Wednesday, July 26, 2017

"Mainland Chinese Citizens"

July 26, 2017

It's almost 12 pm when we arrived at Nanjing. As we exit from subway station, there are two friends of Ci Se had already been waiting us to meet. It felt so pleasing to meet other Indonesian friends – who have lived in China for years. It was rainy in Nanjing that day, we walked almost 1 km to our booked hotel. Then as usual, we did the check in thing. The receptionist of the hotel said she didn’t find our name in the booking list. We showed our passports and spelled our name in alphabetical way (most chinese are hard to read names in alphabet). After re-checking and adjusting our name with booking list on the computer, the receptionist just figured out that we are foreign tourists and told us that the hotel is only for mainland Chinese citizen guests. BOOM!

We looked back at our booking receipt. The receipt obviously showed the “Mainland Chinese Citizens” sentence that we had never realized all this time. Pitying ourselves only for a few seconds, Ci Se assisted by her two pro Chinese friends immediately started searching another hotel in Nanjing through internet. After an hour of searching, Ci Se got the proper apartment for two nights with an affordable price. Still in the rain,  we took our luggages walked out from that “Mainland Chinese Citizens” hotel at the same time one of Ci Se’s friend helped us to book a taxi.

We had to add some yuan for the apartment, but this one was bigger and seemed more comfortable than our previous booked hotel. Burying our mistake not paying attention to that “mainland chinese citizens” information and having to pay some additional yuan, I called this as a blessing in disguise.

It’s 4 pm already, the four of us had been starving to death. Making lunch and dinner as one, we satisfied our hunger in a fine Korean restaurant. That was the best Korean restaurant ever i thought LOL

The night came.. We ended the first day in Nanjing by strolling along the pedestrian mall area.


What a day.
By at July 26, 2017 No comments:
Labels: , ,

Another Shocking Thing

July 26, 2017

Early in the morning on 28th June, we set off to railway station again for heading to Hangzhou – the city I had been wondering about all this time. Many people said Hangzhou is a beautiful city. Since my trip to Hangzhou this time was only a one day round-trip, I have not really enjoyed the beauty of Hangzhou.

From Shanghai to Hangzhou took only 1 hours using gaotie. Due to the limited time, we only visited The Famous West Lake and Zhejiang University of Science and Technology, then went back home – to Shanghai at dusk.

Back in Shanghai.. 

The following day after Hangzhou trip, we went to Shanghai Disneyland
We arrived at Disneyland at mid day and surprisingly knew that the entrance ticket for that day had already SOLD OUT. It surprised me. A lot...

But, well.. that was China. It was holiday season. Shanghai Disneyland had just opened a year ago. It is the first disneyland in mainland China. So, it’s understandable that most China local tourists (and some foreigner tourists) went there – maybe for their first time to see what Shanghai Disneyland. Looks like.

#traveltips
*) If you plan to go vacation to China in holiday season, will travel by yourself, and Shanghai Disneyland is one of your must-visit-attractions. You’d better buy the theme park ticket in advance (you can buy it via Qunar app or ask your travel agent).

#travelinfo
*) there is a popular restaurant in China called Grandma’s House (known as Wai Po Jia in Mandarin). It has 40+ outlets in Hangzhou, Beijing,Shanghai and more. The food is generally quite delicious and the price is very affordable. Should try once!
By at July 26, 2017 No comments:
Labels: , , ,

Train's Lyfe

July 26, 2017

09.00 // after packing all of our stuffs, we went out to have some breakfast before off to the railway station. We took our lugagges along the street, sometimes had to pick it up to go upstairs and then put it down again, until we reached the nearby subway station and then the railway station. It’s my first time traveling in China with Gaotie. The Guangzhou’s railway station was so big (i think bigger than airports in Indonesia). It had a lots of gates of ticket check points that got me confused from which one i had to enter. Walking inside the station, Q-ing for inspection and checking-in the ticket took about 20-25 minutes. Realizing that we were almost running out of time, i ran my feet off (with two lugagges) to get on board. Thankfully, we had arrived two minutes earlier before the train left.
Train Ticket to Shanghai
21.00 // we arrived at our booked hotel at Shanghai

From the almost-running-out-of-time experience that day, I promised to myself to depart earlier to the station. Not only to the station, but also to the airport and to everywhere during the trip. June-August is the holiday season in China. There are so many local tourists in every public places. Queuing is inevitable. And train, always departs on schedule.  So I have to set off earlier to anticipate. Don’t want to be in rush anymore *fiuh*.

