Cuandixia

With our last opportunity to travel, we joined up with Aussie friend Bernadette, and spent the long weekend in Cuandixia, a few hours west of Beijing. Cuandixia is a charming 500 year old Ming stone village, surrounded by mountains, terraced orchards and fields. It consists of ancient houses and alleyways rising up the hillside, and also has some preserved Maoist graffiti and slogans.

Of course getting there was half the adventure. We began by getting the subway for about one and a half hours to the westernmost station. From there we needed to take bus 892 for approximately 2 hours to Zhaitang station, where we would be met by our guest house and driven the remainder of the way to the village. Sounds straightforward, and would be if we spoke Chinese, but unfortunately my lessons stopped several months ago!
After getting of at the subway station, it took us about half an hour to find the bus station. Each time we tried to ask somebody (in limited Chinese), we'd either be waved away or told how infrequent, long and uncomfortable the buses were, in order for us to take their taxi (at 20 times the price!). The bus trip itself was fine but took over 3 hours due to the heavy city traffic. I studied each bus station we stopped at, trying to find the name of it, but that was hopeless because there was no English or Pinyin writing, only characters. Thyson finally asked some girls sitting opposite us. They kept saying no, no, until finally they said yes, this one! So we jumped off the bus thinking the rest would be easy, but no, there was no one from the guest house to meet us (and it was raining!). We waited about 15 minutes, then rang the guest house. There was a man standing next to us who was trying to get us to take his car but we kept telling him we had already made arrangements. Without understanding what the guest house was trying to tell us over the phone, the man listened, then tried to tell us - still in Chinese! There was no understanding between us whatsoever! Finally, I called a Chinese colleague from school and asked her to talk to this man and then translate for us. In the end we worked out that the guest house was not coming to get us (traffic?) so we went with the man who claimed the guest house owner was his boss. Funny how he had trouble finding the actual guest house!

As it was a long weekend, and a very popular destination from Beijing (and because we're foreigners) we paid the equivalent of about $80 a night to stay at the guest house. The room consisted of two of the hardest beds I have ever slept on (may as well have been sleeping on wood) and they yuckiest pillows on Earth! The water got turned off periodically throughout the day with no indication of when it would come back on, we had to manually turn on a tap to fill the cistern to flush the toilet (when there was water!). After we took a shower, the bathroom floor filled with a large puddle of water so we had to wade through the bathroom after that. And the pipes stunk the whole room out! Oh, and there was very little bedding supplied (we were told we didn't need to bring any) and no heating so we slept in all our layers of clothes to keep warm enough!

But all that aside, we had a great weekend with beautiful scenery and great company!

Is Bali really paradise?

Check out our photos and decide for yourself!

The view from our balcony in Ubud

The view from the swimming pool

Delicious Indonesian food served in an open-air restaurant

Gorgeous old stone statues in Ubud Monkey Forest

Ubud Monkey Forest

Oh, this is the life for a monkey!

Look out, Thy!

Lake Batur - volcano crater

Drinking luwat coffee. What's it made from? You ask...

Yes, it's made from luwat poo!

Rice terraces

Aren't they spectacular!

Just a pretty flower!

It's not paradise for everyone - some people have to work!

Sanur Beach

Traditional Balinese boats

Up first go!

So what do you think? Paradise? We thought so...

Chinese New Year in Singapore

We spent one week in Singapore for the Chinese New Year break, enjoying the tropical warmth of the city; a short reprieve from Beijing's winter!

We stayed at the Park Royal on Kitchener Road, right in the heart of Little India. Arriving on the Sunday, we experienced the crowded streets; single Indian men enjoying their one day off a week! During the week it was much quieter, but still a very active area, full of cheap restaurants with authentic Indian food that Thyson just loved, but I got a little tired of after a few days!
We spent our first day around the Marina Bay area; I've always wanted to visit Gardens by the Bay. To get there, we walked through the very impressive Marina Sands Hotel with it's ship-like structure on its top. I know there is an amazing infinity pool on top, but unfortunately it was for guests only! We strolled around the Gardens by the Bay and enjoyed the views from the Board Walk. Afterwards, we crossed over a bridge into the Colonial Precinct, enjoying the gorgeous architecture, including that of the iconic Raffles Hotel.

The following day, Thyson went to meet a friend to do a spot of fishing (we can't go anywhere without his trusty fishing rod!) while I explored the Chinese Precinct and then the Arab Quarter. The Chinese area was full of stalls selling all things associated with Chinese New Year (all very red!) and extremely crowded, so I didn't hang around there too long. The streets of the Arab Quarter were charming, full of fabric shops and shops selling exquisite Turkish rugs and glass lanterns. I stoped in at a Turkish restaurant and had a delicious eggplant dip with some fresh Turkish bread. Yum!

We spent the next day out at the Singapore Zoo with its reputation as being one of the best zoos in the world. It was really nicely set up with most enclosures providing pleasant conditions for the animals, but I think the zoos in Australia equal, if not exceed the quality of this zoo.

What we did find an amazing experience was the Night Safari which is another zoo next to the Singapore Zoo that opens at 7pm and has a range of nocturnal animals on show. The crowds were unbelievable and by the time we got through the gates there was a 40 minute wait for the jeep ride around the park, so started off wandering along the walking paths. They were lit up but you still felt like you were walking through the jungle along tracks, seeing beautiful creatures from many places around the world. At around 10pm when we had finished the walking trails and the queue for the jeeps was only about 15 minutes, we drove around the park listening to the commentary. At some parts there were no fences and some of the animals were grazing so close to us. Other enclosures only had a ditch around them instead of fences and it felt like there was little between you and the animals. We loved it!

The Singapore Botanical Gardens was beautiful, and we spent a few hours walking along the paths, stopping off to feed the turtles and arriving at the Orchid Garden which had the most beautiful display of all types of gorgeous flowers. This was probably my favourite place in all of Singapore!

After another day of Thyson fishing and myself sitting by the hotel pool enjoying a great book, we spent our last day visiting the Changi WW2 Museum which was full of many interesting exhibits showing what life was like not only for the POWs but also for the locals during the Japanese Occupation. It was a very moving place. We then walked along the Quays soaking up the atmosphere and cool breezes of this beautiful city.