gardens are a lovely, labyrinthine warren of cultivated trees, traditional buildings and stonework interspersed with bridges, archways and flowers throughout. Thronged with tourists, yet still somewhat peaceful. Walled off from the surrounding areas, this presents a rare glimpse into a sense of yesteryear, albeit a cultivated view originally designed for royalty. The bazaar which surrounds it is a frenetic, bustling warren of shops and restaurants, even more thoroughly thronged with tourists and those who capitalise on them. I am very certain, that had I wished to do so, I could have furnished an entire army with fake Rolexes and handbags.

After getting my fill of the gardens and bazaar, I decided that the soup dumplings I had (much of which ended up on my trouser legs) wasn't nearly enough to sustain me for the day and headed to a Sichuan restaurant for some food. Those who know me well will know of my affinity for spicy food; Sichuan was one of the cuisines I was really looking forward to. And though it wasn't as spicy as I'd anticipated, the chill poached frog certainly was redolent with the numbing effect of the Sichuan pepper. The meat was tender and juicy, though quite a lot of work to eat around the numerous bones.

From there, it was a short walk to People's Square and the Urban Planning Hall, to see the future of Shanghai as the planners dream for it to be. The display was rather interesting, notably the model of the forecast of Shanghai circa 2020, but by this point my long days of travel were starting to catch up to me, so I fear I might not have had quite the learning experience I might have hoped for. I headed back to the hostel to check in properly (I'd gone in the morning just to drop my main bag) and lie down to rest up a little bit. 

In the hostel, I ended up meeting and chatting with a few folk also on their travels, and we decided to go out in the evening to take in the views from the WFC, the World Finance Centre, the current tallest building in Shanghai (soon to be supplanted by the creatively-named Shanghai Tower, which is nearing completion). The WFC has viewing galleries at the 94th, 97th and 100th floor; the latter is by far the best, as the lights are turned off throughout the floor, allowing for an amazing view of the city around you. We'd gotten up there with only 20 minutes to spare before the lights turned off; it is interesting to me how many of the city centre's lights are extinguished at night, from 10:00PM onwards. The city genuinely goes quite dark, which stands in rather stark comparison to London, Tokyo, Hong Kong, etc. which are lit up with the brilliance of thousands of neon tubes and bulbs at all hours.

The next day was a more relaxed one. With my compatriots from the hostel, we walked around the Old Town and took in the sights of both more-traditional Chinese living, a more traditional tea house, and some rather run-down, even derelict neighbourhoods that still possessed a certain desolate beauty and intrigue. We then took a cheap cab to the French concession, had a few beers on a nearly-empty roof terrace bar (as you do), and I was finally able to make contact with Katy, and made plans to meet her and her coursemates in Tianzifang, a network of alleys-cum0restaurants and shops, largely aimed at tourists, but not too outlandishly expensive. We had some beers, some food and ended up heading back to Katy's hotel to finish off the night with a few more drinks with her coursemates to allow her to say farewell to those she'd gotten to know rather well in a seemingly very intense week.

And with that, Katy's and my vacation has begun. We were both pretty exhausted, so our day was a relaxed wander. We had some brunch, then went to a tailor where Katy had had some clothes made and needed a few alterations. We took a motorcycle cab to Xiantandi, basically a posh, upscale pedestrianised area, for some beers and food then strolled over to Tianzifang for some dinner (Balinese food). Then an early night at the hostel.

I'm writing this now from our 300kph train en route to Beijing. We have passed further signs of China's voracious growth on our journey: innumerable concrete factories, vast quarries stripped to their core, row after row of brand-new high-rise apartment buildings, many still clad in the wrapping-paper-esque facades of construction netting. Many of these places are seemingly in the middle of nowhere, far removed from the dual centres of Shanghai and Beijing, yet they are seemingly designed to hold millions of individuals. Growth of this sort seems to only go one of two ways: massive, enduring prosperity, or overspending and inevitable collapse. China is the country to watch in the next two decades. For all the bureaucratic inefficiencies and political intransigence, there is a hunger to the nation and its companies that seems to have faded in the west; it's going to be an interesting journey.

