April 10, 2012
A two minute cycle outside the city and I became surrounded by field after field. Down dirt tracks are the small countryside homes of the farming families. Out in the fields the whole family is hard at work, with the long and hard jobs of hand weeding, throwing the seed, moving crops, seeing to the animals and looking after the young children, even the small kids play their part between running up and down the plowed stretches. With newly plowed fields, sprouting plants in others, tall dried corn plants waiting to come back to life and old dried crops, there's something new to each field you come across.
To the opposite end of town is the railway and factories. Busy as always, the trucks head up and down roads with a variety of new products. But behind the factories and beyond the dusty clouds blown up of the roads and the polluted smoke come views of the nearby mountains, with their barren waved faces and snowy peaks.
Deserted parks give more views across the city, looking over high apartment blocks, falling down homes, shiny new buildings contrasting with grey old buildings, metallic factories, lush trees and dry flat lands against the lining mountains. Plenty more to be ventured into.
Posted by Rebecca Lynch.
April 10, 2012
I have definitely noticed a huge difference between winter and summer, and not just with the weather. As summer is now here, the streets have come alive. The market stalls are back out, the elderly have gone back to spending their day sitting with friends on the benches and walls lining pavements, park sky's are filling with kites and the streets are full of locals heading from place to place. The bikes are back out, weaving up and down the roads and lining the school gates. Whilst walking th... Continue reading...
Posted by Rebecca Lynch.
March 12, 2012
After being back in Kuitun for a few weeks,I decided it was time for another visit to Bagang to see Florrie and Francesca. Saturday was spent having a relaxing day in Bagang, starting with movies and baozi, then having a walk through the market to see all the stalls coming back to life after hibernating for winter. It's the time of year now where the streets are getting buisier and everything's coming back to life making little walks more interesting. In the evening, we decided to treat ourse... Continue reading...
Posted by Rebecca Lynch.
March 12, 2012
I got back to school with a new timetable and new classes of the grade below what I was teaching before the holiday. I've no been teaching for the past 4 weeks so i'm starting to know my classes a bit better. My
students are really good, but its so hard explaining things to them, a years age
difference makes a huge change in the understanding, last terms classes new what I was saying nearly always straight away, but now giving instructions is like how you'd give
young kids instructions, b... Continue reading...
Posted by Rebecca Lynch.
March 12, 2012
The 6 of us who'd left Hong Kong together decided we'd spent enough money, so headed up
to Zushi where Luke and Josh's project is. They'd headed up with Sam after Hong
Kong as they'd all spent every last penny they had. The town had a much more traditional feel to it compared to the other projects i've been to, with lots of street food stalls, small 'garage' restaurants, market streets and few buildings more than two or three stories high. A 5 minute walk to the edge of the town leads into ... Continue reading...
Posted by Rebecca Lynch.
March 12, 2012
Next for me, Rosie, Matt Ollie and Zak was a day trip to Longsheng to see the Dragons Backbone Rice Terraces. After a journey of 3 hours on a bus, to be told it was another 2 hours into the hills,
however to then be told just over the hills by another guide, we decided to go with the 'just over the hills' so we jumped into what was
basically a motorbike pulling a trailer with a tin roof. There were plenty times
we thought it wasn't going to make it, it would have been quicker to push it up... Continue reading...
Posted by Rebecca Lynch.
March 12, 2012
After Hong Kong, I split off from Ellie and Katie, and headed to Guilin, northeast of Guangxi province with Florrie, Rosie, Matt, Ollie and Zak for the last of our sightseeing. We visited the Seven Star Park Scenic Area, which contained mountains, hills, water areas, water falls, caves and animals, along with the amusing 'Chinglish' signs which keep everyone's spirits up such as 'warning water' next to the water falls, and 'I am here, don't step on me' next to garden areas. The caves were qui... Continue reading...
Posted by Rebecca Lynch.
March 12, 2012
The Spring Festival is the most important festival for the Chinese people and is when all family members get together. It's as big as Christmas is for us. The Spring Festival falls on the 1st day of the 1st lunar month, so this year it was the 23rd of January. All people living away from home go back, making this the buisiest time for transport systems, making it vvery difficult to get from place to place, so we found out when trying to get from Shanghai to Hong Kong. ... Continue reading...
Posted by Rebecca Lynch.
March 12, 2012
The bus back to the city where we were getting the train to Shanghai was running
late, so we had to run for our bags in the hotel then over to the station. The
whole way we were determined we were going to miss our train, but we made it and
we were on our way to Shanghai!
I had a really good time in Shanghai, discovering the arty side, visiting the main art
galleries and museums, along with the art district on Moganshan Road. The art district was
interesting, its wall that ran along the ... Continue reading...
Posted by Rebecca Lynch.
March 12, 2012
Next stop Shaolin, with a few problems along the way. Our bus got stuck for 6
hours in one spot at a toll both as they weren't letting anyone through the
other side, then because of that, we missed the next bus we were hoping for to
get so had to stop overnight in a hotel, however all the cheap places wouldn't
give us a room because we were foreign, so ended up staying in a 4 star hotel
for about 5 times the price we wanted to pay. Shaolin, the home to martial arts, is within the mountai... Continue reading...
