Pics of our xmas trip

The Great Wall of China











The Shaolin Temple, China.

Korean Xmas & Chinese New Year!!!!!!!

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year to friends and whanau, wherever you may be in the world i hope this time was special and many best wishes for the New Year!!
well its been ages since our last post, we have kept our heads down and have been waiting for the xmas period to do abit of tiki touring around asia. heres the lowdown on our trip to korea and china...

KOREA-SEOUL...
The first leg of our trip was spent in korea. we left on the 21st and spent 7days days here soaking up all the sights and sounds of Seoul..

SHOPPING....
boy what a great place to do some shopping..especially for paora-the places had heaps of leather jackets,clothes and american sports wear..great thing here was that they had normal sizes and everything was cheap..Itaewon is the place to go paora reckons..awesome place

XMAS DAY...
Well unfortunitly there was no hangi ,steammed pudding and raw fish for us here in seoul. we spent the day tiki touring around, and looking at markets..but we did have a mean xmas dinner though korean styles...we had pizza and what we both reckon is the best fried chicken that we have both tasted ever...it was great to share xmas together in seoul..so i hope everyone enjoyed their xmas and had a great time..

CULTURAL SIGHTS....
we visited a few cultural sights while being in korea-first we visited the korean war memorial-which celebrated the victory over north korea which was good..next we ventured to
gyeongbokgung palace(gee what a mouthful) this was the palace of the korean emperor-this was a unique place alittle different to the ones here in Japan. these palace building have underground heating-they had chimneys on the sides of the building in which they would light fires to warm the ground...Sunglyemun gate is one of the most famous sights in korea-its a huge gate situated smack bang in the middle of town and surounded by tall buildings and the contrasts of old and new is really awesome..

DMZ-Demilitirized Zone.. we took a trip to the DMZ , which is the zone which separates North Korea and South Korea-this was a unique and somber experience as the area was surrounded by barbed wire and guards packing machine guns..we also ventured down one of the tunnels which was dug by the north to sneak into and attack the south. But the overall feeling we got was that the south are longing to reunite and be one korea with the north again and the sooner the better i hope..

Korea on the whole was great and we both enjoyed our time, but as you will now read china left a lasting impression -both good and bad...

CHINA-BEIJING....

GREAT WALL....
Probably the highlight of the whole trip..An Awesome experience that i would recommend to anyone..There are many different places to see the wall but we decided to do the 10 km walk of the wall from Jinshanling to simatai-if you have a chance then this one is definitly the best..just walking the wall and climbing up and down over steep parts of the wall, can you only really appreicate the time and effort and manpower that went into making the wall-we only walked 10kms which took us 4 hrs but the entire length is over 5000 kms which is mindblowing..

the best moments for me was climbing the steepest section of the wall with the old lungs blowing hard the incline was at about 70 degrees..the next was having a TUI on the Great Wall..not sure if im the first person to that but it was a miki way to remember my time on the wall.

the hardcase thing was the locals who follow you once you hit the wall trying to sell their stuff..i've seen persistant salesman but these fullas go over and beyond the call of duty following you everystep of the way just to sell you something..these fullas are dedicated and can be abit of a hoha until you have to shout at them about a thousand times "no book" "no book" or "no money" "no money".. some people ended up buying but get ripped off pretty bad.. but all in all the wall is an experience that both of us will not forget..

SHAOLIN TEMPLE - ZHENGZHOU

Well on our third day in we headed in to central china - zhengzhou to visit the shaolin temple... the home of kung fu. We didnt choose the best day to visit as it was snowing hard out... but we solidered on and walk around the temple grounds and checked out what was on offer. first we watched a performance of some of the shaolin students which was pretty meke seeing some of the moves for real that i thought were all shit in the movies. then we went down to the temple and had a walk around seeing some of the history of the temple which was really awesome. An awesome destination.

However ....

THE JOURNEY... a key phrase that we now associate with this whole trip has been "its not the destination is the journey" why? Well on the way to zhengzhou we started off at beijing railway station where we saw what the locals are really like... in one word "Paru" for real.... the toilets... well they were like slits cut into the ground with 3 months of shit built up.... no shit! huh huh ..no doors, no toilet seat... squat styles...pay for paper when you walk in ... bad!!!!!! thats all we can say. next the station... sitting waiting gave us the chance to check out the locals or more importantly the locals checking us out felt like all 600 people in the waiting room looking at us... not even that they spitting on the floor and chucking rubbish straight onto the floor. Once we got onto the train... dont think it got any better ... actually it did because now there were only 5 sets of eyes looking at us.... we did an overinight train... so it wasnt like that the whole way... and to make it worse the trains werent smoke free so you had cuzzys lighting up whenever they wanted and just spitting too... lucky for us we werent on the bottom floor.....

anyway got there and then caught a bus to the temple ... which wasnt to bad until the driver actually started driving... swirving all over the place like he was haurangi or something not to mention overtaking on blindcorners..... out of it... got to the destination and that was sweet...... coming home was just as bad... but the bus was packed, like a loaf of bread and jam packed. but cause we were the only foreigners we got a seat each... but there were people sitting on each others laps, people in the aisles sitting on spit buckets.... out of it.... but i guess in the end we made it home in one peice.... i guess thats what people mean by experiencing different cultures.... out of it....

SHOPPING & BARTERING.....
cheap, cheap, cheap is the best words to describe china that is if you can bargin for it. The value of our money there made us into instant yuppies.... we could get so much value for our money... we went to heaps of markets selling everything from chinese crafts to the latest g shock watches... everything... but one of the saddest things about our shopping experience in china was always having the feeling you getting ripped off... by everyone... from restaurants to taxi drivers, there is definitely a price for foreigners and a price for the locals... but in the end got what we felt were some bargins so hei aha. One of the best markets we went to was the local night market where they sold local delicacies like centipede, frog, snake, beetle and much more although we stuck to the toffee strawberries and just looked at the rest.

CULTURAL SIGHTS
We visited heaps of cool sights here in beijing as there is just so much to see.. first was the temple of heaven... a place where the emperors prayed for good harvest.... Second Tiananmen
Square... this is the largest square in the world which could hold over a million people and was built so that president could hold big hui with everyone in the same place. Next was the Fobidden City... this was the home of 28 prior emperors... untill 1911 its was shut off from anyone who was not associated with the royal family. it is a huge palace and with heaps of difffernt halls and rooms ... really amazing.

Overall we had the bomb trip away ... we got to see a new side of asia and experience some cool things... and some not so cool things. but i guess thats what travelling is all about. we would definitely recommend travelling.... if you want you can go to china and korea but you dont have too.

finally hope everyone had a good xmas and new year.... would be cool to hear what you all got up to so drop us a email if you can .

Paora and Chanel