6.8.07

Vostoknauts enter China

So 30.7 we left Ulan Bator saying bye to Mongolia. Next day we arrived to the border of Mongolia and China where the carriages where lifted up and the wheels where change. Chines railways are different width from the Mongolian ones.

While waiting on the border about 5 hours Walter was practising his Chinese writing drawing on a paper phrases like can we buy tickets from Jining to Beijing. We only had tickets to Jining but wanted to continue directly to Beijing...When arriving to Jining we found some persons to help us and finally after a lot of hassle and a big crowd stirring at us we got standing tickets to a train that would leave in a half hour. Standing tickets meant that we got to sit on our backpacks in the corridor of a crowded train for 9 hours arriving 4:20 in the morning to Beijing...very exhausting, but we got there.

So finally in Beijing we where "Turbo tourist" visiting the Forbidden City and Tienanmen square.

It was crazy how crowded the Forbidden City was...it was almost more of an attraction the amount of people than the actual site.

Taking the must photos :) We also visited the Garden to Temple of Heaven. On our way walking trough the streets of Beijing we saw that a lot of "hutongs", small allays and peoples homes are destroyed because of the image lift of the town of the Olympics :(

In Beijing we also met Walter's and Nanna's friend Klas who has been studying in Beijing for a month. He was a lot of help both in ordering food on nice restaurants and in shopping electronics. For all my sushi loving friends I can tell you that we ate for under 8 euros as much sushi and drank as much beer we wanted on a restaurant...loved it!:D

We also meet other students and spent time at the Summer palace.

Then one day we woke up at 5:30 to visit the Great wall. We went for an 10 km hike on the wall and ended up in the part of the wall that was called Simatai. It was beautiful. It was not the most touristic place and we had 4 hours time to do the hike. It was quite hard going up and down but definitely worth all the work. On the wall we met Meiju and her father from Finland and spent a nice day with them. And guess what, it's a small world...Meiju is studying in the Media Lab at Taik where i am going to start studying in end of august. So I got a lot of inside information that day ;)

Of course Beijing duck was a must. It was quite good, but we where much more fascinated of a type of pepper in a fish soup we ate that made our tongues numb.

The last night in Beijing and with Nanna we celebrated going out and of course singing Karaoke Asian style in our own room. Soooo much fun!

Walter got exited singing Ramstine and moshing to other heavy songs...can you believe they had Sonata Arctica's Full Moon on the list!

We continued to a disco and partied whole night. Nanna left the next morning! Hope your flight went well and you are safely back home. Me and Walter did some more shopping. We had spent all ready a whole day at the Silk Market but this time we got crazy in Electronic hell or heaven...depends who you ask :)

In the evening we took the train to Shanghai. The train was modern and nice, we had seats so we didn't get too much sleep when we tried to find a good position to sleep in the whole night.

Today we arrived here...a bit lost in Shanghai trying to find a Net cafe...

... we never found one so we returned to the hostel using the Internet here. We are fixing practicals today like washing clothes, booking tickets etc. Taking it easy after all the "turbo turisting" in Beijing.

China has been a lot of fun and a lot to see! Thanx to Klas for all the help and to all the students for all the fun!

-Linda-

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hei Lindasein!
Sä näytät aina joka kuvassa niin onnelliselta :) Ihana nähdä että nautit matkasta täysin rinnoin!
Me just täällä töissä mietittiin, mikä päivä sä olitkaan tulossa kotiin? No ei sun sitä kannata enempää muistella :)
Pitihän se arvata että kun töihin tulee niin alkaa helteet, tänään luvattu 27 ja jossain jopa 30 astetta ja paljon aurinkoa täksi viikoksi! Kaipaa jätskikaveria! ;)
Muuten kaikki hienosti, meillä autotalli kasvaa ja mahakin on ku maapallo. Siinä on mulle kerrakseen koettavaa, mutta nauti sä edelleen yhtä lailla siellä maailmalla. Hali!

Unknown said...

Hei Raswalla och Väke!
Jessus så ni har hunnit med mycket. Läste genom senaste inlägget och blev helt matt. Ni verkar uppleva så mycke siisti och annorlunda. Är så anonsjuk, här e allting bara likadant. Ser fram emot att se er när ni kommer tillbaka. Ha det så bra! Många stora kramar till båda!

Anonymous said...

Moi Mr. Virta & co!
De ser nog ut som om ni sku ha haft 1000 gånger så kul än vi andra som möglar på kontoren! Våra höjdpunkter för den här sommaren ha vari Metallica, Rollarna & NIN, ajoo nu var jag ju och hoppa ett benji-hopp också. 3 veckor duuni kvar o sen får man se åt vilket vädersträck min nos pekar...
Häv fan!

Sumppa

Anonymous said...

Alltså nu e det ju otroligt att du lyckas träffa mänskor på andra sidan jordklotet som du ska börja studera med! :) Det är nog skickligt.. h. kontorsrottan Linda, jag har ännu tre dagar jobb och sen har jag två veckors semester, puust..

Linda

Anonymous said...

Hej!

Flygresan gick bra och jag är hemma i varma och soliga Finland igen.

Och Klas har nog studerat ett år (och inte en månad) i Peking.

-Nanna

Anonymous said...

W, ha du hitta oskilloskop ?

:) :)

-C-

Unknown said...

Hei Linda,
sulla on punaviinimarjoja (vanhempiesi) pakastimessa odottamassa kun tulet kotiin. Muuten olisivat olleet tuoreita, mutta eivät olisi tainneet säilyä yli viikkoa... etkä ole tainnut niitä vähään aikaan syödä. :) Eli terveiset Valkeajärveltä.
Mä lähden reissuun ennen kuin ehdit takaisin (enää 2 päivää!), joten tervetuloa kotiin! :) ja nähdään sitten syyskuussa.
Haleja.

Mikaela said...

Halloj! Låter som om ni har det riktigt bra. Tur att allt gått smärtfritt, nu återstår det bara att se då hur länge du, Walla, blir i Kina. :)
Vill passa på och tacka för kortet. Såg det först igår, för jag har varit typ 10 dagar i Bromarf och bjutit av solen och havet. Till Nanna får jag säga välkommen hem!

Ha det bra!

The ideal Catariina said...

TACK för vykortet!! Det var hur trevligt som helst att få post, och till jobbet ännu till! Puss&Kram och ha det bra!