The second day in Shanghai we went to The Bund – that famous place in Shanghai with its pearl tower, and also went to Shanghai Film Park to look around China ancient buildings locals usually use as the shooting film location. At one of local restaurants around the park, I tasted the original huiguorou.
Huiguorou (回锅肉)
is usually called Twice cooked pork or Double cooked pork belly. It is a Sichuan-style Chinese dish

#travelinfo
*) Before train checking-in, passengers should know exactly which check point they should go to have their tickets checked. The number of check point can be seen at the top right of the ticket. Afterwards, we should go to the platforms to get onboard.
*) Most local restaurants in China provide food menu which all written in Han Zi (Chinese Character) without the pictures of the food. You can recognize some key words like 肉 ”rou” which means “meat” in common, 鸡 “ji” (Chicken), 鱼 “yu” (fish), 牛 “niu” (beef), 猪 “zhu” (pork), and 鸭 “ya” (duck).
By at July 26, 2017 No comments:
Labels: , , ,

A Rush Afternoon in Guangzhou

July 26, 2017
We enjoyed well in here. We spent our first (Saturday) night in Zhujiang New Town, seeing canton tower at night, taking some photographs like a pro, and stroIling around the square. The second day in GZ I arranged to met up with one of my church friends who was currently studying in Guangzhou, and Ci Se met up with her Guangzhou friend as well. The four of us spent a half day together; going to the park, and having a good lunch. At afternoon, Ci Se and I and also my friend continued to look around my friend’s campus at SCNU. As her recommendation, we tried jianbing near the campus. 
Jianbing (煎饼) is a thin pancake made of millet flour; one of local snacks in China 

After strolling for about an hour, we took sit for a while and suddenly the bad news came over us. Ci Se told me that our flight to Shanghai tomorrow morning would have been canceled due to the bad weather, as she was informed from the airlines.

It was less than 24 hours...

We tried to not looked panic. What we could do that time was only searching another tickets through Qunar app*, to make it able we still could be in Shanghai tomorrow, no matter how. In Qunar, we found some affordable train tickets for tomorrow that we could possibly buy today. To make sure the tickets were still available, we shortly went to the railway station. Our plan to watch circus show in Chimelong at night unfortunately had to be cancelled. We arrived at the railway station and saw that the q was sooo long that we couldn’t handle it. After gathered some informations from local friend, Ci Se decided we must go to another railway station to get the Gaotie tickets without having a very long queue. After 30 minutes on the way from East railway station to South railway station, we reached the gaotie ticket counter and gratefully we managed to buy the gaotie tickets to Shanghai for tomorrow.

We made every effort to arrive at Shanghai on the third day - based on our schedule because 1) we already booked a hotel at Shanghai from 26 June to 30 June. If we had not come to the hotel on the booked date, we had to pay the cancellation fee. 2) If we would have extended our stay in Guangzhou, we surely had to pay very high hostel rate only for one night. The train ticket price we purchased was as high as our flight ticket price, and the train from Guangzhou to Shanghai takes 8 hours (longer than flight hours which is only 2 hours), but it’s still okay anyway. We missed one day in Shanghai but could keep the other things still on the track. After all, we saved 380 RMB for not watching show at Chimelong hehehe.

#travelinfo
*) Qunar(去哪儿) is Chinese leading platform/mobile application of flight searching and ticket booking
*) Guangzhou has four railway stations, they’re Guangzhou railway station (广州火车站),  Guangzhou North Railway Station (广州北站), Guangzhou South Railway Station (广州南站), and Guangzhou East Railway Station (广州东站)
*) Gaotie (高铁) is bullet/high speed trains. For more informations about the type of China’s trains go check it on https://www.travelchinaguide.com/china-trains/types.htm
By at July 26, 2017 No comments:
Labels: , ,

The Wanderers

July 26, 2017

Nine months ago, my cousin - I call her “Ci Sese” asked me if I had wanted to travel to China with her on 2017 Summer holiday. Just two of us. After considering for about a week, I nod to her. Then we started to search some flight tickets, and made the itinerary. I did some searchings about tourist attractions in China through internet, made some considerations and selections adjusting to our tight budget and time. We prepared our travel plans for couple of months. It would be a long trip so that we had had to make sure everything was well prepared right before we go.

I started to made saving for this trip few months before. We bought international flight tickets in advance, and then some domestic flight tickets months later. We purchased the tickets gradually so we didn’t have to spend big amount of money in the same time. We made budget for flight and train tickets, accomodations, attractions, foods, local transportations, and shopping; and find ways to make it as frugal as possible.

We had decided to go to 6 cities all in different provinces. Starting from south China to east then to the west of China. They're Guangzhou, Shanghai, Hangzhou (1 day trip), Nanjing, Chengdu, and Kunming.

This was the 3rd time i set my foot in China. The first time was in 2012 with my family, the second time was in 2015 when i joined summer camp in Beijing, and 2 years later I finally came back to this country. Then I wondered, why China? Why I always found myself back to this place. To be honest, I had no special interest with places in China, moreover I didn’t really like the crowded (as China is a sea of people). However, I had been always curious about China, about its civilization, its technology advance (especially after recognizing that famous company Alibaba), and even more about the development of this big country.

I hoped to find some new cool things there during the trip. Yea...
By at July 26, 2017 No comments:
Labels:

My Feed on Instagram @valensiaw