Going to China was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. I must admit that before my journey, I had never thought that I would ever go to that part of world. Not because I had a well thought out reason, but because for some weird and ignorant reason, I did not think that the experiences I would have in China would be any different from what I already knew. Boy, was I wrong. Thinking back to that time, I now realize how stupid I was. It was super different and it was amazing.
In my post today, I wanted to share with you the three high points from my trip.
Number One – The Great Wall
Yes, it probably sounds touristy to you, but being at The Great Wall and learning the history behind that incredible structure was as amazing as you would expect it to be. I was lucky enough to be in the company of locals, so they were able to take me to a location which had relatively lesser traffic. As an example, here is a photograph of how busy it can get at The Great Wall.
Here is a photo from when I was there. I was lucky to be able to avoid the massive crowds.
My Picture
The facts surrounding The Great Wall are numerous but here are a few points I remembered from my trip:
• The Great Wall was built to prevent invasion from the northern nations but it did not exactly stop them.
• It was built by soldiers, convicts and peasants and millions of people lost their lives in the process.
• The wall is over 13,000 miles long
My recollection of the history that was shared with me has started to fade but you can find a number of facts on this website.
Aside from climbing the wall and learning about the history behind it, my favourite part of the experience came from what they called the “toboggan ride”. When you climb up to a certain height, you are provided with two options in case you did not want to climb back down. One was using the chair lift, and the other was the toboggan ride. I chose the toboggan ride and it was the best choice ever! There were several twists and tums and you could control how fast or slow you went. My friends kept running into me which caused me to run into the people in front of me. It was very funny.
Here are my pictures.
Unfortunately, I did not take any videos but someone else on YouTube was smart enough to make one. This video is very accurate and the joy on his face was similar to mine.
Number Two – The Food.
You cannot go to China and not try out their famous cuisine. Chinese people love to eat and in fact, a large number of business deals are made over a meal. We visited so many nice restaurants and had so many wonderful meals.
Here is a meal that some of you may know as Hot Pot. In the picture below, we were provided with several slices of raw meat along with some boiling hot broth - among other things. To eat this meal, you would pick up a piece of meat and place it in the broth until it is cooked (takes a few minutes), then you can proceed to eat it.
My Pictures
On another day, we were taken to a dinner theatre. We were entertained by several performers but the most notable one, was this beautiful lady pictured below. She came out and sang beautifully, hitting the high notes with ease. However, at the end of the performance, she revealed to us that she was actually a man! Upon hearing this, the audience expressed their appreciation with a standing ovation and several whistles. It was lovely to have my first Chinese drag experience.
My Pictures
There were several other performers like this strong lady who spun a member of the audience in a barrel, using her feet.
My Picture
And this singer who sang a traditional Chinese piece which by the way, all my young Chinese friends hated because they claimed the song was too old. I personally found her eyes a bit scary because she kept opening them so wide as if she was trying to hypnotize you.
My Picture
Here's a video
So from the normal to the bizarre. At night we were taken to the night market to try out some of the local delicacies.
Here are a few photos of the wonderful scorpions, lizards, sea horses and starfish which I must admit, I was not brave enough to try out. Actually, I did try out a small piece of the scorpion and I can say with conviction that, it would not happen again.
My Pictures
Number Three – The Circus in Shanghai
During my stay in China I visited the cities of Beijing and Shanghai as well as another small village (I can’t remember the name at the moment). Beijing was my favourite because it was relatively less busy compared to Shanghai and it was cleaner too. But Shanghai allowed me to experience more of the authentic Chinese culture. I went to several neighbourhoods, markets and small restaurants.
My Pictures
I also visited what in my opinion is the best circus in the world.
If ever you find yourself in Shanghai, I highly recommend going to see the circus. My favourite event was what I call the Motorcycle Ball of Death!
OMG, it was such an exhilarating experience to see this live. It was so nerve racking that I could not sit down. I kept screaming “they are going to crash, they are going to crash” and my friends kept laughing. Unfortunately, I had no storage space on my phone for pictures or videos. Luckily, I found a YouTube video which captured it perfectly.
My trip to China was packed with lots of great experiences which could fill up a book, but the above were my most memorable ones. There were also some wonderful locations and occurrences which I cannot help but mention. This has led me to name the next section The Honourable Mentions.
The Honourable Mentions
Most of you know the famous bird’s nest stadium which was built when China hosted the Olympics in 2008.
A bizarre thing that kept happening especially in Beijing was that people kept asking to take pictures of or with me. It was the strangest thing ever and I felt very uncomfortable. My friends told me that some of them had probably never seen a dark skinned African person before. Trust me people, this happened at almost every location we visited. Some even asked me to hold their babies! Weird.
Speaking of weird, here’s a photograph for you to consider. Not sure what they were trying to say. I apologise in advance for those who might be offended. I think it is a case of Google Translate goes wrong.
Oh, and I found someone getting a haircut on the street
Other places we visited
- My Pictures*
So there you go! The highlights from my trip to China. Now that I have the benefit of hindsight, and if I had known that one day I would be writing about my trip to China, I would have done two things. One, taken a better camera along with me, especially one that had a large memory card. Two, done a better job of documenting my trip. Despite not doing any of that, I hope I was able to communicate how awesome my trip to China was.
Thanks for stopping by. Chat tomorrow!