Nick's Worldwide Wanderings!

The Great Wall
Mao Zedong once said "He who has not climbed the Great Wall is not a man". Not to have my masculinity mocked by the Chairman, I promptly found a travelling companion and headed out for the wall to prove myself. Eron, from Israeli, was sharing a dormitory room with me at the time, and shared my disdain for the cost and hand-holding of the great wall tours, so we decided to head there independently. Keeping true to our adventurous spirit, we choose the Jingshanling-Simatai section, a 10km hike through both restored and unrestored sections, as a nice alternative to the more famous touristy sections at Badaling. Unfortunately, it is also located about 3 hours from Beijing, requiring us to travel into the next province and then walk back other the border on the wall itself. But we can do it!

Everything begins well. We catch a bus for the first 70km for a paltry 15 yuan ($3), but are a little confused about how to make the next step from Miyun to Jingshanling...where will we find taxi drivers in this small town? No worry, the moment we get off the bus we are surrounded by taxi drivers yelling "Great Wall! Great Wall!". Our taxi driver doesn't speak any English, but he seems positively chuffed with the amount we paid to him for the taxi ($70 for both us for 150km, plus 4 hours waiting for us at the other end), and smiles and jokes the whole way. We revel in our freedom, stopping at McDonalds along the way and laughing at all the tour groups eating glad-wrapped sandwiches on their mini-buses.

After an hour or so, we arrive at the foot of the great wall, and leave our smiling taxi driver to begin our hike. At first glimpse, the wall looks like...well, like a big wall on top of a hill really. We walk through the gate, chatting loudly, until we come to a window and step outside to have a peek at the view. We abrubtly fall silent. In front of us is a panorama of bleak hills and barren fields, with the great wall gently snaking away into the distance. The landscape follows us for the rest of the way, with the views growing more and more superlative the longer we go. It is a harsh landscape, a landscape of war, an epic world of bleak mountains, crumbling watchtowers, everywhere characterized by the mesmerizing view of the wall snaking into the infinite distance.

We figured that Jingshanling would be the most peaceful section of the wall, given that it is of very little interest to most Chinese tourists, and is such a strenuous hike that most travellers would be discouraged. But the smell of foreign money proves too great to resist, and a whole host of locals hike alongside foreign tourist groups, selling T-shirts, water, coke, beer, snacks, photos, and just about anything else they can lug up there. Most of them are middle-aged or even elderly women, who completely deflate my new-found sense of masculinity when they tell me they complete the hike every day on their souvenier-selling runs.

Not that the hike is in any way easy, mind you. Soon after we leave Jingshanling the wall decays into its original Ming-Dynasty form, and without modern restorations to smooth out the hard parts, we are left panting for breath. The brickwork is decaying, and the path follows the ridiculous inclines of the mountain ridge, a dragons back of endlessly undulating ups and downs which the old women selling souvenirs seem to manage with ease. At one stage, we are confronted with what appears to be a sheer wall, but turns out to be a staircase - an 85 degree incline, which we are expected to climb to reach the top.

Finally we reach the end, exhausted and content. The gods of irony quickly disperse the clouds as I hop in my taxi home, but I am satisfied. I have what every tourist comes here for, an unmissable event in every trip to China; a photo of me on the Great Wall.

The Forbidden City

The first gate I walk through is Tiananmen, passing beneath Mao's famous portrait as I step through the red stone passageway. I enter a world of hawkers selling T-shirts, guides offering me tours, and photographers cameras with giant lenses as they bustle through the ticket queues. Armed with my entrance ticket, I proceed to the Meridian gate, which in times of old only the emperor himself could walk through, into a whole new world waiting beyond the palace doors...

I have seen temples before, and would consider myself a little bit worn-out on ancient architecture after travelling through Japan and China. But the Forbidden City is not a temple, nor is it an ancient building...it is a true city, sprawling endlessly on a scale that defies the imagination. I am glad I left an entire day to wander around, but realize even this will not be enough to see even half of the treasures on display. I happily bounce off the walls between the Hall of Supreme Harmony, the Palace of Heavenly Purity and other superlatively named buildings, taking photos everywhere I go.

Once again, I am "always alone, never alone", and before walking an hour I am adopted by a group of Chinese students who show me around the complex. In a rare variation, they are not English students this time, but rather students of Czechoslovakian language in the Czech republic. But luckily for me, they speak English as well!
Together we roam the imperial gardens with its amazing collection of strange vegetation, while I take photos of ancient Chinese buildings and they take photos of the foreign tourists. I guess there's something to interest everyone in the Forbidden City!

