My Sabbatical

Source: mathias.apitz at flickr

I am thankful to Kevin Rose and Tim Ferriss. After watching their videos on their trip to China, I became aware of a couple of the more popular scams here. Now that I am here, I can honestly say that has probably saved me a lot of money, and so it’s my duty to pass the word along to fellow travelers.

I don’t know why there are so many in person scammers here in China. I would think that the Chinese government would shut them down fairly efficiently – one of the benefits of a communist government is it doesn’t have to worry about the rights of the shady business owners, although one of the downsides is that it doesn’t have to worry about the rights of the innocent consumer either. But still, hundreds of scammers roam the popular tourist spots, trying to trick tourists out of their money.

The most popular scam, by far, that I’ve encountered is the tea house scam, or the lets go get a drink scam. It’s happened to me in both Beijing and Shanghai. As an example, yesterday I was approached by three young-looking students (two girls and a guy) on The Bund – the popular waterfront promenade. First, they wanted me to take their picture with their digital camera in front of a landmark. Then they started quizzing me about where I was from, what I was doing here, how long I’d be here, etc. They knew of Canada, talked about the Maple Leaf flag, and Maple Syrup. And on and on, for about 5 minutes of getting to know you talk. Then the proposition – they were going over to a nearby tea house, and would I like to join?

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Source: lee_blake_somerset at flickr

Today is Day 3 of my visit to Shanghai. And it’s raining. It rains every day here for a little bit, or so it seems. And it’s not a light sprinkle rain either. Thunder, lightening, and the heavens above open completely and release a torrent of water upon the city.

Shanghai has not been cooler unfortunately. It seems to have the same ability to soak through t-shirts as Beijing did. The heat itself has not been difficult for me to stand, but going through 3 t-shirts a day has been tough on my laundry situation. So I think I packed enough clothes, and then it turns out I had no idea how fast I actually use them up.

In each city (Beijing, Xian and now Shanghai) I have been sending my laundry out to be done to replenish my supply of fresh clothes. That was always part of the plan anyways, but I had no idea I had to do it 3 times. There’s an irony, I suppose, in that I’ve probably spent $100 in getting my laundry done in China. Ancient Chinese secret, huh? Sounds like someone is making a lot of profit to me.

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Source: SF Bit at flickr

I have six days in Shanghai coming up, and I am hoping this will actually be a restful part of the trip. I spent only 4 days in Beijing and 3 in Xi’an, and have felt a bit rushed in those cities. I’d love to have time to see a bit more, and rest a bit more. Maybe do a bit less walking, as my hotel in Shanghai is not too far from the subway line.

The big thing going on in Shanghai right now is the Expo. In case you don’t know, every two years one international city hosts the World Expo, in which dozens of countries participate. A large site is developed with various country-specific buildings, and each country puts on some type of display for tourists. The displays vary from actual live shows, to food and drink from that nation, to more simple information booths.

The Shanghai Expo is quite large, with upwards of 50,000 people per day visiting the site. The Expo runs for only six months, and so they expect more than 10 million people to pass through. Those are staggering numbers. Now the majority of Shanghai Expo visitors, I hear, are mainland Chinese families. That means the most popular attractions are the Asian exhibits (particularly China which looks spectacular from the outside). I hear reservations to the China exhibit are gone out by 6:30am each day, and even with reservations the line up is a couple of hours long. The chances of me seeing the inside this time around are… none. I doubt I will be able to see Japan or Korea either as those are popular second choices for the Chinese.

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Source: B.D.'s World at flickr

It seems like I only have time to write these blog entries in the airport, as I sit once again in an airport waiting to catch a flight. I’m leaving the wonderful city of Xi’an and heading to Shanghai, which should be exciting.

As expected, the hotel in Xi’an was VERY nice. I only had three nights here, but I did manage to sleep until 2 in the afternoon one of those days on the very comfortable bed. I also took the opportunity to get a massage done at the hotel spa. I went in with a sore back, and I came out ready to fall asleep without a care in the world. Probably my first ever real massage, as all those neck and back people don’t seem to make any of my pains go away.

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Source: Fracisco Diez at flickr

I writing today’s entry at the Beijing airport, waiting to leave on my flight to Xi’an. Having spent 4 days here, I am of mixed emotions as I leave. On the one hand, I think I am ready to go to someplace new, and on the other, I feel like I hardly saw or did anything and will probably need to come back in order to experience it better. There is just so much to see and do here!