Another interesting thing to note: I'm posting this blog entry by emailing it to my father. Because my blog is banned in China as a result of using Google's platform. Though Google's search engine is available in a heavily-censored form, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and much more is also completely filtered without some significant technical workarounds (VPNs and the like). It's fascinating to me to think that this pinnacle of modern commerce, this most significant of trading partners can so heavily work against the most fundamental principles of freedom of speech and association. The power of its economy is great, though, and while I would dearly love to see true liberty come to this area, I suspect that the economic might and the inability of the west to extricate itself from the incomprehensibly large trade with China will render the debate moot. Simply put, China can afford to maintain an open affront to western values of freedom of speech and self-actualisation on this scale because without them, our economies would implode.

More posts to come. Next up: Beijing and the Great Wall!

Asia Trip 2013: Philippines: Volcanos and Old Cities and Hats, Oh My!

For awhile, we were the hat brigade. Or the hat posse, I can't remember. But the point is, there were hats involved. I, obviously, travelled with my goofy straw cowboy hat (how could I not?); Shane didn't but when we went out, we, and the people we joined up with for awhile, borrowed hats. You see, in the Philippines, we stayed in a youth hostel; a new experience for Shane, old hat for me (see what I did there?)

I'm actually a big fan of hostel. I know they have a reputation for being cheap, dirty, run-down and rowdy and I've definitely been to a few that are all of those things at the same time. But sometimes, they are so much more. Sometimes they are an opportunity to meet fellow travellers; road-weary yet excited, sunburned and passionate and ready for the next adventure. The hostel we stayed in in Manila was like that-it had a well-equipped common room (cold drinks, couches and a table, some food and internet access). We were in the more upscale area of Manila called Makati, having been warned that Malate, another frequent backpacker destination, was rather… insalubrious. And meet people we did-Irish, British, Spanish, American and Dutch–hostels attract all kinds.
And we wandered with them. We learned about how to ride the Jeepneys, where the good food joints were, and when they wanted to go on the walking tour of Intramuros (the historically-Spanish part of the city), we joined them, as it was high on our itinerary as well. We'd heard glowing review of Carlos Celdran's walking tour and wanted to learn about the country and its history.So we borrowed hats from the hotel and made our way into the somewhat dilapitated area of Intramuros. I can't do Carlos' tour justice, except to say that if you go to Manila and don't go on the tour, you are missing out. He is funny, animated and passionate, knowledgeable about Manila, the Philippines and history and the tour is both wide-ranging and entertaining. A must-see, Carlos details the rather storied history of the Philippines with verve, humour and a series of rather pantomime actions. Also included is a horse-drawn buggy ride through the city centre, a walk through a beautiful church and a sampling of Halo-halo, the national dessert.

The other highlight of the Manila trip was Taal; a small volcano in the souther area of the main island. Taal emerged from an inland lake, erupted and formed a crater with a small island in its centre. This particular island, therefore, is an island in a lake in an island in a lake in an island in the ocean. Just call it isleception. The trip to Taal was something Shane and I had hoped to do, but thought we'd run out of time. Instead, going along with another group of hostellers, we decided to chance it on our last day back. Another rather entertaining journey-jeepney to the metro, metro to another jeepney, to a mall to catch the bus, and then a motorcycle taxi with sidecar (requiring intense haggling to get a decent price) to the boat to the volcanic crater island. Taal itself is rather small but very beautiful. The hike isn't too hard on its own, but the sweltering heat (38 degrees and 100% humidity give or take, more on the mountain itself, since it is, in fact a volcano) made it sweaty work. But the view at the top and the sense of achievement made it all the more worthwhile. The splendor and tranquility of the surrounding land and water-even through the murky heat of the intense summer day-spread out before us in a grand vista and we enjoyed a cold and refreshing drink or four with the guys we'd met at the hostel. Then I hit a golf ball into the crater lake, because that was too entertaining an opportunity to miss!

