Run little man, run!

Asia ~ China ~ Shanghai

The little green man in China doesn’t let people know they can cross the road safely – he suggests that they run as fast as they can to the other side – for that is all the traffic lights are over here – suggestions. The little green man not only runs – he also warns you just how many seconds you have left – 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 – and then a SLAM of oncoming traffic! Wrestling with the traffic is sometimes an adventure – in my limited Chinese I have made many friends – I attach myself to a local whenever attempting to cross the road, and once safely across, point at them and then me, and say ‘pengyou’ – friends.

Me and Mum munching on vegies

As usual, my trip has been centered around food – and what a feast we’ve been having! Dad and I have been making daily breakfast meetings, where we sample the different Chinese foods on offer – we’ve had dumplings for about 5 days in a row – YUM! The other night we went out to celebrate my birthday at M on the Bund, a well-to-do restaurant in modern Shanghai, where we dined on interesting, non-Chinese, menu. The drawing card of the restaurant was evidently the view, not the food or value. After our dinner, we all trotted off to the hostel that Tash and I stayed in last time, and had a drink from the roof top bar, fitted in a lot better!

View from the roof top bar

Of course we’ve been doing a lot of shopping as well, and my understanding of Chinese numbers is coming along in leaps and bounds, as are my bargaining abilities. Each day we have found a new souvenir to pack up and take home – my pack just keeps getting bigger and bigger. Best of all are the Chinese supermarkets – a new phenomenon over here. They not only contain all the different fresh fruits and groceries (including extremely fresh fish (i.e. live)), but also mini k-marts, with everything from bikes to dvds. School started yesterday, and it’s already a struggle. I’m rooming with a friend of Kylie’s, Ling, and we’re having a ball. We’ve been learning by trial and error all the different customs of the uni – from the smartcard food cards, through to where the supermarket actually is. And how to portray that to a taxi driver… Food on campus is good, average $1 AUD per meal, and there are also a couple of restaurants on campus, with more only a few minutes away. Weather has just turned cold, it’s gunna be a tough winter, thankfully we went out and brought scarfs, gloves and beanies yesterday. Classes are difficult, but should be rewarding.Kylie has now joined me and mum, dad and Chuck have just arrived back in Australia. It was a fun family holiday, but now it’s time to start living the life of a student backpacker – no more 5 star hotels 🙁

xoxo Bobbi

Dancing with Panda’s in Chengdu

Asia ~ China ~ Shanghai & Chengdu

So a 10 hour plane trip doesn’t seem that long when you compare it to some of the long hauls that we’ve done (namely Australia – USA), but man, any flight over 3 hours is a long flight! Before we even left Australia we had our first embarrassing experience- dad walked into the ladies toilets without realising. We quickly took off and pretending we didn’t know him – he got shoo-ed out soon after! We flew Qantas, so service was reasonably decent (although Chuck really didn’t like her vego food – chickpeas and cous cous, ugh! [says her hehe]), but the entertainment was top notch. They have a new entertainment system – movies on demand – so you can watch whatever you want, when you want it. Chuck got her fill of movies!

All things done and said, arrival into Shanghai was easy and quick. After filling out the health card (“do you have sniffles?” “no [sniffle sniffle]”, “do you have a fever” “no [ooh it’s hot in here]! we got through and out into the arrival hall. After picking up our bags, we ran the gauntlet to get through past arrivals – so many people! We we’re supposed to pick up our tickets for our flight – so we grabbed a phone card and attempted to ring the dude… and he spoke only Chinese! I knew that this trip would be a great way to practice my ‘barely-there’ Chinese, but I didn’t realise it would be this soon! Stumbled through the phone call, and we arranged a place to pick up the tickets – my Chinese worked!!!

Family waiting for taxi in Shanghai

First hotel was interesting – a typical Chinese hotel, complete with a fantastic little restaurant. Little to no English though, so it was interesting to see what we got to eat! Up early the next day for our flight to Chengdu, just made it to the airport on time (as usual, whoops!). Chengdu was awesome – we went on a tour to see the pandas first up. They were so incredibly cute – we got to wander around and see the babies, and then have out photos taken with the olympic panda…

Chuck & I with Panda in Chengdu

Train trip was sooooo long. But not unbearable. In usual O’Riley fashion, we stumbled onto the train, bags flying and feet tripping. Caught a taxi from our hostel to the station – just imagine the four of us, two large backpacks, 2 even larger suitcases, a small wheely suitcase and numerous handbags and bags of food all fitting in taxi – with a huge gastank in the boot! Taxi drivers at the station thought our driver was a legend for fitting us all in the car – I wasn’t so happy with a bag of coke wedged under my chin. Train trip was fun – the four of us in our little cabin, venturing out for dinner and lunch. Chuck went through 2 ipods, but the rest of us slept, read and slept for the 50 hours.