In the evening, the Forbidden City closes and the guards attempt to herd everyone out of the buildings, not an easy task given the massive size of the complex. At this time the scenery is at its best; the evening light casts warm shades over the stone, and the huge crowds that mar the scenery are completely vanished. It is a completely different world, quiet and majestic, and for a moment I pause to breath it all in before a guard directs me to the exit.

The Temple of Heaven

If the Forbidden City is the place where the emperors basked in their glory, the Temple of Heaven is the place where they came to humble themselves, offering sacrifices to the gods once a year. Here even the emperor cannot walk through the centre gate; this is reserved for the god of heaven himself in case he decides to come strolling in. Though not as grand as the forbidden city, it wins points for the minor details; the points of the two temples line up precisely only when you look at it from the furthest gate, the path is inclined a fraction of a degree upward as you walk toward the temple of heaven, the rainwater is channeled through auspicious stone sculptures on its way through the drainage system, and the walls of the altar of heaven are aligned in such a way that sound travels perfectly along them, allowing one to hear a whisper from the other side of the altar 20m away. Well, at least that's what the pamphlet told me; when I was there the altar was crowded with about 100 people attempting to yell messages out to each other over the tourist din, seemingly with little success.

The Memorial Hall of Mao Zedong

Although long dead, it is indeed still possible to pay a visit to the late Chairman. Following the example of Lenin, Mao's remains were preserved and remain on display in a grand mausoleum in the centre of Tiananmen square, free for entry to all those who wish to pay their respects. Unless you happen to be levied an unofficial charge, that is.

I was just at the point of lining up when a man in a suit stopped me. "Sir! No backpacks inside! Please follow me to the lockers". I find his efficiency somewhat surprising for a Chinese government employee; he blocks traffic on either side as he rushes me across the road, quickly hurrying into the doors of the official checkroom where I hand over my bag. Then he rushes me back over to the line, to lament the fact that "my friends", the two foreigners who happened to be in line next to me, are no longer there. "Don't worry, I can take you back to them!" he says.
"Hey that looks like them!" he exclaims, pointing to two generic foreigners standing halfway through the line.
"Yep, sure does!" I reply, and he lifts up the barrier to let me through, right in front of the security guards.

Then he explains, using gestures, that I should give him 10 yuan. That's when I realize that although he has the identical uniform to the other officials, he has no name badge; he is merely a mercenary, filling the gap in the inefficient government infrastructure. I gladly give him 10 yuan. Later, toward the front, I see the sign that says "no backpacks", and realize that without him, I would have waited in line for an hour only to be turned back at the front door. It seems Chinese Communism is as dead as its great leader lying inside; below the red flags of the people's republic, capitalist innovation continues in ways even the decadent west could never have dreamed up.

Peking Duck

I figure that the best place in the world to eat Peking duck is Peking (aka Beijing). And apparently the best (if priciest) place to eat Peking duck in Beijing is Quanjude, the famous duck restaurant visited by heads of state and government dignitaries from all over the world.

Me and my companion, a Taiwanese art student from California, are drooling with anticipation by the time it comes out. A chef (or at least a guy wearing a chef's hat) brings it out on a trolley, and begins cutting it up before our eyes with a giant cleaver, in a few minutes succesfully turning the duck into two main dishes of duck meat (according to our specifications), a plate of impossibly crispy skin, and a side dish of the meat from the head. The procedure is simple enough; paint some sauce on the pancakes, insert duck meat and scallions, wrap up, chew and feel happy. Despite the menu's protestations that Peking duck is low-fat and high-protein, I am absolutely certain that nothing that tastes this rich can be good for me. My friend describes the taste as "transcendent", and indeed it is difficult to describe. The duck meat is slightly smoky, and the skin ever so deliciously oily and crispy. Combine that with the tangy sauce and scallions, and you have what TV commercials describe as a "flavour sensation".

The Far East Youth Hostel Kitchen

Admittedly not recommended by any guide book, but a great place to wind down after a big day of touring. Drinking a cold 50 cent bottle of Beijing beer and listening to the other backpackers exchange stories of lands far beyond is something I look forward to every night, even if many of the conversations are in Hebrew or Spanish...

This is Beijing?!