The trip back back provided one of those weird happenstance things that you could never plan, but which provides a great story. It starts with the only time I felt like I was being ripped off as a tourist in the Philippines. Remember those motorcycle sidecar taxis from the ride down? Well, it turns out that when you are stranded far from the town and have no other way to get back, the price goes up. Way up. Far more than we were willing to pay, on principle alone. We tried a number of different drivers, to no avail (each one we said no to would shout to his compatriots to ddeny us a better deal). In the end, one of our group spotted a large van with government markings. Speaking to the driver (a member of the provincial council), she explained our predicament and offered to give him some cash to get us to the bus stop. He accepted and we crammed into the back of the van, five people in seats made for about three and pottered off down the road to a different town, but one with better bus access. Despite my fears, the man and his wife were not serial killers, but instead were incredibly lovely, chatty people. We told them of our trip and how much we'd loved the Filipino people and the food and how we were sad to be moving on, but our next stop was Thailand. As we approached the town, traffic began to swell and I began to sweat: with a three-hour drive ahead of us, and our plane taking off in six hours, it was getting close. THe minutes ticked by as we inched forward painfully slowly, finally arriving at the street where we would catch the bus, only to spot the bus preparing to depart! A mad, and unsafe dash across the road and I blocked its exit until my companions could join me and we took of for a blissfully air conditioned and surprisingly fast journey to Manila (turns out the streets are packed with cars but the motorways empty). In the overcrowded Manila streets, the feeling of being stuck in thick molasses returned and we jumped out (because walking would be faster than the bus was able to go).. A jeepney ride and a lot of half-walking-half-jogging later, and Shane and I made it to the hostel, loaded our bags into a cab and made for the airport! We made it on time, spent our last pesos on some pre-flight food and boarded our flight to Thailand.

I was left with a warm and positive view of the Philippines. It reminded me strongly of the time I've spent in Cuba: there is some poverty and deriliction, certainly. And environmental standards aren't the most stringent in the world. But there is a genuine warmth and caring amongst the people driven not from a callous desire for tourist dollars, but seemingly from an enjoyment of life and of people. The muggy, tropical environment, too often battered by storms and tsunamis has bred in a resilience and adaptability that is truly remarkable. Of all the places I've travelled in my life, Manila sits in the rareified air of one of the ones I could really see myself living in. It's not the most prim and polished, nor the most modern and wealthy, but it feels like a place with real opportunity around every corner and smiles in every door.

Posted with Blogsy

Asia Trip 2013: The Philippines Part 1: No Baboy!

"No baboy!"

That was the one key phrase Shane and I learned in Tagalog, one of the more predominant languages in thePhilippines (there are apparently 175 languages spoken in the Philippines, though a meagre 171 are still actively spoken). "No baboy" means "no pork", or at least close enough-"baboy" means pork anyway. In the worst case scenario, I just pushed my nose up into a pig snout and made snorting noises, then shook my head and made the universal "no" gesture of crossing it out with my hands.

We had to learn this phrase because my travel companion, Shane, one of my best mates in the world, is Muslim and doesn't eat pork, and that is a pretty major part of the Filipino diet. We had to be on our toes. In the end though, it wasn't that much of a limitation; despite the fairly limited reputation and knowledge of Filipino food around the world, it was almost without exception wonderful.

The Philippines was the first stop on our trek that we would do together, though I'd spent a day in Hong Kong before meeting Shane-I'll write about that later, and hopefully it won't take six months this time! We actually met in the Hong Kong airport and caught what must have been one of the cheapest flights I've ever taken, RyanAir included. Our flight was somewhat delayed by poor weather. At first I thought the weather wasn't that bad, then a deafening bolt of lightning struck the tarmac outside the airport window about 10 metres from the plane we were waiting for. I suddenly was much happier to wait.

As a result, we didn't touch down in Manila until the afternoon. After dodging the over-priced cabs that prey on unwary tourists with sky-high rates, we wended our way into the hostel where we'd spend the next four days, taking in the sights of Manila en route.

My expectations had been rather modest, if I'm honest. The Philippines had been an afterthough, added to to trip only once we'd stumbled across the Cebu Pacific flights and realised we could add a whole new country to our list for a palty £35 or so. Furthermore, one of my other closest friends had spent time in Manila on business and rated it as one of the worst place he'd visited. On the flip side, I had a friend from undergrad of Filipino descent who provided a detailed list of food, sight-seeing and travel suggestions, and it sounded great based on that. So, off we went, and for our second-longest city, no less.

