Seoul, South Korea

The final post of this trip comes from the 420 from Heathrow to Nottingham. This is because there was no time for my usual leisurely and beer-y departure lounge writing ritual in Seoul, and that’s a cock up entirely of my own making. 

Let’s re-cap on the sleep situation: Thursday night (Suzhou) was in a scuzzy prostitute-infested hotel and I must have got 3-4 hours sleep. Friday was spent at Disneyland, and I got less than an hour of sleep on my Shanghai-Tokyo flight overnight. Early Saturday morning I arrived in Tokyo, fell asleep on the train into the city (probably for 45 minutes), and overnight I flew to South Korea and didn’t sleep on that flight either. On Sunday I arrived in Seoul, dropped my backpack off at my hostel reception (more on this later), and joined a tour to the DMZ which departed at 07:45. No sleep there either. When I (finally; full story below) arrived back at the hostel at 18:00 I was disgustingly sweaty and the sort of exhausted I’ve never felt before even after 7 years of shift work, which I guess can only truly be appreciated after getting 5 hours sleep in 42 hours. I had ‘a little nap’ and woke up at 08:14, which would have been fine, but my flight to London was at 10:35, the airport is a 60 minute train ride away, and I’d emptied my backpack on the floor in an unsuccessful attempt to find clean pants. I made it to the boarding gate as it closed and made the flight by the width of a ball-hair.

Reading about that solid sleep might fool you into believing that this was a nice hostel. It was not, but I didn’t really pick up on it when I was dropping my backpack off in the morning. I’d noticed it was up a pretty grotty alleyway that smelt of fish and had weird men starting at me, but nothing too bad. I arrived in that 5th floor room (no lift, obviously) exhausted, sweaty and broken - and had a little cry when I saw what I’d signed up for. The air conditioning was unplugged, which was probably for the best, because you wouldn’t have wanted the amount of water dripping out of it mixing with electricity. The stains on the wallpaper hinted that this wasn’t a new problem. The room had no window, and the duvet cover didn’t completely cover the duvet which meant the stains of miscellaneous origin were very obvious. I was trying to persuade my subconscious mind not to ask questions like “how did they manage to get THAT stain THERE?!”, purely out of fear for the answer, but that positivity only lasted until I saw the first flea. And that’s how tired I was, that I stayed (sleeping on the top bunk to minimise contact, obvs). 

The de-militarised zone (DMZ) tour was good, but possibly would have been better if I wasn’t on the edge of hallucinating from tiredness. I got as close to the North Korean border as it’s possible to get from the south (and possibly closer than is advisable), and saw the stark contrast between the two nations from an observatory at the top of a mountain. The DMZ runs through countryside so there’s very little comparative architecture between the two Koreas - only nature, which I expected to be identical, but wasn’t. My guide explained that the nuclear sanctions imposed on the North had affected the country so greatly that they had to use any available fuel to survive, which included every single tree right up to the border. Next I visited Dorasan train station, which is right on the border and, theoretically, connects South Korea to China, Russia and Europe via rail although no trains currently cross the N/S border so it’s futile and empty. I also walked through one of the tunnels dug under the DMZ from the North to invade the South. 4 of these tunnels have been discovered and there are suspicions that there are still more to find, or even more currently being dug. 

As I said, the tour was good, but not good enough to override my tiredness. After being dropped off in central Seoul afterwards I was running on a kind of empty I’ve never been before. I was in a different part of town to where I’d joined the tour and had no idea how to get back to my hostel. I figured the metro would be my best bet. I walked for almost an hour to find a station (no mobile data, and no map) and working out where I needed to be and which line I needed to get there took another half hour. Next came the ticket buying, which was scuppered because I didn’t have any Korean currency, the ticket machines only accepted cash, and no ATM would accept my Monzo card. I loitered outside a Starbucks to steal sufficient WiFi to order an Uber, failed, and inwardly cried. I walked the 2.3 miles back to the crappest hostel in the world in 32 degree heat, dragged my backpack up to the 5th floor, and outwardly cried.

Tokyo; Japan

I arrived in Tokyo early this morning (Saturday) after a poor nights sleep in Suzhou (Thursday night) and no sleep yesterday (early start for Disneyland and flying overnight). Predictably I was knackered, fell asleep on the train from the airport to Tokyo Centre, and overshot the stop I needed. My hostel in Tokyo is a lesson in looking closely at website photos well and truly learned. My key criteria were location and price, so I knew quality would suffer. What I wasn’t expecting was a ‘capsule’ instead of a room - this capsule is the size of a single bed with a mattress filling the floor, is about a metre tall, and has a pull down blind in lieu of a door. The capsule wasn’t what surprised me most about this hostel though! Under no circumstances are shoes to be worn anywhere inside the building - this message was shouted at me before I got to the reception desk to check in. There are lockers by the reception to leave your shoes (I cannot be trusted to carry them to my capsule), but you must leave the locker key with reception. 

