Adventures in Chinese!

23 June 2018 • Travel time: with 30 April 2018 on 13 May 2018

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Chinese Adventure!

Have you always dreamed of going on a space trip to another planet, but intergalactic flights are not for you? Now there is a great solution - just buy tickets to China! Full immersion in another world is guaranteed. You do not know international English? Not a problem! In China, almost no one knows him either! Are you afraid that you will eat a lot of spicy food? With Chinese reusable chopsticks, you won’t be able to eat a lot! But, as for the chopsticks, this is a bit exaggerated, the food is so tasty that the chopsticks are not a hindrance. Yes, and the Chinese language is generally understandable, almost all of you will answer one word “Mayo! ” Which means “No! ".

But what cities are there, and what mountains! No wonder James Cameroon filmed Avatar on this planet! It was one of the most difficult and most beautiful trips.

Why do the Chinese need to fly somewhere when they have such natural beauty in their country. And the city of Xi'an is now generally out of the ranking. It was the first time I wanted to sit and write a story about China while I was on a trip. I wanted to climb one of the majestic walls of Xi'an with a laptop and write about our emotions with a view of the skyscrapers. Mmm...China, so complex and so beautiful. Lovely like this coffee : )

The complexity of China is very well described by these photos

From my childhood

- Come on!

- Dai went to China and said: “Don't give it to anyone! ”

But where exactly did Dai go? Maybe Xi'an or Shanghai? Or even to Zhangjiajie town? This is what we have to find out now. Looking ahead, I will say that he left for Huashan!

This is a closed and very unusual country that develops as if in a parallel reality. I would not say that China has gone ahead into the future, it is just modern advanced and different. Throughout the country, free toilets that can be easily found at any time within a radius of 100 meters. Garbage bins are located at a distance of visibility from each other, absolutely everywhere. Everything is perfectly clean. While traveling, you feel completely safe, as every step is monitored by multiple cameras. Any movement in public transport and taxis, at any time of the day in any area you will feel calm. Except for the case with the monkey, which awaits us in a week)))

The main payment system is scanning a QR code with your smartphone. Almost anywhere, even at a grandmother with pies, you can scan the code, and the payment is credited.

But this bun was not available to us, and we paid off with an old beautiful custom - the transfer of paper money. Another unusual moment was the amount of time we spent on the subway.

On one of the last days, we drove about 60 stations in one trip) To feel a complete immersion in Chinese culture, all Google services are banned, including maps, Google market and search. In general, China is very suitable for people who do not know English. Almost no one will know him there either.

An interesting fact is that the Chinese are very loud people when traveling. But they are quiet in their own country) So I want to tell you everything right away, but let's go in order.

Let's repeat this journey again, but now in a cozy environment at the computer.

We have been eyeing this unusual country for probably five years, there were actions more than once, but there were always excuses.

This time, the UIA company insisted, which sent a letter stating that the accumulated miles would soon expire and they should be spent on a regular fare. All other stocks seemed to be blown away by the wind, and Beijing was also on sale. Stop being afraid, you just need to take the tickets and do it! Once again I looked at the map of an immense country in size and the job was done, the tickets were in hand, now it was impossible to retreat. A long six-month preparation for a trip to another planet began. Much of the preparation was moral. Also, there were no shares. The second important step was obtaining a visa. Obtaining a visa to China is built in such a way that you need to really want to go to the country in order to get a visa. The package of documents is not complicated, the procedure itself is complicated) One day we had dinner at a sushi restaurant and I had sushi for breakfast with me.

The next morning, the Chinese ambassador was delighted when he spotted me wielding chopsticks in the embassy's filing line. I remember that unusual moment when we did get visas! Even despite a slight misunderstanding at the embassy, when I blurted out that I had not been to China, but had been to Hong Kong.

Mapping out the trip itinerary was like wading through the dense jungle with a plastic knife.

For technical reasons (there were no promotions), the pause between trips lasted 5 months. At least I slipped through Frankfurt at work. Dasha was very hard. But at last the day has come. It was a feeling of slight fear before the trip. Such was the feeling before South America. It seemed to us that we morally assess the complexity of the upcoming trip. But in reality it was impossible to imagine even half of the complexity) It all started traditionally with the Boryspil lounge zone.

A sort of relaxation before diving. For some reason, it all flew out of hand. The peak of the fiasco was when I moved the table and all its contents flew like birds. The fruit salad on the floor generally looked like a work of art, I was even a little sorry when this masterpiece was removed. The feeling of shame incinerated me) A couple more glasses of wine and we are ready to dive. But another pleasant surprise awaited us, before boarding the plane, our tickets showed an error. In other words, overbooking, we ran out of seats! But it was not enough in the economy class, in the premium class, just two cozy seats by the window were just right for us. It was a free upgrade to the ticket level on a long haul flight. It was cool, Dasha and I could not contain our emotions of joy. We literally screamed and jumped on the way to the plane. Fly all day, 9.5 hours in premium class!