Clear blue skies, wide open roads, clean streets and technology that would put Tokyo to shame...where is the backward, polluted industrial city I have heard so much? It strikes me that no tourist literature had ever described Beijing as "beautiful", but that is exactly the word that comes to mind as I wander through it. The paralympics is still ongoing, with western tourists and athletes crowding every corner of the city, and the whole city buzzes with excitement.

The fireworks herald the end of the paralympics, and the last days of the olympic era come to a close. Gradually the tourists become less and less, and as they do, the threads begin to unravel. The roads, once relatively quiet, fill with cars honking cars, making many streets a walkers' dream of gridlock. Construction, put on hold during the olympics, begins once more, from the giant cranes silently sliding around the sky to the ad-hoc welding, sawing and sledgehammering in the streets. And then one morning I wake up and the whole world is grey. Walking around, I find the once beautiful streets are now dank and lifeless, and sitting on top of a hill in the evening I watch the sun becoming dimmer and dimmer, disappearing behind a curtain of haze before it even gets close to the horizon, leaving me cold and depressed in the twilight.

The subway system also goes through a dramatic transformation. When I first arrived during the Paralympics, I was amazed to see state of the art automatic ticket machines, escalators, and conveyor belts, and LCD TV's on every train, far surpassing the technology of even Tokyo's subway systems. Now, the subway begins to show its Chinese colours. The ticket system is completely incomprehensible to the locals, who just last year were using paper tickets, and each ticket gate requires several staff members to help the confused patrons. To make matters worse, every time they make a mistake the machines emit a peircingly loud high-pitched noise, ensuring that every station is a cacaphony of noise. There is one good thing about the transformation; Locals have given up trying to work the ticket machines and buy their tickets from the staff instead, which means I never have to wait in line for the machine.

On the trains themselves I am sometimes entertained by the regular propaganda screenings on the new televisions, with songs about the beautiful harmony of Chinese society, complete with video-clips of Tibetan people cheering and high fiveing Chinese visitors (I noticed that this particular ad campaign was never screened during the olympics), but for most of the time the TV's are simply quietly malfunctioning. To fill the silence, hawkers selling maps yell their way up and down the carriages, ocassionally replaced by duos invariably consisting of a pitiably disabled person singing sad ballads into a karoake microphone, and another running around the carriage asking for money.

And while I reminisce about the pleasant days of the olympics when everything ran oh so smoothly, I am completely oblivious to a much greater chaos about to visit me. For next week is National Day, a week long holiday when ordinary Chinese people get a break from work and a chance to travel around their country. China is a country of 1300 million people, and when the majority of them decide to get up and go for a holiday, chaos inevitably follows shortly. Especially if you happen to be in China's most touristed city...

On national day itself, I think to go to Tiananmen square, to watch the raising of the national flag and hopefully catch a glimpse of the Premier giving his speech. My hotel is only 20 minutes walk from Tiananmen square, its the perfect opportunity, right? Well, my hotel used to be 20 minutes walk from Tiananmen square, it is now more like an hour. The streets are jammed full of people eagerly taking pictures of themselves in front of anything even moderately famous, tour guides waving little flags and wielding megaphones, and the occasional local looking murderously at the tourist invaders.

The subway system becomes a complete nightmare, as any door, staircase or other bottleneck becomes a site of general pushing and shoving, and getting on and off trains falls only slightly short of mob violence on occasions. I resolve to simply sit in my hotel room and wait the week out, and I expect many locals are doing the same. Finally, the Chinese tourists leave as the foreign tourists had done only a few weeks ago, and Beijing is at peace once more. The newspapers triumphantly proclaiming that a new all-time record had been set for tourism during the week; in the period of one week, over 8 million people visited the city, including 2.8 million visitors to the olympic stadiums alone.

No doubt Beijing has enjoyed its time in the spotlight, but most residents seem to be glad to see the tourists go. The locals wander the neighbourhood with no particular purpose, playing chess on the street, and spitting in the gutter. Sure, its nice to be famous. But sometimes, its nice just to be yourself...

Tai Shan, China's most sacred peak, is the mountain everyone has to climb. Confucius climbed it 2500 years ago, and from the top proclaimed "The world is small". Throughout the dynasties, emperors climbed it to offer sacrifices to heaven. Even Chairman Mao climbed it, observing from it's peak "The East is Red". This is the mountain in China, written of in books and scriptures since time immemorial. I just had to climb it...