Aside from the slightly over zealous no-shoe enforcement, the people of Tokyo have been genuinely lovely. The city is clean, orderly and organised, and definitely makes it into my top 10 favourite cities in the world. I visited Shiba park, and watched the sun set from the top deck of Tokyo Tower. 

It’s definitely a fair substitute for staying with my mates in Shanghai. Next stop - South Korea!

Love Emily x

Shanghai; China

I’m writing this post from Shanghai departure lounge, waiting for my flight to Tokyo. This morning I got a bullet train from Suzhou to Shanghai, and then went to Disneyland. I’ve never been to a Disney park before, and it’s never really appealed, but I have to say it was brilliant. The attention to detail is amazing and even I, a fairly cynical adult, felt a little bit of the famous magic. Before leaving the hotel I noticed local prostitutes had put their business cards under our door, and you could really see what you’d be getting from them.

Visiting Disneyland definitely took the edge off leaving China, or more accurately some people I’ve met here. I’m (briefly) going to Japan and South Korea but most people I’ve met are staying in China for longer. I’ve never met a group of people who clicked so well and so quickly, and I struggle to believe we’d only known each other for a week, even when the traveller’s ‘accelerated friendship’ is factored in. Part of me worries that I’m going to make this trip the standard which all future trips must compare to, inevitably be disappointed, and forever ruin my favourite hobby - but a larger part of me thinks “how brilliant that I’m able to meet strangers in a foreign country and feel like they’re old friends after a week; let’s see what other great people are out there”, and I’ll definitely be keeping in touch with these guys. Still, I felt gutted this morning so thank you Walt Disney for cheering me up!

Before taking this trip, I’d had it in mind that this would be my last ‘big’ adventure and then I’d settle down/save for a house/try out some adult-ing, but now I know I need to keep on doing it. It’s the best feeling in the world: throwing yourself into a totally alien environment, making yourself vulnerable, and putting your trust in complete strangers; knowing if it’s not fine then at least you’ll have good stories - although hopefully you’ll get both. But after it’s over it’s quite hard to return to ‘real life’ with people who knew you before, and who won’t notice how those experiences have subtly changed you. I find it harder to come home after each trip away and I don’t yet know what the solution to that is. 

China has surprised me. There are nods to communism all over the place, but the country has the feel of a capitalist one. If I didn’t already know about the restricted access to sites like Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp then I don’t think I would have noticed any censorship at all - and WeChat is so widely used in China that most people don’t even know there are Western alternatives that they’re prevented from accessing. Of those that do, it’s laughably easy to get round the restrictions with a VPN, which I even managed to install on my new phone from within the country. On my experience of the country itself, I could be fooled into thinking China is a capitalist democracy like many others in the West - which I guess raises some more questions about propaganda and censorship. 

Time to try and get an hour or two of sleep now, because I’m bloody knackered,

Love Emily x

Suzhou; China

Last night was another sleeper train night (Xi’an-Suzhou) which was even more fun than the last, but with a far worse nights sleep. More ¥5 (50p) beer got cracked out, and the mother of all games of Never Have I Ever got played. It was a great night which ended when we got told off for making too much noise. That was definitely where the fun ended, because the beds were too short to lay straight but too narrow to lay in the fetal position, and the train had a very poor AC system and a driver with a heavy right foot. 

Before I left Xi’an I went shopping with my German tandem buddy to buy a new phone. Walking to the shop and buying a phone took less than 30 minutes, but we then spent a further 2.5 hours trying to find our way back in some pretty heavy rain. 

Today I went to the ‘Venice of the East’ in Suzhou, which was essentially just a canal, although it did smell similar to Venice. We sat on a terrace drinking beer, which would have been lovely on a sunny day, but unfortunately it was chucking it down harder than it had been in Xi’an the day before. Conceding defeat on al fresco drinking I went to my hotel, which is not a classy establishment and smells as seedy as it looks. 

Love Emily x

Xi’an; China

Yesterday we disembarked the train at Xi’an at 7:45am and tried our luck with checking in to our hostel straight away. The negotiations didn’t go our way, so most of the morning was spent living our best homeless lives by using public bathrooms to wash and change in. I can’t emphasise what a state we were in enough: we’d climbed the Great Wall on a 34c day, boarded the sleeper train in the same sweaty clothes, and the train bathrooms weren’t a place you’d visit to get clean (quite the opposite, in fact). Whilst brushing my teeth with the help of a warm bottle of water I thought “this is why I work hard, so I can go on trips and do this kind of thing” with absolutely no irony whatsoever. I cannot emphasise the benefits of backpacking enough: you’ll always come home from a trip with new friends, great stories, and having grown as a person by expanding your comfort zone. It’s my favourite thing in life.

