Backpacking our way around China! (including Disneyland Shanghai) - Updated 21st September

[itsrachelhere]

A fair bit has happened since my last post. We recently applied for our Tourist Visas. Now this was the longest most brain draining process. You needed several documents, but they weren’t all provided on the one page… It was like reading a dramatic novel and not knowing what was going to happen each page you turned… as you progressed through the official website it gradually revealed more and more things you had to do. I guess in reality it wasn’t that bad, but when you are applying for such an official document it feels more pressured than it would do otherwise. In summary we had to provide:
- The formal visa application (which included detail such as all the countries we had visited in the past 12 months, including dates and purpose of visit – this took a while as I travel a bit for work!)
- A breakdown of our full itinerary, including print outs of confirmations for where we would be staying and when
- Confirmation of our flights
- A declaration statement that what we have produced is accurate
- A checklist document which needed completing and signing
- A payment form so they could charge us our £175 (each – sob!)
- Photo to the exact dimensions – had to go to Max Spielman for this as the normal passport photo machines didn’t produce photos which met their requirements
I think that was everything. I say ‘everything’. It used up at least 2 trees by the time I had printed everything off.

I was anxious about sending our passports in the post as it wasn’t much time to rectify matters if they were to have got lost, but happily they were returned to us today in one piece :-).
Alongside that I have also been booking our travel whilst out there.

Now this is a bit of a complex process. Firstly you aren’t actually able to book train tickets yourself unless you have a Chinese address in China. Secondly their timetable system isn’t very sophisticated in that it can’t process changes. So if you want to go from A-C, but to get there you need to go A-B-C it can’t handle that. You have to know the exact route you will be taking and book the two legs (A-B, B-C) separately. As we are heading to some more ‘remote’ places this has been complex to work out and I have done an awful lot of googling.

A company called China DIY Travel had received a lot of good reviews so I decided to check them out. For the sum of $10 per ticket they offer a booking service which includes purchasing the tickets for the trains you want, sending you an e-ticket and providing step by step directions of how to navigate that train route (including anything you might need to communicate in Chinese). One thing I liked about this company was that you could collect the tickets from the station yourself, whilst the others insisted on mailing them to the hotel/hostel you would be staying at. The thought of this just panicked me as I could just see them getting lost and us being in a right mess, so we decided to go with CDT.

The next step was to complete their template spreadsheet listing our preferred trains, and providing passport details (apparently required for train travel in China). They would then book each train as it came available 60 days in advance.

This might sound a bit keen, but even though they tried to book each one that far in advance, one train we did miss out on as it was fully booked! We also booked an internal flight with them, but apparently with flights in China the itinerary isn’t confirmed until a few weeks beforehand. Anyhow, this past few days has been a mass of emails of them confirming they had booked the train/flight, asking me to confirm I was happy with what they had done, them sending an invoice, me paying, them sending me the e-ticket and instructions. I think I am all sorted now and have everything I need saved ready for printing. Just to give an idea of the journeys we are making and the costs, these are:

- Shanghai to Beijing – 2nd class on bullet train (5 hours) – approx. £80 each
- Beijing to Zhangjiajie – economy flight (3 hours) – approx. £120 each
- Zhangjiajie to Liuzhou – soft sleeper (10 hours) – approx. £45 each
- Liuzhou – Guilin – 2nd class train (1.5 hours) – approx. £13 each
- Guilin – Shanghai – 2nd class on bullet train (9.5 hours) - £95 each

As you can see, it’s a lot more economical travelling on the overnight trains, but the timings just weren’t working out so this is what we have opted with. But anyhow, £350 each for all that travel isn’t bad I don’t think!

Finally I have also been starting work on more detailed plans for what we could potentially do in each place and will be back with the plans for the first leg in Shanghai shortly!

[itsrachelhere]

We arrived into Shanghai at 8.30am, so I imagine that by the time we get to the hostel (via the Maglev as discussed earlier) it will be about 11am. We will purchase a 72 hour travel card which costs around £5 and will last us for our two days sightseeing and for getting to the train station for our train to Beijing the on the third day.

From there the plan is to firstly check out the Jade Buddah Temple



The Jing’an Temple



Get lunch somewhere in the French Concession before exploring around there



Evening plans are to check out The Bund and go for an evening river cruise along the river

[itsrachelhere]

The morning will be in People’s Square to watch the locals do their morning exercises!



Before checking out the Urban Planning Museum. I am particularly wanting to see the massive model that they have of the city!



We could also check out Shanghai Museum which is meant to be really good, but John and I tend to fall out in museums, so maybe not..!

In the afternoon we will head to YuYan Garden and check out the little shops and the gardens. Apparently its recommended to head here first thing as it gets really busy, but then its also recommended to view it in the evening when it’s lit up, so we can’t win really!





Apparently there’s somewhere here which is really good for dumplings, so will have to track that place down!



In the evening we will head to see Nanjing Road all lit up and around that area

[Hannikins]

right I'm in and catching up on this... anything not to start mine you know :P

[itsrachelhere]

Originally Posted by Hannikins

right I'm in and catching up on this... anything not to start mine you know :P

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you are waiting for to plan to save you a job aren't you?! It's going to be a while until I get to Disneyland !

[Hannikins]

Originally Posted by itsrachelhere

you are waiting for to plan to save you a job aren't you?! It's going to be a while until I get to Disneyland !

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oh darn you worked it out... YES that's EXACTLY what I was planning :P

[itsrachelhere]

Originally Posted by Hannikins

oh darn you worked it out... YES that's EXACTLY what I was planning :P

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Hehe! I don't even know how to plan Shanghai Disney... urgh!

[itsrachelhere]

Today we head to Beijing! We are booked on a 9am bullet train from Shanghai Hongqiao Railway Station which will probably mean leaving the hostel about 7am - ouch! It takes just under 5 hours once we are on the train which should look a bit like this!



Hopefully once we arrive in Beijing we will be able to navigate our way to the hostel using the subway system – eek! I have the Beijing tube map saved on my phone, so we are hopefully good to go…

We are staying in a hostel in the hutongs, which are a series of alleyways and a tourist attraction in themselves.



By the time we have dropped our bags off it will be around 2pm so we won’t have masses of time for sightseeing before it gets dark. The plan for this evening is to hand to Beihai Park which is a park fairly near to where we are staying.



There’s a padoga in the gardens which you can climb and get a birds eye view of the Forbidden City.



In the evening we will probably explore the Hutongs a bit and hunt down somewhere to eat. There’s also meant to be some amazing street food in Beijing which we will hunt down.

[itsrachelhere]

Today is our Great Wall tour – really excited about this one! We have booked with China Highlights and have quite an extravaganza ahead of us. We will apparently be picked up between 7 and 8am, so bit of an early start.

Our first stop will be the Ming Tombs which is a burial site for Ming emperors. Apparently the underground palace is 27 meters deep and there are over 3,000 relics. We get two hours here to look around.



We then get a lunch included before going to a Jade Carving Factory, which is a speciality in the area.



From there we head to the Great Wall in the Muitanyu section which is one of the better restored parts of the wall, but a bit quieter than other sections. To get up to the wall we will take a cable car to get views like this…



Before getting a toboggan down! Which we are both really excited about.



Finally on the way back we stop at a tea shop to watch a Chinese traditional Tea Ceremony (where no doubt they will try to get us buying tea!) before getting back to the hostel around 6pm.



In the evening we are meeting up with one of John’s friends who has lived in Beijing for a number of years and he will be taking us someone good to try Beijing’s famous dish of Peking duck.