The first thing I do upon arriving at Tai'an (the town at the foot of Tai Shan) is get in touch with a local. By a strange coincidence, I happened to make friends with a Tai'an Local, Song, on the boat from Japan to China. And by another strange coincidence, a Japanese friend I made on the boat, Chikara, is also in town when I arrive. I am glad for the company. Smaller cities tend to have more of everything that foreigners find difficult to adjust to in China: an untraversable language barrier, crazy traffic, beggars, rampant price inflation for foreigners, warm beer, and accomodation which involves co-habiting with both small and large insects. In places like these, having someone to hold your hand is a great help.

When we met on the boat, both Song and I had been staying in Japan and spoke Japanese as a second language, but the difference in our travels was striking. While I had been traversing the nation with a pocketful of cash, she had been working in a dry cleaners for 15 hours a day, having only enough spare time to cook her meals and sleep (in a dormitory with 10 other girls). After one year of such work she receives only $10,000, which might seem a ridiculously small amount to us, but here in the countryside there are thousands who would gladly take such a job if they had the opportunity.

Song's family live in a traditional style home in a village on the outskirts of the city, which we soon travel out to see. Her whole family greet us like old friends, immediately plying us with presents and food as they show us around. Their home has no running water, just a single tap in the centre of the courtyard where all water is filled from. The toilet is a trough which is flushed by filling a bucket of water from the tap and washing the trough with it, which transfers the contents of the toilet into a garden behind the building. The neighbourhood is the perfect romantic image that every traveller in China attempts to hunt out, with dusty roads, faded and cracked concrete, and the occasionally farm animal lazily making its way through the streets.

One night Song invites me and Chikara to dinner with her byofriend's family, who will become her family in a few months when her and Li get married. Me and Chikara assume it is going to be an average dinner meal, and so are completely unprepared for what comes next.

The dishes make their appearance slowly at first. The table is enormous, and the 5 or 6 dishes placed on it look rather lonely. Then some more join them. Then some more. Soon, the entire table is covered in two layers of dishes, and the waiters are endlessly re-appearing with yet more food. This is the banquet, the ancient art of the impossible-to-eat meal.

The meal begins with a toast of Baijiu, a Chinese spirit which is like a spicier, drier and stronger version of vodka usually containing about 45% alcohol. In banquets one does not toast only once; the night is an endless procession of toasts, and the perfect filler for a pause in the conversation is to hold up your glass and shout out "Ganbei!". Luckily the Baijiu is soon replaced with good old-fashioned beer, making the endless toasts far more manageable. Again, the alcohol is provided in such amounts that even if the entire table were rampant alcoholics we could not possibly drink it all.

They endlessly entreat us to eat and drink more, and I am only too happy to oblige. The food is delicious, the beer is cold and crisp, and Li's family are the warmest company I could possibly imagine. At the end of the night, filled to the brim with delicious food, I leave completely baffled by their hospitality. What have I done to deserve such kindness? Could it be that the Chinese people, the most populous people in the world, are the nicest and most generous as well?

We sleep in the next day. For a long time. Eventually, we drag ourselves out of bed, and decide to put all that sustenance to good use - today, we will climb Tai Shan!

...It begins pleasantly...walking along a meandering path under the shade of the cypresses, taking in the scenery around us. The path is dotted with iconic stone bridges, calligraphy tablets and shrines and temples, not to mention a few jagged peaks towering over us here and there.

Chikara is endlessly amused by my popularity in China. Being Japanese, he is not instantly recognizable as a foreigner, so he can blend into the crowds when travelling. I however, look about as subtle as a polar bear in a jungle, and immediately attract attention everywhere I go. Before we have walked our first kilometre, I make friends with two university students, and we decide to walk to the top together. Companions! Yay!

Soon, the meandering path stops meandering, and I am glad for our companions. The staircases are steep and narrow, leading endlessly and relentlessly upward. Conversation is a pleasant distraction from the trials of the climb, as is China's national hobby, chewing sunflower seeds, which the girls thoughtfully brought with them. As the sun begins setting in the sky, we encounter the final challenge: no less than a true stairway to heaven, an impossibly long, impossibly steep flight of stairs traversing the last section of the path to the top. How in god's name did Confucious climb this one?!

