Day 21 - Harbin, Shenyang

12.08.09

Today is my second inter city journey in China and I am off to a place called Shenyang. Again I leave plenty of time to get to the bus station and leave feeling fresh and ready for the journey. I walked from the station on the first day and walked back there to get my tickets, so I figure I can do the same again an

d decide to walk to the station.

Taking the same route as I did before I of course get lost, walk around in circles and end up further away from the station then when I started. I end up taking a taxi, arrive at the bus station as my bus is getting ready to leave and throw all my bags in the hold, which leaves me with a six hour journey with nothing to do but twiddle my thumbs and watch the latest Rambo film dubbe

d over in Chinese on the buses TV screens.

Shenyang turns out to be another massive city with some ingenious architecture around the bus station. I walk for about an hour to get to my hostel and check into a single room for £10 a night, my first choice cheap dorm room was unavailable. I decide to nail a few sights in the afternoo

n and hit the Imperial Palace, which is a small scale Forbidden City and is the second best example of it's type in the country.

I also take a walk to the train station to get my onward train tickets to Shanhaiguan.

I manage to pick them up pretty effortlessly and the queues are a lot less than they were in Harbin.

Day 20 - Harbin

11.08.09

My first full day in a major Chinese City and it is a full on Chinese city experience. Harbin has about 5 million people, busy shopping streets, a train station that is the size of an oil tanker and a Wal Mart right in the middle.

On the main shopping street there are the usual sports sh

ops of Nike and Puma, along with the up market designers like Armani, it's all glitz and glamour and come evening everything lights up in a sea of neon and super large LED screens playing advertisements.

It's like a Chinese version of Times Square or Picadilly Circus. However, if you take a walk a 100m or so behind the main main shops you hit another side to the city. Narrow alleyways and small, dark, unglitzy shops. The disparity between the two sides of the Chinese economy coin is amazing, on one side you have high class fashion boutiques,

massive displays of wealth and wide imposing streets; while on the other there are small basic shack shops, people living well below the poverty line, narrow alleyways and battered roads.

Today I also get my bus ticket to take me to Shenyang. I was going to take the train as it would be cheaper, but when I got to the station I couldn't face the queues and mayhem. Imagine a city only slightly smaller than London, but with one train station serving all destinations in the country. It was ridiculous, the station staff on megaphones herding the thousands of people around and shouting at people if they stood still for too long. On a bad note I find out that my room wasn't £20 for two nights, but was actually one night and so they take more money off me.

Apparently the lady who sold it to me got it wrong in communicating it to me, although I think she just got it wrong as they need to take a different deposit and change my receipts to what they should be. I get a discount of £7 for their mistake, but absolutely annihilate the internet connection in my room in retaliation, downloading about 3.5GB worth of audio for my MP3 player.

I feel smug.

Day 19 - Vladivostok, Sufenhie, Harbin

10.08.09

Today is the day of painful ordeals and it's right from the start.

I wake up slightly later than I wanted to as I snooze through some alarms but I still have over two hours to get my bus and it's about 30mins to the bus station. I wait for a bus to take me to the station, and wait, and wait, and wait. An hour and a half later and one turns up and I am bricking it as I might miss my bus. I get off the bus early so I can run the last bit as it will be faster (Vladivostok buses have a habit of just waiting at stops for 2-3 mins for any passengers that might just amble along to catch the bus).

When I get to the station I make it just in the nick of time but my bus isn't there, after several conflicting directions from staff and passers by and running around the stops like a mad man, a woman tells me to flag down a bus that is currently pulling out of the station. I run in it's path and stop it and the d

river looks confused at my tickets smiles and tells me to get on. It turns out the bus I was booked onto didn't even run, so I'm on another one that takes the same route.

After a bus change and border checks at the Russian and Chinese check points, both of which seem to be perplexed at why I am crossing the border when everyone else is a Chinese tourist going back home, we arrive in Sufenhie. The bus pulls into 'I haven't the slightest idea', I have no Chinese currency on me, don't speak enough Chinese to ask anything and thinking I would be at a major bus station, am in a metaphorical, deep pile of brown matter.

I roam around aimlessly for a while and then a woman says something to me in Chinese to which my blank looks get another question in Russian, eventually after communicating in a language that I have the absolute basics of and what isn't even her first language, she gets her friend to drive me to a bank in his car and then

to the bus station. He puts me on the bus to Harbin and I sit there feeling even more alone and stupid for not preparing better.

The bus doesn't leave for another two hours and people are washing the windows as it's still practically in the depot, but after the day so far and shear fear, I don't move a muscle. When it eventually leaves a five hour journey later and we arrive in the northern city of Harbin.

I get off and the bus driver who has looked after me on the journey asks where I am going and I show him on my guide book map, he points to a taxi but I decide to walk it, so I can get my bearings and see some of the city. I'm sure the map scale is wrong as it's about an hours walk and with at least 20kg on my back from various things I've picked up it seems like it's miles away.

When I reach my hotel it turns out to be about 20 pounds for two nights, the rooms have computers so I can get onto the internet for free and they are big and plush. I have a walk around Harbin at night and finally the day gets better and I feel a lot happier.

If there's anything I have learnt today it's that I should probably put a bit more preparation into things when I enter totally new territory. Also, that no matter what you pack and no matter how much you pack, the most invaluable thing is language and being able to communicate.