Dad shopping in Chengdu

Now we are living the life of luxury – I booked us into a 4 star hotel and man, is it class! Gold fittings and marble everywhere, Chuck and I have the executive room, on the nice nice nice floor, whilst mum and dad are on the ‘ordinary people’ level. Hehe. Now we’re all relaxing after a taxing day of shopping, enjoying the offerings of room service and cable tv – this is the life!

xoxo bobbi

Touring the Highlands with mum

Europe ~ United Kingdom ~ Scotland ~ Edinburgh, Inverness & Loch Ness

Mum arrived safely and soundly, the events in London didn’t significantly alter her travels, although her flight from Germany to London contained a heap of journalists and photographers. Our week has been full of the typical touristy things, it’s been fantastic. Before we were able to do all our sightseeing, however, I had to show mum the hostel we’ve been staying in… Up the 77 steps we climbed, to inspect the bedrooms and hang out rooms. Mum didn’t seem tooooooo upset, it could have been worse! When mum arrived, I commented to her that it was tough luck that she didn’t arrive the week before, so she could see all the protesters and what not. Just after I said this to her, she called me to the window of our hotel room. Right outside, there were alot of people boo-ing, whilst firefighters were getting protesters down off a bridge. They had somehow climbed to the top of the bridge and rolled out a sign. Waiting on the ground, with handcuffs at the ready, were the police…

I took mum to see all my favourite hangouts, including Greyfriars Kirk. Interestingly, after visiting Greyfriars, mum discovered scratches all over her arm – we took a photo. Weird. Also went to Mary Kings Close, very interesting. It is a small street that was closed over and largely forgotten about in the 1700’s, so that the council chambers could be built over the top. The street and some of the buildings have been kept in their original condition. When we entered one of the rooms, our guide told us how, in the 1980’s, a Japanese film crew had come down with a psychic. The psychic felt such strong emotions in this particular room, at first she refused to enter. Eventually she did, and she felt the presence of a small girl, named Anne. She said that the reason the girl was so upset is because her family had left, and she had no-one to play with. The Japanese psychic sent one of her colleagues up to the street to buy a doll for the girl, and ever since then, people have been bringing her toys and money. After a time, the toys and money are donated to a local childrens charity.

Mary Kings Close - notice the prominent orbs

We hired a car for two days, which allowed us to get out of the city for a while and see the countryside. On the first day we went to Rosslyn Chapel, which was amazing. Built in 1446, Rosslyn Chapel is unique in that it conforms to neither architecture of the time, nor to any fashion of the time. Everything within the chapel is heavily carved, full of symbolism. Things like the carvings of maize from the New World that pre-date the discovery of America by Columbus by at least one hundred years. Rosslyn Chapel feautures in the book, ‘The Da Vinci Code’, as the place where the holy grail is supposedly buried. When we went, the chapel was in the middle of being restored, so there was scaffolding everywhere. Dissapointing, as it meant we couldn’t see the outside of the building well, but rewarding in that it meant we could climb up to the top and view the chapel from above.

The Apprentice Pillar, Rosslyn Chapel - Legend has it that the apprentice stonemason is entombed within his own peice of art

On our second day with the car we took a road trip. Leaving extremly early, Tash, Elysha, Mike, mum an I set off for the highlands. Our aim of the day was to visit Loch Ness, on the way there we stopped off at tea rooms, to get scones and tea, yum! Lunch at Inverness, then onto Loch Ness. We went through the ‘Loch Ness Discovery Centre’, which was a bit dissapointing, they spent most of their time convincing us that the Loch Ness Monster didn’t exist. Afterwards we set off to the loch, to find out for ourselves. I don’t believe them, there’s definetly something in the waters there, there has to be. The trip home took us through the highlands and past all the lochs. Really beautiful countryside, lots of sheep, cows and Pavlova’s (read: sheep dogs).

Tash, Mike, Elysha & I

Apart from our car travels, we’ve just spent the week discovering Edinburgh. We found the legendary Tesco’s – woohoo! Spent half a day at the castle, which was fun. Saw the dressing room where Mary, Queen of Scots gave birth to James I. We also saw the Honours of Scotland, the oldest jewels in the U.K. Saw mum off yesterday, shes off to Thailand to meet Charlotte, they should have a blast. Going to be nice and warm over there… Today I went into an interesting store. It’s called ‘Argos’, you walk in and walk up to a set of catalogues. In the catalogue there is everything you could possibly want to buy – towels, iPods, cameras, sofas, board games, books, hair dryers etc etc. Once you find what you want, you punch the number into the little machine sitting in front of you, which tells you if the item is in stock. After deciding what you want, you go to the front of the store, tell the staff and they give you a receipt. They then fill the order and bring it back to you in about 10 minutes. Amazing! A store that has completely taken away the idea of browsing through stock. It seems to work, it was really busy today.

Mike and Shannon browsing through the catalogues at Argos

Anyway, thats enough ramblings about weird shops… love to all, HAPPY BIRTHDAY LEAH!!!

xoxo bobs