Chengdu (November 28-30)

On the Monday night we set off for Chengdu, a city south-west of Xi’an. We were looking very forward to visiting the large Panda conservation park in Chengdu and convinced Lu to come with us. We took another over-night sleeper train (no drama this time) and Lu spent much of the trip teaching us how to use all of the cool functions on our camera. She is a very talented photographer and we learned so many neat tricks!

When we arrived in Chengdu, we stayed in a very Tibetan area of town. There were some amazing markets and little Tibetan shops everywhere. We walked down Ancient Street, which had some cute ponds, mini waterfalls and little places to eat. Very scenic! There we some really beautiful tea shops all along the roads, where you could try so many lovely flavours of tea.

Val with cheery Tibetan monk!

Fish Pond on Acient Street

On the second day, we went to see the PANDAS!!!!! They were so cute! And, to our disappointment, you could only hold them if you were willing to pay about $215 US dollars. Of course, we could not afford it. But it was soooooo amazing to see them eating and walking around! We were pretty close to all the action and it was truly a wonderful experience! And OMG, the baby pandas! SO cute!!!

In the afternoon, we rented some bikes with Lu and an Italian fellow we met at the Panda park, named Rocco. The four of us biked around Chengdu on the crappiest bikes in China! We waited about 45 minutes for our bikes to be fixed up before we could take them out, and then they all pretty much broke down on the trip! Rocco bike lost both its pedals! "Special", but so fun. We biked to a park that had a beautiful temple, and you could hear the monks chanting inside of it. Pretty cool stuff.

Rocco and Mark - two of a kind...

That night we had a party back in our dorm room, and the next day, off to Kangding!

Adorable Tibetan baby!

Xi'an (November 24-27)

When we got to Xi'an, we met a lovely girl from the Czech named Lu who was staying in our dorm. We ended up touring around Xi'an with her for a few days. One the first day, we visited the Bell and Drum Towers, which are local city tourist attractions.



The Twisted Forest

The next day we took hopped on a bus and travelled just outside of town to see the Tomb of Qin (from the Qin Dynasty) and the Terra Cotta Warriors. The warriors were AMAZING! Rows and rows of life-size clay warriors, built over 2000 years ago were just sitting underneath a farmer's field, completely undiscovered until the 1970's. There are almost 6000 of them and they cover a ridiculously large area of land! It was pretty unbelievable. Imagine being the lucky sucker who was digging a well and found them! hehehe...


Terra Cotta Warriors Close-up of a Warrior



These officers wanted to have their picture taken with us...who is the tourist here?

The following day, we set out early in the morning to climb a mountain just outside of Xi’an called Hua Shan. Unfortunately, by the time we got to the base of the mountain, it was raining so hard that we couldn't climb. But the mountain looked beautiful from the bottom!! It turned out to be a pretty good day anyway!


The surplus of labour in China leads to sights such as this...

Xi'an itself is an ancient city with tons of character. Their are several sights with historical significance, but the best part of the city was the muslim quarter.

Their are actually millions of muslims in China and in Xi'an they are central to the tourism. Two intersecting streets made up the muslim quarter in which you could find some of the best restaurants in town, presuming you enjoy spicy pork kebabs and milk tea.


Tasty fruit treat


The three nights in Xi'an went by very quickly and before we knew it, we were off to Chengdu.

In between Beijing and Xi'an: The Crazy Lady Story

"Justin, you leave us alone for five minutes and look what happens!"

On November 23rd, Mark and Val bid farewell to Justin and to all the cool kids living at his house, and set off to tackle China's great beyond on our own for the first time. The destination was Xi'an, a city south west of Beijing. We were all ready to go, with our train tickets, pack of cards and a couple of bottles of beer for our 12 hour trip.

Just as we pulled out of a cab at the Beijing train station, Val's backpack throws her off balance and she bumps into the car beside her. What happens next is a nightmare, really. The driver gets out of his car to see what has happened, searching carefully for any damage to his vehicle. He finds a tiny little crack on the plastic which covers the rear bumper light on the left side, and starts screaming at Val in Chinese!! We tell him that we didn't put the crack there and that we can't understand him and that we have a train to catch and begin walking toward the station. Just then, his wife gets out of the car, sees the so-called crack we've made, and she begins yelling at us too!

They are clearly demanding money, but we are not prepared to pay what they are asking and they have no way to prove that we even made the mark! Anyway, we offer them what we have in our pockets, which causes even more of an uproar because it's clearly not enough. We decide that there is nothing more we can do because we don't understand them and our cabbie has abandoned us so we begin to walk, but this was no escape. The wife begins to follow us inside! We continue walking, trying to ignore her as she walks along side us yelling and pointing to the police booth inside the station. The faster we walk the faster she walks and louder her screaming is getting.