Before takeoff, they poured juice to warm up the appetite, but after takeoff, a gastronomic paradise began.

The stewardess laid a tablecloth on our tables and delighted us with masterpieces of culinary art in the truest sense of the word. During the flight we were fed twice. I especially remember the baked salmon with some delicious sauce there. The beginning of the journey is just fabulous. On the tablet, we had the anime “Psycho-Pass” downloaded. After watching the first episode, we realized that this anime would be our travel companion.

Arrived, in Beijing now one in the morning. They took all the things from the plane, not forgetting to take the jacket from the shelf. Went to control. Upon arrival, all tourists must pass biometrics, fingerprints are associated with passport data, this is done using special machines. Moreover, the machines really did not want to accept foreign fingerprints.

On the way to the officer, I noticed that my jacket was tied to a backpack, but then what am I carrying in my right hand? It turned out to be an airplane blanket. Yes, a long flight apparently put a lot of pressure on the head.

The first difficulties awaited us at the currency exchange. There was an exchange with a commission of $ 9 per exchange. There was a very capricious ATM, which, after much persuasion, agreed only to show the amount, but not to give out money. A little more searching and with a bank commission of about two percent, we still withdrew money from another ATM. Now I know that it was necessary with a commission of $ 9 to simply change amounts higher than a commission of 2%. As it turned out in China, there is a very small chance that from the exchanged money of the first day, at least something will remain on the way back. Giving fingerprints and looking for an ATM was just a warm-up for the real China. And now finally in the city!

Dive in!

Since we arrived in the middle of the night, we could not count on the bus. At the exit from the airport it was necessary to stand for 20 minutes in line for a taxi. So far, everything seems to be civil and clear. True, the driver cannot figure out where to go, and they don’t pick up the phone at the hotel. It's strange, it's not even two o'clock in the morning, for Asia this is not the time at all. Moreover, our hotel is aware of the arrival time and yesterday confirmed that it would receive us in the middle of the night. Okay, let's go. The main thing is that it matches with the GPS tag. Hey, what's up with the GPS? Why do we not drive along the highway, but break through the buildings. Hmm… Okay. We'll figure something out at the hotel. I noticed that the coordinates did not match the address in Kyiv, but the booking support assured that everything would be fine. But it was clear from the driver's face that something had gone wrong. His face was staring at a metal fence that obviously shouldn't be there. In a booth near the fence, a guard was sleeping in a booth.

Geolocation was so bad that it also had to say goodbye and turn it off. 4 in the morning, you need to check in at least somewhere! Found a building under lock and key, maybe some kind of hotel. But no matter how many rammed, no one let us in. The funny fact is that this building, as we later found out, turned out to be our hotel. We also found a building that looked like a hotel without windows and doors. Or rather, the door was, but closed so that without tools and removal from the hinges you definitely can’t open it. With grief on the floor, we ended up in some hotel. There, a sleepy Chinese said that there were no places. But there is internet with skype. I contacted my mother, I was lucky that there was real money on Skype. Mom contacted booking and reported the problem. But in this situation, booking was able to advise looking for another hotel. Okay, back from China, we will deal with booking, who and what, who will have to. Through the Internet, we saw many hotels in the area and all are busy. The search for the hotel lasted until five in the morning.

The scenario is the same every time. A sleepy Chinese at the reception can't check in, which happens at all, and then says there are no seats. Along with the geolocation system, the offline Google translator also died. Fortunately, I still had Microsoft installed. As a result, at 5 am I had to spend the night in such a luxurious and expensive hotel that its number of stars would not fit in this story. At the reception with a Chinese woman, we tried to explain ourselves for so long that she began to speak Russian words. There is also a theory that a long flight and all the difficulties of finding a hotel in the early morning put the brain into a special mode in which we began to perceive Chinese as Russian. When we went to bed it was already light.

The first thing we decided after getting up was an urgent search for a cheaper hotel for the second night. Through booking found a much cheaper hotel, booked. There was a skyscraper at his address.

But if you deal with the floor and the doors, you can get into a small office in which four Chinese are intensively writing something on computers. The guys looked at me with interest. They were bursting with curiosity why I came to them in an underground office without signs. I showed the Chinese a set of characters and the phone number of the hotel. The guy called the number and said that the hotel is nearby, but the hotel does not have a license to receive tourists from outside China. AAAA!! ! What is a hotel trip? The fact that we did not move into the first hotel at night caused severe damage along our route. But an unsuccessful attempt to check into a second hotel almost completely ruined all plans for Beijing. While Dasha was sitting with things on the ground floor, I was getting out of the labyrinths of the skyscraper. There was just an explosion of thoughts in my head. Something had to be done somehow. The place where I left Dasha also turned out to be the reception of one of the hotels.