At last we are at the top, in time to catch the last glow of dusk on the scenery below. We had planned to walk back down during the night, aided by torches, but the idea of traversing the dangerously steep staircases at night was no longer so appealing, and the girls succesfully managed to convince us to stay the night on the peak and watch the sunrise in the morning. The peak was freezing, but the ever-perceptive Chinese businessmen had noticed this and created an excellent solution; for less than a dollar, you could borrow a Mao-era Chinese Army winter jackets for the night, which were not only incredibly warm but rather fashionable too. With Lin-Lins hat, which I ended up wearing at some point during the climb, I was a dead-ringer for an American cowboy, which ensured I attracted even more attention than before.

Rebelling against the high prices of the hotels on the mountain, we do what the masses do and simply sit outside chatting and singing the night away. The full moon passes gradually overhead, casting a ghostly light over the scene of hundreds of Chinese all waiting for the new day, the better prepared ones sleeping in tents, the less prepared simply huddling together and snoozing on the stone steps as we were. By 3am the rush to grab a spot for sunrise has begun, and we abandon our sheltered steps to perch ourselves on the rocky peak. It is windy, it is cold, but at least the atmosphere around me is warm; English majors somehow gravitate toward me until I am surrounded by them, leaving poor Chikara very much lost amidst a sea of English conversation.

The mountain is packed with people shivering in the pre-dawn air, occupying ever tiny little piece of space on the sacred peak like the proverbial Chinese "Ren Shan Ren Hai" (People Mountain, People Sea). Gradually the stars in the night sky begin to disappear one by one, and slightly, ever so slightly, the sky begins to lighten. The day is about to begin.

At first, it is just a rather dull gray, gradually getting brighter and brighter. Then the colours of daybreak begin, with vivid pink splashed across the horizon. They flow across the sky, morphing in slow motion as we watch, awe-struck. I realize that the "stairway to heaven" was an excellent name for the stairs we climbed...surrounded by surreal beauty on the jagged mountain peak, it truly feels like we are in heaven now.

Suddenly, a cheer rings out across the mountain, and we look to see the first feeble rays of sun peeking through the clouds. Gradually, it rises in the sky, a flaming red ball of light in the morning sky.

By the rays of the morning sun, I see the scene laid out before me. Having reached the top at night, I never actually saw the view from the top until now. The mountain is a lot higher than I imagined; from my spot on the rocky peak, I can see what seems like all of China laid out at my feet, a maze of rivers, mountains and fields. Good morning China!

When I am done admiring the view, I notice the town of Tai'an below me, and realize; I have to walk all the way down there now!

The walk down is as painful as the walk up. The narrow, steep staircases are the death of my knees, and by the time I get down I am a complete cripple. Upon arriving in the town, Chikara and I book ourselves in for a Chinese traditional massage, with the image of a lovely relaxing experience with scented candles and soft hands skilfully taking away our aches and pains. Naturally, we could not have been more wrong.

Everything is going well when the girls walk in, petite and giggly. Then they start the massage...by hitting us on the head. Huh? Why are they hitting me? They continue in this fashion, pummelling, pounding and general pulverizing us for half an hour or so, and I realize that this is not the type of massage I had envisioned. It is kind of like getting a massage from a girlfriend you have just broken up with. They show no mercy, massaging our tender legs with brutal force, with a look in their eyes that says "You'll thank me for it later", then proceeding to stand up and walk over our backs. I cannot help but be impressed by their skill though, not to mention their physical strength as they beat us up in a very precise way according to the principles of ancient Chinese medicine.

So, I go to sleep at the bottom of Tai Shan, battered and bruised by the days experiences. But though my body may be sore, my heart is elated with the experiences of the days past. I have walked the streets of a village, drank toasts with shirtless Chinese men, heard the story of the dry-cleaning ladies of the world, and watched the wanderings of the full moon. I have climbed staircases, made friends, been beaten up by a giggly Chinese girl, and cheered the coming of day from the peak of a mountain. The aches and bruises only last so long; the memories, I am sure, will last a lifetime.

On my first day in Shanghai, I leave my hotel room with the intention of going for a stroll around the neighbourhood.

This fantasy evaporates the moment I head out the door and attempt to cross the street. In China, traffic rules seem to be more like traffic recommendations, and honking the horn seems to be the national hobby. Some drivers honk out tunes on their horns, and I swear I have seen cars honking on completely empty roads when there is not another car in sight. The taxi drivers are always in a hurry, and most seem to be under the impression that they are driving ambulances, stopping at nothing in order to get to the destination as quickly as possible. So do the bus drivers, weaving their 20 tonne vehicles in and out of the incoming traffic lane with reckless abandon. Throw in a few motorbikes and a couple of hundred push-bikes, and you have a sure recipe for chaos.