(For those of you who are not familiar with public disputes in China, here is how it works. Everyone stands around and watches, but no one does anything.) So now we are so close to our train that we can taste it, but we have a huge crowd of Chinese people at the station standing around us, just watching this crazy lady screaming and motioning something or other to us.

Our next plan is to run. Although we try, our big huge bags do not allow is to go very fast and the crazy lady out runs us. But this time, realizing that we are trying to escape, she decides that she is going to physically hold us back until we pay her. What does she grab, you may ask? Val's arm! What fun! She has physically attached herself to Val's arm and refuses to let go.

So picture this. Crazy lady is there, yelling and holding Val; Val is getting quite emotional and angry because crazy lady is totally invading her personal space; the train is leaving in less than ten minutes and Mark doesn't know what to do!

We finally worked it out. Let's just say we had to negotiate a lesser amount. But she finally unlocked the jaws that were holding Val hostage and let us go. It was all very surreal. And this happened less than an hour after leaving Justin's house...we were certainly off to a good start!

Once we got on the train, dealt ourselves a hand of cards and cracked a couple of beers, the crazy lady at the station was only a faint memory. The train ride was actually quite nice and we had lovely beds to sleep on over-night. The trains in China, by the way, are great. So comfortable and well organized…and cheap!

One wonder down...six to go.

First of all, our apologies to those who check this blog with any consistency. Our time in Beijing has been a whirlwind of activity, with everyday seeming busier than the last and time to write an entry has been hard to find.



We (Val, Mark, Moira and Denieve) arrived in Beijing on November 3, that’s right… Val’s birthday! We arrived at the airport and after wandering around for a little while, one of the airport workers ran over to us with a big smile and a big pointy hat in her hands. The hat was blue and gaudy with tassels, the kind you get at Disneyworld. Within the hat we found a note reading something along the lines of “In an airport this size, you need a hat to be recognized, proceed to the Starbucks to find the next hat”. Of course, at the Starbucks we found another hat with another note in it, telling us where to continue this scavenger hunt. This continued until three of us were wearing enormous, ridiculous hats. Within the forth hat, we found a note telling us that we must proceed to the bookstore in order to find or way out of the airport, but of course all we found was Justin looking through books on the geography of northern Siberia or something. Needless to say, it was a wonderful way to be introduced to Beijing and to the fanatical, but efficient, life of Justin Bedard.

Due to the fact it was Val’s birthday, it didn’t take us long to get back to Justin’s, eat a quick but divine meal prepared by the “aye” (maid), and hit the streets of Peking. We had such a great time celebrating our arrival, and more importantly Val’s birthday, that we don’t remember much of it. Hee hee.




The next three days were filled with some very intense sightseeing, starting with THE WALL. Most people who visit the Great Wall of China see the reconstructed, easily walk-able sections which are maintained by the municipality. We, of course, were not about to take the easy route on this one. Justin, you may or may not know, is an outdoorsman. He is the type of outdoorsman who climbs the highest peaks, takes the long and scenic route and is often mistaken for a grizzly bear. So we went to a very isolated and probably rarely viewed bit of the wall, which is actually cordoned off to tourists and visitors. Despite the trekking, climbing and crossing into forbidden areas, it was all well worth it.

The wall is simply massive! Built to keep out any intruders from the north, the Wall spans basically all of China. It happened to be particularly beautiful that day because of the clear, smog free skies as well as the fact we went to a mountainous area of the Wall.


The next day we went out and saw some of the sights that had to do with slightly more contemporary history. For one, we went to Tian’anmen Square, the world’s largest public square. You may remember the picture of the single man standing in front of a line-up of tanks, refusing to move during a (largely unsuccessful) demonstration for democracy. While we were there, someone of some significance arrived and we were ushered to the sidelines very quickly by “guards” (teenage boys, always the case). Nevertheless, it was an amazing sight with unbelievable amounts of tourists.


Tian’anmen Square

We also visited the Forbidden City that day. The Forbidden City contains the many homes and palaces in which the Emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasty lived hundreds of years ago.


The Forbidden City

Going out and about in China was an experience all in itself. The traffic is about twice as bad as anything I’ve ever seen in Montreal or Toronto and the pedestrian and bicycle traffic is just as bad. Rules of the road are generally disregarded and many accidents do occur, but not half as many as you would imagine.



The scenery in the city is great. There are more cranes being used in Beijing alone than in any other COUNTRY in the world. Buildings go up everywhere so quickly…a constant state of construction and growth. Poverty is generally low in the city. Very few beggars, but they are much more insistent.