I'm glad we did. Though the first impression of Manila isn't the most glowing-corrugated metal slums greet you near the airport and the city is one of the smoggiest I've visited (though I'm going to Beijing this spring, so there may soon be a new champion!). We were staying in the slightly-more-upmarket area of Makati rather than the somewhat insalubrious malate, so the buildings and and roads were in good shape, but the overwhelming initial sense was one of pure, unfiltered bedlam. Cars cram into every niche that could even remotely be considered a road, people walk on and off the sidewalk in throngs and the ubiqitous Jeepneys weave throughout with a grace that belies their rather significant bulk. It's also hot on a level you never experience in Britain, and rarely ever in Canada. All this combines to create a hot mess of smog, choas and good-natured jostling throughout.

But all that would provide a backdrop to one of the most interesting countries I've been to, and a truly varied and rewarding travelling experience. Underneath the anarchy of the street scenes, and despite the often stark and depressing poverty is true verve. The Jeepneys, refashioned and home-modified jeeps abandoned by the Americans after World War Two bristle with ornamentation in a gaudy yet exuberant, overwhelming yet inexplicably charming display. Festooned with lights, colours, hand-painted murals and other ornamentation, they are a goofy party on wheels, in nearly every way the opposite of the staid black cabs that rule London's streets. Oh, and they cost about 30-40p to ride, and work on the honour system: pass your money forward to the driver via the intervening passengers and they will pass change back. Everybody pays despite the lack of monitoring, and change is always returned.

And therein lies the most striking aspect of our visit to the Philippines: the people. I've travelled to many locations around the world, and am always fascinated by the reaciton to tourists. In many cases, there's an undercurrent of either antipathy or opportunism. Foreign visitors, especially in poorer countries are often resented for arriving flush with cash, disregarding local customs and norms, often getting outrageously and inappropriately drunk and generally showing a wonton disregard for the people in that country. In other instances, foreigners can be seen as walking cash bags, just waiting to be conned into one scam or another, triple-charged for every item and otherwise fleeced for everything they're worth. Still other times, tourists might as well be ghosts for how much they are virtually ignored by the local populace.

In the Philippines, none of these options was true. Basically everywhere we went, whether it was just Shane and I or a larger group, we were greeted with genuine and welcoming smiles. Everyone from the security guard at a fast-food chain to waiters to cabbies seemed honestly and wholeheartedly happy to meet new people, to serve and to talk. I've witnessed this sort of warm welcome before, notably in Cuba, and it always encourages me to see it. Almost never did I get a sense that we were being taken advantage of (the tourist-trap taxis at the airport notwithstanding). Instead, I felt a real sense of excitement and compassion.

This post is going on rather long, so I'm going to split it into multiple parts, lest I scare off whatever intrepid readers have made it this far. Next up, what we actually did: the walking tour of Intramuros, hiking up a volcanic crater (and hitchhiking back into town), and partying with the £1.75 full-size bottles of whiskey.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Asia Trip 2013: The Trip in Numbers

So, as many of you reading this blog are likely to know, I recently went on a trip to south-east Asia with one of my best friends in the world, Shane. There's a lot to reflect on, so I'm going to write a few posts about it, but I wanted to start with the most basic and the most nerdy: the trip in numbers. Stats, figures, sums. So here are the key facts and figures. All of them are for me; Shane's will vary somewhat (e.g. he flew direct from Toronto, so his number of airports and list thereof is different).

