100th Post Retrospective

This is my 100th post on this blog, and almost exactly my 2 month anniversary of landing in China.  So here is a random set of retrospective observations about my trip.

I originally planned this trip as a mix of studying Chinese and tourism - originally I was going to study 4 or 5 weeks and travel/be a tourist for 7 or 8, and I've pretty much reversed this.  At the end of the holiday I'll have put in about 7 weeks of studying.  I don't know if my Chinese is much better for it (I think I've improved a little but I still have trouble with even simple conversations) but one thing for sure it's been a real icebreaker with meeting other travellers and getting to know the staff at the hotels/hostels where I'm staying.  Everyone is very interested in a foreigner who is trying to learn Chinese, and quite a few folks have sat down to chat with me when they see me sitting at the bar/restaurant with my nose in my books.  The hostel staff have been very good at making sure I know the correct Chinese name of whatever food or drink I'm trying to order.

After 2 months I've decided that 2 months is probably the exact right amount of time I should have planned for this trip.  I'm getting a bit burned out from travelling (mostly) on my own, and am starting to crave western food more and more.  (My go-to afternoon snack here in Kunming is french fries and a gin & tonic.)  A lot of the "differences" that I used to find interesting have just started to irritate me.  (I've written about these in other posts so won't repeat myself.)  Some of the things that are considered "good manners" are different here than at home, and while it's up to me as the "visitor" to adjust, it's just not that easy!

Example.  I read somewhere (citation needed, I forget where I read this) that here in China it's considered rude to pick something out of your mouth with your fingers.  If you're eating a fish (for example) and dealing with fish bones, you are expected to either spit them out (a lot of restaurants have little garbage bins next to the tables), or pick them out of your mouth with your chopsticks.  I can't bring myself to spit, and my chopstick skills aren't quite up to "Asian" levels (although I try my best and I'm not doing too bad!) so I quietly pick fish bones out of my teeth with my fingers and hope no one notices (and if they do I hope I'm not giving Canadian tourists a bad reputation all over China!)  What to do?  Do something that is considered rude here, or do something that is acceptable here that is rude back home (that I just don't feel comfortable doing) even though it is acceptable here?

One thing that has been very consistent is how friendly and open the Chinese people have been.  Last night I was heading out to dinner (to a "duck" restaurant that I saw earlier that I've been meaning to try) and as I was leaving the hostel one of my new Chinese friends called out to me.  A bunch of them were leaving for a trip to Lhasa the next day, so they were going out to dinner and invited me along.  Anyways I was the lone "lao wai" out of about a dozen of us, and the evening strained the limits of my Chinese (I understood about 10% of what was going on), not to mention we went through 4 bottles of "bai jiu" (this horrible Chinese liquor that they love here) and beers afterwards.  It was a great evening.  And it felt really good to be invited along, even though I didn't have a clue what was happening most of the evening.

My budget for this trip.

In Beijing (3 weeks) and Guiling (2 weeks) I booked accommodation through the schools, so I got a sort of "all inclusive price" (not including food of course) of $3000 for 5 weeks, altogether.  My accommodation for the other 7 weeks totalled about $1400.  That's only $200 per week, but I was mostly staying in private rooms in youth hostels.  If I stayed in the dorm rooms (6 or 8 to a room, with a shared bathroom) the cost could have been a third, or even a quarter.  Hostels are pretty basic, but a good place to meet other travellers (foreigners and Chinese alike).  If you want something fancier you can pay as much as you like, the high-end 4 and 5 star hotels cost as much in China as they do anywhere else in the world.  For my Chinese lessons (outside of the schools in Guiling and Beijing) I paid between 60-70 RMB per hour, for a total of another $500 or so (not counting all the lessons I took before travelling to China).

My travel within China (trains and flights, not including the flights between Canada and Beijing) came to about $600.  I took the "fast train" from Beijing to Luoyang and Xi'An, flew from Xi'An to Kunming, and have flights booked to Guilin and then back to Beijing.  There are definitely cheaper options, and if I was willing to take the "slow train" I could probably have done all my travel within China for under $100.  I'll do another post just on travel, since a good friend has asked (related to my "map" post - how long does it take &etc).

For all my other expenses (food, tourism, souvenirs, etc) I'm averaging about 200 RMB per day (that's about $35), or a little over $3000 for the entire 3 months.  That includes a mix of eating at noodle stalls or street vendors (6 to 10 RMB for a bowl of noodles), something you'd consider a "normal restaurant" (20 to 50 RMB) and occasionally a splurge (I've had a few meals over 100 RMB).  Days visiting tourist sites are a bit more expensive (it can cost anywhere from 40 RMB and up to get into a temple, park etc; I think Hua Shan was the most expensive - the entry fee, cable cars, busses etc came to about 600-700 RMB for the day) but those days are averaged out by days I just hang around the hostel drinking G&T's ;-)  (PS  there are about 6 RMB per Canadian dollar.)

Overall a pretty cheap trip - less than $9000 for my "in China" expenses.  If you're planning this kind of trip yourself you can do it much cheaper - without the language lessons, taking the "slow train", and staying in "dorm rooms" in the hostels, I figure I could do 3 months here for under $5000.  (Or much cheaper.  I talked to one backpacker who told me his entire budget for a month in China was about $1000.)  If you want something a bit more luxurious (and you can't deal with the Chinese noodle stalls and street vendors every day) you can spend pretty much as much as you like!

(Of course, this doesn't include the Canada/China flight, travel insurance, vaccinations and a few other things.  If anyone is interested let me know.)

Most of the foreign travelers that I've met haven't bothered to try to learn Chinese.   (One girl who's been teaching English here for months has only learned "wo bu chi rou" - "I don't eat meat.")   For me I've been glad to be able to say a few words here and there but I can't say I've ever been in a position that I'v absolutely needed it.  Most useful is when one of  the locals or another tourist is asking where I'm from etc, and usually that's after I've said "ni hao" and they find that I speak a bit of Chinese!

Taking Chinese lessons in China has been very interesting.  If I were to o this again I'd do the lessons all at once up from (2 months learning Chinese followed by a month of travel).  I think I've seen more if China the way I did it, but you lose a couple of days every time you change teachers, have to adjust to different teaching styles etc.

My blog.

Keeping a blog has been very interesting for me.  It gives me something to focus on during the periods when I'm not doing any of the traditional "tourist stuff", and definitely help to keep touch with all the family and friends back home.  (I've talked to a few folks here who just use email and they tell me it takes forever.  A blog is definitely the way to go.)  My blogger also gives me some interesting stats on who is visiting my blog, what country they are from and how they are getting to it.  (Interestingly I've found that most visitors to my blog are "spam".  Is there nothing on the internet that is safe from spam any more???)  However one interesting stat I noticed this week - my blog is starting to come up within various China-related google searches - check out the following:

Do you notice that someone is searching for information on "geeky tourist attractions beijing"?  I hope my blog has been of some kind of help to them :-)