Sunday 29 July 2012

Summaries of China

Hello hello! It's good to be back home in Canada, where the weather is less hot and humid, I can understand the people, and everything is so expensive. For those unaware, I was gone for 3 weeks on vacation on a trip to China and surrounding areas.

However, I don't plan on giving a day-by-day recall of my trip. That be boring. Instead, I'm just going to give a quick summary of each location and specific events that stick out enough will be turned into entire posts. I'll try and upload more pictures from the trip when I'm done rooting through my camera.

Though most of the trip can be summarized by one picture:

Why is Asia like this?

Shanghai

Only one day spent here and it was easily the second hottest place we were at. As expected of Shanghai, lots of nice places to shop at and see. Wish we could have spent more time here but we were pretty much just dropping by on our way to our next destination.

Chengdu

I can't say I liked this part of the trip. It wasn't anything special, nothing we hadn't seen on our other tours from last year. The tour guide was a bit of a jerk, perhaps unintentionally but still a jerk. Being in the Sichuan province meant that all our food was spiced in the Sichuan style. I didn't care for it, and I'll elaborate on that in a future post.

The only memorable thing was going to see giant and red pandas. I have come to the conclusion that the only reason that giant pandas aren't extinct is because we're taking care of them. These guys were some of the laziest and dumbest looking animals I've ever seen. What other creature defecates itself while eating, topples over, and then falls asleep when it can't get back up?

This guy right here.

Guilin

This was one of my favorite parts of the trip. Possibly biased due to the better tour guide. There were also a lot more interesting things in my opinion. This includes scenery, culture, and food. You know the oddly shaped mountains that are usually depicted in Chinese paintings? They're from Guilin.

Example.

Taiwan

 I didn't like Taiwan all that much, it felt like some sort of inverted China. Where the drivers actually yielded to pedestrians, bikers wore helmets, and the streets are arguable cleaner. That being said, the tours weren't that great. It seriously felt like it was nothing but Taiwanese propaganda. How great they were compared to China, and look at how successful we are without China, and how we seperated from China.

You get the point.

The street food is fairly decent however.

Hong Kong

Ok, I might be slightly biased when it comes to Hong Kong because my Mom's from Hong Kong but Hong Kong is always my favorite part of any China vacation. The food here is great, the shopping is great, the subway system is amazing with excellent malls attached to most stations. Everything is so cheap too, I just wish it wasn't so hot here...

Bonus: Macau

Oh boy, where to begin. I hate this place. There is nothing to see or do here. It's like an Asian knock-off of Las Vegas with some of the hotels literally copied from the Vegas ones. The stores inside are nothing but high end, overpriced Western brands like Gucci and Prada. Stepping outside is like walking into a sauna. There is so much I disliked about that city.

Ugh...

And that wraps it up. My next post is actually the one year anniversary of my blog, after that, I'll share a few choice stories from my China trip. Oh, and the food poisoning issue is included in that. Quick spoiler, it wasn't because of any Chinese food I ate.

It's good to be back blogging.

33 comments:

  1. So you are in home sweet home:)
    I love pandas are my favorites bears:)

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  2. LMAO well sounds like an experience at least and those poor panda's have the life

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  3. Nice summary! I'll be sure to avoid all the places you hate when I finally make it over there... :)

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  4. Dfinitely agree with the heat in Asia right now. I was just in Japan and melted a little myself. Welcome back!

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  5. I'm glad your back!

    Also, sorry asia was so hot and sweaty... Ugh. I hate being hot and sweaty.

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  6. Hope you enjoyed a lot over there!
    welcome back to the blogging world :)

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  7. Well, I'm glad you loved your trip! It's hard to enjoy foreign trips for some reason, if they're not that flashy.

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  8. It's good to have you back blogging. Thank you for the small reviews and comments, they will help me if I ever decide to visit China :)

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  9. It's good to have you back too :) The heat has been pretty bad here, and apparently it's even getting a bit bad in Canadia, so you might not be out of the woods just yet. Sounds like you had a decent time, in some of the places anyway. It is a bit of a shame you couldn't spend more time in Shanghai, sounds like you would have had more fun if you cut time elsewhere and spent it there.

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  10. I really struggled with the pure heat in Canada during the Summer when I visited so it's scary to imagine how crazy China must have been. It sounds like it was still worth the journey which is cool though, glad you got the experience mate.

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  11. I'm not sure my comment got saved. Because Blogger is evil like that. So I'll make it again real quick, if I can. It's nice to see you back to blogging too :) Sounds like apart from the heat you had a pretty good time. In most places anyway. Shame that you didn't get to spend longer in Shanghai, it sounds like you would have rather had less time elsewhere, and a bit more time there. China has some great scenery and I'd love to see it personally.

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  12. Macau sounds terrible, but then again, my family is from Vegas, and I can't stand that city. I really don't understand the hype.

    Welcome back to the blogosphere!

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  13. Oh my gosh! What an envious summary. I should check it out myself and pls pls pls tell me what's the lie? :-)

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  14. Can't wait to see pictures! Sure do wish I had the time to visit China and Japan....and Scotland....Italy...France lol

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  15. Interesting to read your thoughts on the different locations. It sounds like quite the trip!

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  16. I'm pleased that you are back in Canada!
    I loved your summaries of the places you visited though.
    Asia is somewhere where I'd rather not go, but Europe is top of my list.
    I have a bonsai tree though...not that I'm quite sure how to look after it, but it is about two hundred years old. What's the chance of me killing it off?

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  17. It sounds like a pretty nice time actually. Like, you probably just didn't end up enjoying it more because it wasn't the first time. Or the heat. I think I would've liked it is what I'm getting at.

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  18. Welcome back!

    Hope you had a great vacation!

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  19. Really? It was that hot? Ouch!! Glad to have you back!!

    I had no clue about Taiwan, but it seems that many countries have similar places. Look at at Italy and Sicily. I totally get what you're saying ;)

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  20. Hiya kiddo. Glad to see you made it back safely. I'm also glad I'm not a panda.

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  21. I didn't know Asia was that hot.

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  22. LOL! laughed so hard about the panda description!

    thanks for the comment on my blog

    have a nice day! ^_^

    "Diaries of an Indistinctive Writer"

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  23. SO glad you are back safe. I hope you are feeling lots better and I cant wait to see pics from your trip!

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  24. 5 days and I too will be experiencing an Asian summer, send me ice please

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  25. Thanks for the quick tour of your trip. Guilin sounds amazing. Welcome back to today's humidex of 38 celcius

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  26. sounds great. i didnt know Pandas were like that. hmm.
    anyway, Taiwan sounds like Singapore.
    like how great singaporeans think they are as compared to malaysians. we separated in the 60s.

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  27. Lol,that was such an interesting read,welcome home! :)

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  28. Dang, what was the temperature exactly? I'd kill to get out of the country again, I love traveling. China is on my list of places to visit. =]

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  29. welcome back! Sorry that you didn't have a better time in China!

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  30. I've always wanted to go to china, especially Hong Kong! Look forward to seeing some pics!

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  31. hope you enjoyed trip
    nice summary

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  32. I should take a leaf from your travel blogging style... My travel posts are waaaaay too wordy! Looking forward to the rest of your trip tales.

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  33. I have had serious intentions and semi-preparations for visiting China or Japan.

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