Total Days: 20, including flight days.
Countries Visited: 5 (Hong Kong, Philippines, Thailand, South Korea, Japan)
Cities Visited: 8 (Hong Kong, Manila, Tagaytay, Bangkok, Seoul, Tokyo, Kyoto, Hiroshima)
Airports: 8 (Gatwick, Beijing [for a transfer], Hong Kong, Manila, Bangkok, Seoul Incheon, Tokyo Narita, Tokyo Haneda)
Hotels, Guesthouses and Hostels Stayed In: 8 (two different ones in Hong Kong, two different ones in Tokyo, one each in Bangkok, Seoul, Kyoto and Manila).
Total Kilometers Flown: 31645 (estimated by FreeMapTools)
Photos and Videos Taken on Primary Camera: 2008 (with a fair few more on our phones). These are just the ones we kept.
Bits of Electronic Kit Brought: 6 (iPad, iPhone, Kindle, Camera, Two X-Mini II speakers)
Bits of Electronic Kit Lost/Stolen/Broken: 1 (Kindle screen broke in Japan)
Bits of Electric Kit Brought: 5 (Universal plug adapter, 4-plug extension lead, iPad charger, multi-port USB charger, camera charger)
Electronic Cables Brought: 4 (Mini USB cable, Micro USB cable, 2 dock connector cables)
Electronic Cables Broken: 1 (one of the dock connector cables gave out-solder came lose on the USB side)
Electronic Gadgets and Cables Bought: (Two 3-in-1 charging cables, one memory stick, a wireless keyboard/mouse combo
Shirts Bought: 4 (in Hong Kong, tailored)
Other Things Bought: 5 (One Kyocera ceramic knife, one non-stick small saucepan, one silicon flipper to use with the saucepan, one pretty wooden flower vase as a gift for my girlfriend, one iPad case in fake wood as a gift for my girlfriend).
Volcanos Hiked Up: 1 (Taal, in the Philippines)
Nights We Went Clubbing: 6 (once in Manila, once in Seoul, three times in Tokyo, once in Hong Kong)
Nights We Did Karaoke: 1 (Manila at a fellow hostel-mate's request for her birthday. I wanted to try it in Tokyo, but they take it so seriously I didn't dare)
£1.75 Bottles Of Whiskey Drunk: 2 (on two nights, shared with others). Both in the Philippines.
Beers Drunk in One Hour of All-You-Can-Drink: 6 (I think)
Bullet Train Rides: 4 (Tokyo to Kyoto, Kyoto to Hiroshima and the return for each)
Taxi Rides: 10
Jeepney Rides: 8 (I think)
Metro/Subway Rides: Lots
Maximum Steps Walked In One Day: 41,000+ (according to Shane's pedometer)
Money Spent: £Just like, a lot
People Added to Facebook: 5

More posts to come about each place we went!

A Message to London Drivers

A funny thing happens to me when I cycle. I go completely Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I can be having the nicest, happiest, sunniest, positive day in the world. But the minute I kick my leg over that cross-bar, I will gut you like a fish should you dare make even the most minor of transgressions. It's a really weird road rage situation; I genuinely dislike the person I become, even if there is a weirdly compelling sense of freedom in such rage.

So I need to work on that. But there's a flipside to this. Because I know part of where the fury originates. There is a truly adversarial aspect to cycling in London. I suspect this is true of most major cities, but I would wager that the sheer number of cars and of cycles in London exacerbates the issue. There are bikes lane all over the place (which drivers often resent and periodically ignore) and a biking culture that ensures the streets are full of cycles. But the cars are also never-ending. So an animosity tends to build.

And there is one thing, above all else, that I'd like to ask of the drivers of London. One simple change I'd love to see that would lessen tensions and would feed into a wide-scale amelioration of the situation for the legion of cyclists who call this lovely city home. So I ask of the motorists: please, please, think about your choices. Don't run on auto-pilot. Drive consciously and deliberately and think about the implications of how you're driving.

I know this sounds obvious, but it happens less than you think. Driving is such a common-place occurrence that you do tune out; you know you shouldn't, but you do. And one of the principal manifestations of this, as it pertains to my daily cycle is the number of times that a motorist will zip out of a side-street, cut me off or change lanes directly into my space. Best case scenario, I slam on my brakes and waste my momentum. Worst case? Well, I'd rather not discuss the worst case, but it happens too often.

So, I'd like to propose the following: when you see a cyclist, or a pedestrian, or a rollerblader or a skateboarder coming down the street, err on the side of caution. I know it means taking time out of your day, but 19 times out of 20, the wait for me to clear the intersection or move past you so you can change lanes safely is measured in seconds. Even if the chance of hitting me is slim, please avoid if when the alternative is waiting an additional five seconds. I think that's fair.

I'm not laying all the blame for my road rage on the motorists on the road. I don't know why my switch is so thoroughly and reliably flipped when I'm on my bike. But I do know that I get really sick, really quickly, of having to slam on my brakes and skid to a halt, nearly rolling over some guy's hood, just so he doesn't have to slow down for the time it takes to say "good morning".

So, please: think and drive!