Did I have Peking Duck here? No. Did I have more than one or two decent meals? No. Did I even enter the Forbidden City, the most famous landmark in Beijing? Also no. (It was way too busy the day I went, and I was way too tired from walking there.) I have to ask myself, what DID I do?

There are two things about Beijing in the summer that makes it a difficult place to get around. One, it’s hot. The temperature never got below 35 degrees C during the day, and even late at night the heat makes you soak a shirt through in 5 minutes.

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Source: eviltomthai at flickr

It’s hard to call any city in China “the ancient city of” since most of them have been around for thousands of years. One city I will be going to is called Xi’an – which has more than 3,100 years of recorded history! Canada was formed as a country a mere 150 years ago, and North America was only discovered 500 years ago. (Thanks Chris!) I am fascinated by history, and China has a lot of it.

Of course, the most famous place just outside of Xi’an is the Terracotta Warriors (also called Terracotta Army) that were discovered buried in a farmer’s field only 35 years ago. These warriors date from around 300 BC! There are an estimated 8,000 statues buried, including men, and even horses. It is part of the mausoleum built for the First Emperor of China, and they say 700,000 workers worked on the site. By the Emperor’s command, every statue is made to look different.

The funny thing is, a small part of the Terracotta Army (20 soldiers) is currently on display at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) which is within walking distance of my apartment in Toronto. I could have saved $2,475 if I just bought a museum ticket to that instead of flying all this way!

I originally had 4 nights booked here, but a friend told me 2 would be enough. The same friend told me Shanghai was one of her favorite cities in the world, so that convinced me to change my plans. Luckily the plans were changeable (not easily, but it only cost me $13 in the end). So now I have 3 nights in Xi’an and I leave first thing on the fourth day to head to Shanghai.

I am staying in a really nice hotel. It may be my best hotel of the trip. If the town of Xi’an doesn’t have much to offer, perhaps I can swim in the hotel pool, and make use of the spa services? I don’t think I will at all be bored. No worries about that.

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I sit here, 4 hours in to my 15.5 hour flight to Beijing, and I am thankful the seats have power adapters. I just bought an MSI Wind Netbook – yes, I hear netbooks are dead – and I noticed yesterday it gets a whopping 2 hours of battery life. Thank god for in-seat power adapters. 

I am excited to get started my two week trip to China. Excited and a bit scared. I am travelling alone, and don’t speak that much Mandarin Chinese. Even the words I can speak I am highly doubtful I am pronouncing correct. I am well aware that Chinese has tones and inflections that change the meanings of words, so Ni Hao coming from my mouth might come out as a deep insult to the hotel receptionist’s ancestors. 

As I type this, my plane seems to be entering the air space over Greenland. Now to some of you, you might think, he’s flying from Toronto to Beijing, East to West, what the heck is he doing over Greenland? And I might have asked myself the same question except I did some reading recently about how imperfect it is to translate a 3D spherical map of the globe onto a 2D surface. So technically, the fight from Toronto to Beijing goes over the North Pole, and technically Greenland is lying lengthwise above Canada and not beside it as most Mercator maps represent. Also, Greenland is a LOT smaller in reality than most maps depict in true relative scale. I’ve seen maps that show Greenland as big as all of Canada. 

The Real Greenland - Above Canada

Researching hotels for China was fun. I probably did more research on them than anything else, because there are so many different varieties to choose from with different price ranges. The hotel I found in Beijing is very interesting. It gets good reviews on TripAdvisor (top 50 in Beijing), it’s cheap ($50 a night for the cheapest rooms), it’s close to many attractions (steps from the Forbidden City), has Internet access, and the staff reportedly speak English and are helpful. They say taxi drivers have trouble finding it, but I brought with me a map in Chinese. 

I have 4 nights in Beijing. I will visit the Forbidden City, the Great Wall of China, Tiananmen Square, Mao’s Tomb, do some shopping in a couple of the famous markets (clothes and DVDs!), visit the famous night “snack market” where scorpions on a stick can be had (I will stick to meat), and perhaps do a tour that will take me to the site of the Olympic Games. Since Beijing is the capital, I am sure there are lots of very old and/or very interesting things to do there. 

I also just need to get oriented with being in China. How to get around, what food to eat, some basic words and phrases, and other beginner tasks. You just don’t know what you don’t know sometimes. 

I am tempted to hire a personal tour guide for a day. I saw a taxi driver who will drive you around for 500 Yuan a day, which is $75. Having an English speaking taxi driver for a whole day might totally be worth it. I will play it by ear when I get there. 

That’s all for now. I’ll have more to say about China when I’m there!

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