Okay ladies and assholes, here we go again. I’m sorry for the fucking wait but I
was outside of the town for couple of days as my dad came to visit and we did
some traveling around this magnificent country. Since I managed to deal with my
dissertation proposal prior to his arrival, I decided to travel without my
laptop, and no laptop means no blog. So you’ve had
to wait a bit more than usual. Yeah, you, you and you... All tree of y’all. You silly little followers, come
here you...
So the week before my dad arrived... What the hell
happened.... I was outside quite a lot... Grabbed some burgers with one of my
friends on Monday, followed by a beer or two... On Tuesday, I went to this new
vegan place called Graze I noticed on Happy Cow. Since I have this amazing
thing of being everywhere on time and thus always waiting for everybody else, I
managed to talk to the owner/manager/main baker/cook for a bit, who also happens to make some
mean vegan cakes and waffles. We got our bellies full and after
that, me and my biking friend went for a long ride to Tonghi University cause
sakuras are blooming like a motherfucker these days, and that campus has plenty
of them. Really chilled afternoon followed by a dinner at that peanut sauce noodle
place. Plus the whole summer vibe – couldn’t be better. The day after I met with
another friend to try out vegan pizzas at Happy Buddha. They are quite
expensive (over 70 RMB each) but super delicious, covered with vegan cheese and
all. Pretty cool we have those in town now.
I would like to point out that all of those days, I really
spent a lotta time finalizing my proposal. So it was some fun and games, but it
was also some dead ass responsible shit. Just so you know...
I took a rest from socializing on Thursday, and Friday morning,
I greeted my dad by my compound. It’s
always good to see a family member in person. Especially when your family is
literally 3 people including you, and you don’t
really hate each other. Pops dropped his stuff by my place and then we went for
a walk around the town. The weather was still super nice so we grabbed a coffee
at the Jingan Sculpture Park surrounded by tulips and all the colorful flora
that’s just everywhere, continued
to the peanut butter noodle joint and then all the way down south to the Expo
Museum. Now, my dad is a real beer guy so I came up with this idea of taking
him to the only Czech restaurant in town for a beer... There is a Czech
community in Shanghai and there is a Czech restaurant too, however, I had’t been affiliated with neither of
those. I don’t really miss Czech mentality
(or whatever I believe it means) and to a vegan, Czech cuisine has very little
to offer anyway. Up to that point, I had not been in touch with any Czechs in
town. It’s kinda fucked up, cause I’ve been to the building with the
Czech restaurant (called Krajanek) like million times before as one of my
favorite galleries (Madein) is located in the very same building. I just
deliberately chose not to go 2 stories up to even check that shit out. Plus I’ve read their target group is not
really students or people who just wanna hang out for a reasonable price.
However, they brew they own beer, and if there’s one
thing Czechs can do (apart from being homophobic misogynist racist idiots for
literally no reason), it’s
brewing beer... So there we were... Drinking pretty good small beer for 40 RMB,
not really thinking about a follow up visit. Upon payment, we met the guy who
is in charge of the place (apparently both kitchen and brewing), who was super
friendly, gave us shitload of free beer vouchers and invited us for the Easter
party the next day... Shit happens all the time...
The next day, we went to Century park for a walk and to the
Shanghai Science and Technology Museum fake market to get some shit my dad
wanted, as he believes I’m a
real badass when it comes to bargaining. If it wasn’t for that, I would go there only when my fake Chucks go
to shit. Oh well... After that, I took him to the restaurant I discovered last
year thanks to my journalist friend, who just recently moved to Hong Kong, we
went ape shit with their amazing food, and then moved our stuffed asses to
Krajanek one more time. Initially, we really planned doing like a beer or two
and head back but bro... We ended up doing some heavy Czech style beer shit,
meeting bunch of other fellow Czechs (some of them were cool, some of them gave
me allergic reaction), smoked some, and generally got shitfaced. I’m not sure if I’m gonna be a regular at the place but
there’s a chance I might drop by
once in a while. I’m in their Wechat group now
and all... Who knows.
We took a Didi back home but our driver got some sort of
brain freeze, started talking some jibberish, stopped his car in a middle of
nowhere, gave me like half of my money back and left us there. So we came home
by regular cab. Now, I’m not
the kind of person who enjoys rating system with anything but that asshole was
an easy 1 star. See you never, idiot!
On Sunday afternoon, we hopped on a subway and went to
Pudong to catch a flight to Zhangjiajie. In China, I have some destination on
my to do list, but since I’m gonna
be here for a while, I’m in no
rush covering them. I’m just
waiting for people visiting and thus giving me opportunities to do those with
them. And Zhangjiajie National Forest Park was on that list for sure.
We arrived to the city later in the evening, took a ride a
place we rented and went for a walk. Zhangjiajie is a million plus city which
makes it kinda small on Chinese standards. And man, you can feel the
difference. No bars, no cafés, no
family marts on every corner, no metro, pretty much no international presence,
no English or pynyin signs – all local
shit. We walked up to this pagoda with a view on the river and some lit mountains
in the background, continued by the bank, got ourselves a beer and some local
liquor and went back to our room. Early next morning, we were on our way to the
bus station to catch a connection to the park. The park has like 5 gates and I
booked a hostel by one of them. I automatically assumed that it’s the main one so I didn’t even bother confirming that. Plus
the lady in charge of it spoke only Chinese so communication was quite
challenging. So there we were, heading to the village of Wulingyuan on this
minibus packed with Chinese, when I found out we actually need to go Yangjiajie.
Since getting there from our destination would take ages and since we carried
rather small backpacks, we decided to enter the park from Wulingyuan and just
moved to our gate over the day.