I manage to cross the street by hiding amongst a group of Chinese people and praying a lot, and after much difficulty end up on the Bund, ostensibly Shanghai's most picturesque mile. You would think that a lovely riverside boulevard would be the perfect place for strolling, but appearances can be deceiving. Knowing that anyone who has time to stroll has plenty of money too, a sizeable population of beggars and hawkers wait for me to arrive. The beggars are suitably heart-wrenching; the old-women clutch at your sleeve, faces covered with dirt and clothed in rags, whilst the children just sit on their cardboard boxes with glazed-over eyes. Then there are the hawkers, ever entreating you to buy their wares. However, I cannot for the life of me understand why they think I would want the things they are sellingwhich are without a doubt some of the most useless products I have ever seen. Like glow-in-the-dark horns. Or Army Men which stick to the walls. Or ridiculously long chains of kites. Or blobs of putty which can be thrown repeatedly at the ground. Or flashing, noisy electronic gizmoes which seem to have no other purpose but to flash and make noise. The most handy saying so far in China is "Bu Yao", which means "I dont want it".

Finished with the Bund, I head to East Nanjing road to spend a little bit of money. Or a lot of money. Not only am I the most foreign-looking foreigner in this whole country, but I have absolutely no bargaining skills whatsoever, and every shopkeeper I come in contact with seems to know this. I try out the experience of following one of the dodgy street salesmen into a very dodgy looking shop in the back alleys to buy a fake Rolex. The back alleys scenery is marvellous, with groups of men sitting around smoking and playing cards underneath improvised clothes lines hanging over the narrow street, whilst motorbikes weave their way around them happily honking away. My bargaining is less marvellous, and I end up paying 120 yuan ($20) for my shiny new watch. When the purchase is completed, the sellers are beaming from ear to ear, and I am absolutely certain I have paid 3-4 times the going rate. Oh well...

I have no luck whatsoever at picking out food either. I can't seem to find a single place to eat on the road, and inevitably end up at some fancy restaurant, being served by people in suits and looking out over the skyscrapers of the river from the wall-to-wall windows. Most menus do not have pictures, and all though I know a few of the characters (I especially made sure to learn the one for 'dog'), I still cannot for the life of me figure out what any of the dishes are. What is "Three Fresh Spice Happy"? What is "Golden Dragon Pancakes"? Obviously eating here will require a sense of adventure, and a multi-talented digestive system. Luckily the price of the food will never be a problem - even a meal at this posh restaurant, with a gigantic cold beer, costs a total of 40 yuan ($7).

Most things are cheap in China, even in relatively expensive Shanghai. Some things however, are definitely not. Being scammed is one of those things. Only after a few days in Shanghai did I succesfully identify the "two girls" combination as trouble. It's always two girls, and they always speak English, and you should always run in the other direction upon meeting such a combination. But the first time I ran into two girls who spoke English on East Nanjing Road, I had no idea of this. Ok, I had heard many tales of scamsters, but they always described "Attractive Girls", and these two were simply not that attractive. Given that many people were randomly stopping in the street to pose for photos with me, two "English Students" wanting to chat with me as I strolled along the road didn't seem at all out of place. We talked for about 20 minutes about all manner of things, before they finally got down to business in the most innocent way possible - "Hey, do you feel like a coffee?". Sure! Why not?

We drink coffee, and they start ordering other random little tidbits, and alarms begin quietly sounding in my head. Something isn't right here. Then they start calling me handsome. Something is definitely not right here. Then another patron walks in, a single foreign man with two Chinese girls. The penny drops. This is a fake coffee shop. The girls are professional scamsters. Run Nick run!

But its too late, and from the smiles on their innocent faces I can see that they have already won. As I try to leave, the bill arrives for1800 yuan ($300). Hmm....what to do now? Well, how about we start by finding a way out of this shop? Putting on my sweetest innocent 18-year-old-who-thinks-that-$300-is-a-perfectly-reasonable-price-for-coffee face, I show them my nearly empty wallet (I hide all my money in my pockets for situations just like these) and ask if I could go to and ATM and come back. They let me go, but only if Mr.Scary-Looking-Man comes with me. Damn, there goes my plan of running like the wind the moment I get out of the door. I guess I'll have to come up with a new plan...

