Back from China!
Shivi
Hey guys I'm back, well actually I came a couple of days ago, but anyway! China was really awesome! I went as part of a school trip (15 of us) and we visited our sister school in Jinan. The trip was for 12 days and besides jinan we also went to Shanghai and Beijing. Mostly we just did sightseeing no real educationy stuff so it was just a holiday- just what I needed! K@ti also came along too as she goes to my school.
First we stayed in Shanghai for 2 days and thank god it was for no longer! I really wouldn't reccomend going to Shanghai as it's busy and dirty and is just a maze of similar looking skyscrapers, there is nothing beautiful there and nothing really that cultural, it was nice in it's own little way and the shopping was okay but not my most favourite place. It's a bit dodgy too, that reminds me, must tell you a story...
On day 2 in Shanghai, in the evening we had been walking around the city and had stopped at this place which was a long walkway and were looking at the lights on some of the skyscrapers. I had been using a backpack that day and was sitting down on a ledge with everyone else and I put down my backpack. There had been lots of these poor people on bicycles selling cold drinks on the back in polystyrene boxes and one was a middle aged lady who came by trying to sell them to us. I actually had two bags on me that day, the other was a handbag I had bought which I was wearing the whole time. When it was time to go I didn't realise i didn't have my backpack with me probably because I had the handbag so I knew I was holding something. We walked down these stairs as the walkway we were on was raised. I then realised I didn't have my backpack. I told K@ti and some other ppl heard and one of the girl's asked me if it was black and I said yes and she said some lady selling drinks had it. I knew the one so me and K@ti raced back upstarirs with one of our teachers following. I didn't think we'd find the lady as there were so many ppl and many selling drinks. Finally we found her, not far away from the spot and she was rifling through the bag. I grabbed for the bag and told her it was mine and said she stole it, she then said it was hers which was an obvious lie, she wasn't pulling very hard so i snatched it off her. Out teacher told us to run, we couldn't understand the urgency of it so we kind of paused for a bit but he kept yelling at us to run so we eventually did. WE went back down to our group and oir teacher came back to. He said he was telling us the run as the lady was calling to all her friends selling drinks and they probably would ahve beaten us up, if not the teacher! We all then went back to the hotel in taxis, all the while I was bawling my eyes out! i couldn't help it- it was mainly shock and thinking that we nearly could have got beaten up. Now though, me and K@ti are just laughing at the whole thing!
I'll tell you more about China later, got to rush. In the next week or so I'll show you some pictures too.
queenfairypants
I enjoyed reading that very much even though you got upset! In foreign countries or even in your own country people can always tell if you're a tourist and even locals can be targets! My mum once had money stolen from her on the tube in London she always says 'Oh be careful on the tube!' when I go to London. In Florence, Italy there were 3 occasions were people nearly got mugged! I'm glad you got your bag back! There were a lot of gypsy looking types in Florence, they'd beg every day, saying they had children and what not, and yet they always had embroidered clothes on and shoes WITH socks and gold teeth!
Can't wait to hear more and see pictures! Is Taiwan in China? Did you see Taipei 101? I LOVE that building it's meant to be like boxes of chinese take out (we don't have that type of box here 
) piled up on each other!
northernstar
I'm glad you had a good time, apart from the bag incident.
katie
haha China was hilarious! we got locked out of our room three times!
The night that shiv's bag got stolen, I broke the safe in our room with all our passports and money in it, it was midnight and we were leaving really early in the morning for Jinan! Eventualy some of the hotel staff broke into it and we got our stuff but just after the men left we locked ourselves out of the room! So it was about one in the morning by then and shivi and I were lying in the hotel hallway in histerics, before we went down to the receptionist in our PJ's (I think we had barefeet too) and evetually got back in. In a weird kind of way that was one of the most entertaining days.
Oh and we, well it was me really, broke the hairdryer and had to bash my luggage locks open with an alarm clock and on the last day there I lost my shoe on the Great wall of China coming down on the chairlift, I had to walk round the rest of the day in one shoe and one sock! The shops people were staring and laughing at me and asking if I wanted to buy shoes
lol will they ever take people from your school on trips again!!!!? Things always go wrong on these things! Even trips with 17 - 18 year olds! Glad you thought it was funny though
Cat Morley
That does sound really scary Shivi, I'm glad you got your bag back. I hate the thought of other people with my stuff or looking through it, grrrrr I hate thieves, someone stole my bag once.
It does sound like you had fun aside from that, I'd love to visit China.
yeah even with all the little mishaps it was loads of fun, that's probably what made the trip so fun- all the crazy stuff that happened.
Another story for you guys- we were leaving the hotel in a big tour bus and in china their electrics system is not too good and not too professional. Anyway, at the big intersection there must have been a cable fallen out of its place a hanging really low, as we drove through the intersection we heard a big snap and had broken the cable by running straight through it! The next thing we know all the traffic lights at that intersection have been turned off! I don't know what happened next as by then we'd driven away but I hope we didn't cause anyone too much trouble! When we came back at the end of the day the lights had luckily been fixed.
DIS.AR.RAY
haha, that sounds like an interesting trip! I've always wanted to go to China or Japan [hopefully both]. I'm sorry to hear about your mishaps, but it seems like overall it was fun!
Sorry about your shoe! Hopefully it wasn't an artsy fartsy all drawn-on shoe [I just did three pair, and I'm afraid of losing one, because I love them ALL].
Luckily K@ti was planning to throw those shoes in the bin as 6 days after getting back from China she was going to Poukhet(spelt wrong) and could buy a new pair there as her old ones were falling apart. The China trip clashed with her families pre-planned holiday and they couldn't change it which is why it was so close. She'll actually be in Poukhet right now, shopping probably- hmph! oh well, she's buying stuff 4 me over there, so it's all good.
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