Posted by Rebecca Lynch.
March 12, 2012
Zhang Bi in Shanxi province is a small ancient fort where the village was built within the walls. The fortress was built on the top of a 1000m high cliff. Underground the village runs a winding set of tunnels at different levels, which were used as a defensive system during wars. The tunnels emerge on the edge of the cliff face, over looking the steep sides of a gorge with amazing views. The tunnel is 5km long with three levels, the first only 1-2m below ground, and the third 20m below ground... Continue reading...
Posted by Rebecca Lynch.
March 12, 2012
Ping Yao, in Shan Xi Province is an ancient walled in town from the Ming and Qing dynasties (14th-20th centuries) that still has it's very traditional features of small wooden buildings with the typical slanted rooftops and little back alley streets. Even though Ping Yao is very touristy, as the spring festival holiday (Chinese new year) hadn't begun, the town was still really quiet so it didn't feel like a tourist trap. With all it's little stalls, antique shops and handcrafted souvenir s...
Posted by Rebecca Lynch.
March 12, 2012
The Qianshan Mountains, (Mountain of a thousand peaks), in the south of Liaoning Province, are one of the well-known scenic spots in China, referred to as 'A Pearl in Northeast China'. In winter they are coverereed in snow and frost, which is what we were aiming to see, however we were a little early in the season so the snow hadn't quite arrived. As it was very close to Spring Festival, the scenic area was rather closed down, with the cable cars not running, and the temples in the middle o... Continue reading...
Posted by Rebecca Lynch.
March 12, 2012
From Xian me and Katie had a 30 hour seat north up to Harbin, where we met Ellie. Harbin is in the northeast China,in the south of Heilongjiang Province. Close to the borders of Russia and Mongolia, influences from these countries can clearly be seen in Harbin, with many of it's buildings having Russian architecture. Sometimes I looked around, and if it wasn't for the Chinese on all the signs, I could have easily been standing on a street in Eastern Europe. Harbin was amazing! It was definitel... Continue reading...
Posted by Rebecca Lynch.
March 12, 2012
Xian's not only known for the Terracotta Warriors, but it's meant to be one of
the central party places of China, so we thought it would be the perfect place to celebrate new year. After an over night train of 'sleeping' on the floor, as we had 3 seats between 6 of us, we had a wonder around Xian, stopping of at the Starbucks, Dunken Donuts and other Western favourites ... the first proper Western food since arriving in China was very exciting. After getting our Western fix, we all hopped on... Continue reading...
Posted by Rebecca Lynch.
March 8, 2012
We left for the language course wearing shorts and t-shirts, after being away for less than two weeks, we came back to the leaves off the
trees, and it being to cold to go out with hoodies as a warmer layer. It was already jacket,
gloves and scarf weather. The temperatures were strange though, it was really cold in the morning and at
night especially, but during the day you could still feel the sun, just not
warm enough to go without a jacket. On a clear day you can
see the snow topped m... Continue reading...
Posted by Rebecca Lynch.
March 8, 2012
The six of us in Xinjiang got the train to Lanzhou for a language course with the rest of the China
group at the end of September, adventuring off for a few days before for a visit to Labrang Monastery. Took about 28 hours to get to Lanzhou, where we took a bus for 3 hours to a town that
Lonely Planet said was "a sleepy town, waiting for the camels and caravans to
come back", but turned out to be a bustling city. We headed for the night market,
which again Lonely Planet made sound amazing... Continue reading...
Posted by Rebecca Lynch.
October 11, 2011
Everything that could go wrong seems to have happened so far, minus a few things. A couple days into the project and everything in the bathroom had brocken, later the fridge and cooker didn't work, and recently we lost our electricity over a couple of days. Despite the disasters, I've been having an amazing time at my project. If I could go back, I wouldn't change a thing as everything has made the place what it is. I'm really enjoying the teaching hear, and every class is so welcoming. They'... Continue reading...
Posted by Rebecca Lynch.
October 11, 2011
Kuitun is know as a small town, but to me it's a large town. Although the buildings don't have much Character, the town makes up for it with its tree lined streets and many markets. On my way to school I cycle , through a small outdoors market selling fresh fruit and veg, then down a winding road lined with trees and flowers, then through a big indoor market lined with fresh bread stalls, which smell amazing, freshly cooked chicken stands, stir fry stands and all the essential spices and in... Continue reading...
Posted by Rebecca Lynch.
October 11, 2011
I've done a fair bit of travelling round China now, spent 2 days on a train getting from Beijing to Urumqui to get to my project, another 26 hours on a train travelling to and from Lanzhou in Gansu for a language course, catching a number of coaches to jump from one place to another, and many terrifying taxi trips. The driving hear takes alot to get used to, not because they drive on the right, which would be fine enough, but because they drive all over the road, both the left, right and mi... Continue reading...
Posted by Rebecca Lynch.
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