The entry fee is 248 RMB and is valid for 4 days. Besides
the entry itself, the ticket entitles you to use buses on the premises of the
park that connect some of the major scenic spots, however, if you wanna use one
of the cable cars, a train or this big ass elevator attached to a mountain, you
have to pay some extra dough. Now, this place is one of the most amazing places
I have ever seen. Everywhere you at, you can just look up, down or around, and
you cannot believe your eyes. That shit really does look surreal. The park is
clean, the paths are not very invasive towards the environment and the great
part is, you can pretty much have it your way. If you’re a lazy ass tourist, you can spend the whole day using
buses, cable cars and main routes, but if you want to have some peace, you can
easily lose yourself on all these small paths in the middle of woods or up and
down by the mountains with almost no other people around. Only nature, fresh
air and monkeys. Oh, and the vast majority of tourism over there is domestic.
We were among very few internationals. But yeah, if you ever have a chance to
get there, do it!
By the evening, we got to our hostel. While the Wulingyuan
village is pretty tourism ready and full of hostels and restaurants, Yangjiajie
is pretty secluded, although you can tell that will change quite soon with all the construction going
on. But this time, we were the only guests in the hostel and one of very
few tourists in the area. There was literally no restaurants, bars or cafés around – only bunch of totally local Chinese shops, one of which
had outside seating which allowed us to grab evening beers with a view on the
mountains. And the stars. Being in Chinese countryside gives you the unique
opportunity to watch stars. Like all of them. Something I’m not really used to in Shanghai.
Plus the weather was on our side heavy. Sky was crystal clear and the
temperature was summerish. We spent Tuesday discovering other parts of the
park, walking like crazy, catching a bus here and there, and even used some of
the cable cars and the elevator. The scenery is simply breathtaking.
Although the ticket is 4 days, we had some other things to
cover and we saw pretty much everything we wanted within 2, so on Wednesday we
left the hostel and walked to nearby village of Zhonghu. We located
something like a bus station and took a minibus back to Zhangjiajie. This
experience was even more local than the previous one. Again, we were the only
internationals on the bus full of super loud and mostly elderly Chinese,
passing through villages on a very bumpy road. Amazing. It’s quite crazy how much construction
is going on everywhere though. Highways, railways, buildings. I’m sure most of the places we’ve seen during the trip gonna look
like completely different in couple of years.
In Zhangjiajie, we bought bus tickets to the ancient city of
Fenghuang, took a walk, grabbed some coffee, and before the noon hopped on a
bus for a 4 hours’ drive. In the city, we
checked-in to our hostel and then got right to discovering. The main attraction
of the town is this river with all these old buildings, bridges,
restaurants and bars. It’s
really lovely and full of Chinese tourists. Lotta different sounds, tunes, smells and
flavors in the air.
The day after, the weather got all fucked up, temperature
dropped like 15 degrees and light rain kicked in. Fortunately, it was not bad
enough to make us stay inside so we took a walk to one of the more distant
bus stations and took another super local bus to the Southern Chinese Great
Wall – a spot we didn’t have a clue about up until arrival
to the city. It’s not as old as the main deal
but it’s still pretty nice. What’s quite interesting though, is that apparently,
there are some elderly Chinese ladies that hustle real hard around that
motherfucker. When we got off the bus, there was this one who immediately got
us to follow her. I initially thought that she just wants to help us locating
the main entrance, as we didn’t
really see it at first, but instead, she led us in the middle of nowhere
through grass and bushes. I guess the aim was to get us up there and charging
us for it but I’m not really sure cause she
didn’t speak a word in English.
When I realized what the fuck is going on, I was like “I’m
straight” and just turned back down. I
even noticed the main entrance finally. The lady was impossible though. Chasing
us, screaming some shit in Chinese... She even started pushing me and shit. My laid-back
chilled voice didn’t work on her, so I raised it
too, and that kinda got her away. Very weird experience. The wall itself was
cool, offering lotta nice views, and since the weather was crap, the local
noodle spot right by the entrance was heaven-sent.
We spent the remaining day or so just wondering
around the town, eating lots of great food, drinking coffee and hanging out. On
Friday afternoon, we took a bus back to Zhangjiajie and in the evening, we were on a flight back to Pudong. For the first time ever, I took advantage of this
night airport bus which is quite awesome. For 22 RMB it takes you to Jing’an with only like 3 stops prior. Super-fast,
cheap and convenient. We wrapped up our adventure at the noodle lady's who has a new ingredient on deck - mushrooms. It's extra 3 RMB but man... Just when you thought her noodles cannot get any better, she throws that motherfucker in.
On Saturday evening, I took my dad for a hot pot to Jen
Dow, then we took a beer at My Place and later on, called my sis from my
apartment. And today we went for this Zhujiajiao Ancient Town which is newly connected by metro line 17 (opened last December). They nickname it Shanghainese Venice. I personally would not go that far but it's pretty nice. Lotta tourists (again, mostly local), some decent coffee spots, small buildings around this little river, couple of cool parks. One hour and a half on subway is worth it...
So there you have it. We still got one week to go before my dad leaves, so watch out for the next one!
Highlights:
- Crashed into a scooter. Was cycling fast as a motherfucker and this idiot in front me decided to do a turn like 0.0001 seconds before he made it. I had like a blink of an eye to decide how to deal with the situation, and I went for using him and his fucking scooter as an airbag. So I went for a clean direct crash. Given the fact I was going at least 30 km/h and I ended up only with a bruised leg and a minor scratch, I consider that shit a clear win. Motherfucker ended up fine too.
- No draft beer and very little coffee spots outside of Chinese cities. It’s easy to forget that shit is even an option living in Shanghai.
- Rytmus and P.A.T. – Neprispôsobiví. One of the best Czechoslovak tracks I have heard in a long long time. Props!!!!!
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