Hohi Lake….gorgeous!



We were also very pleased to see the many parks and fairly natural areas still in Beijing. Unfortunately though, the amount of pollutants far outweigh the amount of plants. There is always constant and unforgiving smog over the whole city, except for when we first arrived. This is because of the African-Chinese summit that began upon our arrival in Beijing. The government ordered that all factories pause production and the air was actually quite clean. The joys of an authoritarian state!


A common Beijing phone booth!





Western Academy of Beijing

We also found time to volunteer in Beijing over our three weeks here. Justin informed us that his school was interested in pursuing the idea of becoming a supplier of Fair Trade goods within the community. After considering some ways we could help, we decided that we were in a good position to rally support for the movement by educating the students about Fair Trade. In the end, we guest lectured five classes and were met with wonderful response. We also helped create a curriculum for teachers to use in their classes.




A Tibetan Restaurant with singers and dancers!


A raw quail’s egg that Mark ate.

When all is said and done, Beijing is a pretty swell place. A beautiful culture, a beautiful people, and a beautiful city. We will miss Justin and all the great friends we met here (Ollie, Chris, Stu, Jay and everyone else too), but are very excited to be on our way through China to see what it holds for us.

We are now on our way to Xi’an, a city 1000 km southwest of Beijing. We will try to post again soon!

Peace out.

Valerie and Mark

Writing blind...

We'll be doing a much more comprehensive blog of our travels in China very shortly but here is an interesting note regarding the continuing face of Chinese censorship.

Though we can write this post on our blog, we cannot see or read it. In other words, blog websites are blocked within China by the government.

Pretty cool stuff...

love mark

Korea has Seoul, and now us too!

Finally, on our last afternoon here we have the opportunity to update our blog with stories from SK. To sum up this leg of the journey, we've had an absolutely fantastic time, in no small part due to our wonderful host Moira. We have had adventures all around Seoul, a city of 12 million (compared to Toronto's 3 million) that seems to span for miles and miles.

The city is so vast that the subway system has a crazy amount of lines and stops. Not quite like the TTC...check it out!

This week, we have seen many amazing sites and hiked to many interesting places. We walked along the Seoul city wall (built to protect the captial from North Korean invaders), which is still heavily fortified and guarded by troops to this day. This wall runs mainly uphill, roughly 2000 meters above sea level. We also climbed up to a sacred Shamanist ruin area, which is fairly secluded and is used as a place of worship for Buddhist follwers. With rocks in the shape of monks and carvings of Buddha on the rock faces, this place was spectacular and very peaceful. We saw several palaces and places of political relevance, all of immense importance to Korean history and culture. One of the most interesting to see was the Japanese prison, where Koreans were held and tortured during the Japanese occupation, until the success of the anti-Japanese military movement brought independence to this country. We also visited the "CN Tower" of South Korea called the Namsan Tower (a relatively modest version), which this city is extremely proud to have.

We have also been to our share of Seoul markets. Insadong is an area of town known for its art galleries, hand-made crafts and shops. It is so neat to walk through; there are so many vibrant colours and people everywhere! We loved it. We also visited an art gallery/display called "Wake up Andy Warhol" which was spectacular! We went with Laura, a friend of Val's who lives in Pusan, which is a city south of Seoul.











The food is another experience all in itself. First of all, there are restaurants and food vendors EVERYWHERE! You are never searching very hard for a place to eat! Our diets here consisted mainly of spicy cabbage, called Kim Chi, rice, soup and dumplings. We also enjoyed Korean BBQ, which is basically a BBQ pit in the middle of your table, on which all of your meat (pork, beef, etc) is cooked on right in front of you. Mmmmm...its delicious! Some not as delicious food (according to Val, cause Mark liked it) was an afternoon snack of larvae. Blahhhh! It's kind of squishy and salty, with a seafood flavour. Mark thoroughly enjoyed it, although Val will certainly not be eating it again, ever! Lastly, the alcohol here is impressively cheap. Mark has gained a dependancy to a Korean rice liqour called "Soju". It's about 20% alcohol and sells for about $1.25 a bottle! It's so-juriffic!


Well, that's it for now. We(Moira, Mark and Val) leave for Beijing this evening to meet up with Justin Bedard (also from our program at UofG) and party!!!!

In Beijing, Val plans to have a huge birthday celebration because today is her birthday!! Yeah! Happy Birthday to Val! Although, she has already celebrated in Korea, thanks to the lovely Laura who brought a decilious cake!

We love you all and can't wait to see you again!
Thank you to everyone who has posted comments. We love to hear from you!!!Keep checking this site for an update on China!

Mark and Val