After doing a reasonable job of freshening up I went to the City Walls of Xi’an and rode a tandem round the top of them (13km perimeter - they were massive and were the type of thing that only needs to be done once) with a German guy I met. We were talking about Black Mirror and how scarily true aspects of it could be, and then got onto the episode where the prime minister has to shag a pig to save a princess. The topic of David Cameron then came up, and my new German friend has since been asking many questions about British politics. 

This evening a group of us went to Xi’an’s Muslim Quarter, which had a busy market and a lot of peanuts. I tried on a dress at one of the market stalls before clarifying the price of it, which was a basic error to make. I was thinking about buying it so I asked about the price whilst trying it on and the seller then joined me in the changing area to start negotiations. I don’t think I was playing my haggling A-game whilst standing in my pants but I managed to get her from ¥1200 (~£120) to ¥150 (~£15) which is respectable. She was standing between me and my clothes and I was becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the disparity in our attire so I thought ‘screw this, a dress isn’t worth this shit’, grabbed my clothes, and walked back into the main part of the stall. She was seriously not taking no (or even “I’d like to leave now”) for an answer and tried to block my exit from her stall, so I took the only way out that I could see: pretending to be interested in something by the doorway, moving in that direction, and legging it.

I’m now sitting in the communal area of the hostel, knocking back beers with other travellers and wishing this trip could last a lot longer.

Love Emily x

Beijing; China

I’m writing this post, pissed, on a sleeper train from Beijing to Xi’an. I’ve spent the past 3 days in Beijing having a great time. Today I visited the Great Wall and, whilst eating I’m a restaurant at the foot of the mountains with a view of the wall, was struck by a realisation of how lucky I am. How lucky I am: to have survived my many and various illnesses when the odds haven’t been in my favour, and also how lucky I have been to have been born in the UK, to have had the childhood I had which gave me the skills necessary to both cope, and use the negative energy from my illness(es) and losses to motivate me to have these wonderful experiences. 

On arrival in Beijing I got a taxi to my hotel, which was a far smoother journey than I was bracing myself for given my past Asian experiences. No horns, no collisions, and no extortion. I arrived at my hotel and met Katie, who is of a very similar age to me and also grew up in Northamptonshire. My first observation was that my (non-existent) research had meant I’d brought the wrong plug sockets so I went to a local market and brought an adapter which sparked when I plugged it in. That night we met up with a group of other travellers and went to a local restaurant for dinner. After we’d eaten we still fancied a few drinks and asked the restaurant if this was possible. The response was “yes, but you’ll need to do it on the pavement but we’ll provide the chairs”.  I’ve taken up worse offers in my life so that’s exactly what we did, much to the amusement of the locals who took photos of us. We drank, we talked, and we had a great time.

The next day I went to Tian’anmen Square and the Forbidden City. Both sites are impressive, but the first thing that struck me was the lack of explanatory literature and after talking to a few locals it became clear that they legit had no idea of the significance of 1989. Bloody mental. It was raining so I bought a rainbow umbrella hat for ¥30, which would have been a bargain at twice the price for such a magnificent item of millinery.

Following this I hit a bar and went to the loo. I’ve never stored a phone in my back pocket before and certainly never dropped one down the toilet, but that’s exactly what happened on this occasion. Of all the (squat) toilets in all the world, this was not the one one to pick. I scooped it out and tried to resuscitate it as best I could with the limited resources available, but unfortunately it RIP-ed that afternoon (Megan, that’s why communication might be limited, not necessarily because of anaphylaxis, sepsis, or kidnap) and it was in a bar that was charging ¥50 (£5) for a beer, so not even really worth it.

Today I went to the Great Wall. I took a chair-lift up to the top (screw those steps up), and walked 2 miles of the wall. It was undoubtedly impressive but somewhat marred by the infamous ‘Beijing Smog’ which affected visibility. It was still well worth the sweaty effort of climbing a zillion steep and uneven steps, and I took a toboggan ride down to the base which was BRILLIANT. 

This evening I boarded a sleeper train to Xian with the other travellers I met in Beijing and quite a few beers. Someone brought a bottle of Bijou (a 43% spirit) and dished out (large) shots (in cups) on the train. I’m not entirely sure how it happened, but I was given the title of “champion” because I saw off every cup thrust my way, whilst remaining just sober enough to write this post. Colin taught me well.

I’m off to sleep in my (middle) bunk now, and I’ll give you an update on the head situation when I next have WiFi.

Love Emily x