I keep up my innocent guise until the last possible moment, and the scamsters fall for it as easily as I fell for theirs. They allow me to wander this way and that in the streets until I spy an English-speaking desk in a bank, at which point I drop the guise of looking for an ATM and hurry towards him. "Hey, how's it going? Look, um, these people are scammsters trying to rob me..." My scamsters protest loudly in Chinese, but I manage to hold his attention and continue calmly explaining my situation, until finally I play my last card: "Call the Police". The scamsters faces are aghast, and they begin to plead with me, trying everything (including mentioning once again how handsome I am)until at last they mumble excuses and vanish into the streets. I can't believe it...I won!

I sling my backpacker over my shoulder and stumble back to my hotel room in a state of mild shock, resolving to spend the next several months safely inside these four walls. My resolve doesn't last long though, and that very evening I find myself back out on the streets. Not strolling this time, I walk with my eyes on the road in front, dodging the offers of coffee and tea ceremonies, skipping over the rubbish heaps, and weaving my way in and out of the flashy-noise-making-gizmoes, and happily take in the nightscape surrounding me. I realize that Shanghai is not neccesarily a bad place; you just need to know the right way to walk.

Osaka: 100% Japan

To celebrate my last night in Japan, I go to Osaka and catch up with Evan, an Australian guy living in Japan who I bonded with during our wild climb up Mt.Fuji together. It is the perfect finish to my stay; A delicious sushi meal, lots of lovely Japanese friends of his, and plenty of happy conversation. I even managed to find what I consider to be the perfect symbol of Japan - at the sushi restaurant, the waitress came out in a beautiful kimono, complete with traditional-era footwear, and then whipped out an ultra-modern touch-screen gizmo to take our orders. Ah Japan, I shall miss you...

The ferry: 50% Japan, 50% China

I decided to travel to China by boat rather than plane. That's right, a boat, like you see in the movies. Maybe it was the romance of the whole thing...maybe it was the purism of travelling overseas by literally traveling over a sea...or maybe it was the fact that it was far cheaper than any other possible mode of transport, and that I am trying to save every last yen in getting out of the country.

Half the passengers were Japanese going to China, the other half Chinese going back home. Almost everyone spoke Japanese, but almost everyone spoke Chinese too. The food is half Japanese, half Chinese. We sail through the islands of Japan, and soon we are on the high seas.

The boat ride was so much fun I would have happily paid to go in a full circle. Watching sunsets looking out over the high seas, a beautiful deep blue, falling asleep in a room full of 40 people to the gentle sway of the boat, and exploring the millions of secret rooms (including a fully decked-out Japanese onsen!) made the journey just as exciting as the destination. Like the Titanic, except without the crashing and sinking, and Leonardo Di Caprio.

Shanghai: 100% China

When I wake up on the second morning, and I notice the sea has turned brown. We must be getting near...

Eventually I catch the sight of land, my first ever sight of China. It is rather boring, like every first sighting of a country, just flat plains and dull buildings. But eventually the skyline builds, as does the ocean-going traffic. Soon we are surrounded by hundreds of other ships of all kinds, drifting through a river with giant buildings (most under construction) on all sides. I see the perfect photo opportunity; a rusty little boat carrying a boatload of coal, slowly chugging its way down the river, with a Chinese flag waving enthusiastically behind. I try and get my camera working in time, but it is too late, the boat has already passed by. Just as I am lamenting my misfortune, another boat comes into view, with exactly the same Chinese flag and exactly the same pile of coal. I lean over the deck and look into the distance...there is another, and another, and another, stretching in a line as far as the eye can see. We are now in 100% China.

...Then the boat pulls into the dock...

Suddenly I am on the ground, in a state of mild shock. Goodbye Japanese friends. Check into my hotel room. Wander the Bund beside the river, looking out over the skyscrapers of Pudong. Avoid the beggars, see the children lying on the street. Run across the road, trying to avoid all the cars and bikes intent on running a red light. Decline the offer of a motorbike ride, and take a $2 taxi instead. Eat 40 cent dumplings from the food carts. "Sir, DVD, Watches, Shirts, you want!" "No Thankyou". "Hey handsome man, massage for you!" "No Thankyou". Men play cards in the back alley, smoking and spitting. Children play in the street, laughing and yelling. 100% China.