And they even had a free room at an adequate price, and the metro was a minute away. Fine! We must immediately book here the last night of our trip. It was very difficult to explain this even through an interpreter. There was also a problem with the difference in date formats. But we overcame everything, double-checked our records about what time and when we would call on them. After that, they successfully forgot about the reservation and is it worth saying that on the last night in Beijing we were again in for a surprise with the settlement? Although there will be so many more of these surprises that the last night is definitely not a problem. So, we have all Google services banned, the Internet banned for us in public places, a non-working Google map and, of course, the Google market. That is, installing anything additionally will not work. Fortunately, MAPS. ME, having identified us in China, happily offered to pull all the maps offline and was able to calibrate the GPS tag against the maps.

I really don't like advertising and never support it, all thanks to mapsme are really thanks to Dasha and me for saving the trip.

Food

Right next to the hotel, a restaurant of a fairly decent appearance was waiting for us. Of all the food in Asia, I have always avoided Chinese cuisine, for some reason, all attempts to taste this cuisine in other countries were not the most successful for me. But now you either like the food, or you have to eat it anyway. Armed with reusable community sticks, we make the first test. O universe!! ! This is amazing! How can there be so many good tastes in the first bite? Until recently, we had problems with checking into a hotel, and what problems can there be in a country with such tasty and cheap food. And the portion sizes can compete with our Carpathians. How delicious! What if it's just a good restaurant caught?

Suddenly it won't be the same? But no, it got better and better. It was always a joy to eat. And even century-old testicles rule! True, in a week a vegetarian city awaits us, where we will land a little on the ground from taste joys. But that will not be soon, and we do not even suspect about it. O universe! Oh Chinese food! Oh sharp, oh very sharp! OOO! But it happens, but it's very tasty! The variety of dishes is enormous. It's good that we have two whole weeks to try everything here. If on previous trips we honed our wand skills to virtuosity, then on this trip we were masters of wands. Absolutely any type of food, even roasted peanuts or slippery rice is no problem. For this, we received approving glances from the Chinese. I think that some were disappointed, because it could have been such a show if we had taken the chopsticks for the first time.

In China, eating is like a breather from an endless stream of tasks.

Walk around Beijing

The first point of the route was the Temple of Heaven. We went down to the subway. We saw a diagram of a pile of branches. We received a portable scheme in native Chinese. We received the second scheme in English with a font size close to zero. It was not easy to communicate with the cashier. As a result, we went even further from the temple than we were originally. The second time I did not want to return to the subway. Transfers between branches are made at such a distance that you pass at least a station on foot until you change from branch to branch. And there are many branches. You also had to keep a close eye on it, since not all intersecting stations are interchanges. More precisely, one was not a transfer, but in a very convenient place for transfers.

Let's walk to the temple, and at the same time get to know Beijing better. We started our acquaintance with a confectionery, and continued with a large and heavy pineapple, which we ate for an hour and a half. It was a big fruit market. We were passing by while peeling a fresh pineapple and couldn't resist. In general, they have a tight time with confectionery, but everything is super with pineapples. The main problem of the confectionery is where there could be condensed milk - red bean jam. From the metro station, where we were told to get off, it took several hours to walk to the temple, as it turned out. It is good that all the stories with the settlement left us such a generous period of time that we will even have time to get to the territory of the temple before closing. The temple complex is large, the temples themselves, to be honest, are rather weak. But the park area on the territory is what you expect from Asian beauties. I would call this park serenity.

Finally, there is no need to rush anywhere, just wander around, relax and absorb everything around you. The Chinese also received relaxation, one woman sang loudly into a portable voice recorder. This is a fairly common entertainment among the Chinese - to sing a song. This park serves as a kind of anti-stress. Seriously, if there are nerves everywhere and everything is enough - immediately take tickets to China and fly straight to the park of the temple of heaven.

Believe the reader, nerves are more expensive! We left the park reloaded.

Double two! Let's pretend that there were no nightly difficulties and continue the journey. At the entrance to the park, the city canal stretched. Along the canal are simply masterpieces of flowers and trees. It can be seen that in the flower beds they worked separately on each flower. The canal is infinitely long and flowerbeds with paths too. We need to get to the central pedestrian street of Beijing.

It's best to take the bus. And here is the schedule with a list of stops. Sometimes one hieroglyph, sometimes three. That's all we figured out from the timetable. But a man with participation connected to the search for our stop "Tianmen". By the way, it sounds like two hieroglyphs. The peasant gestured to follow him, and the three of us set off. We went somewhere very far away on a hike. Since the language barrier was complete, we walked in thoughtful silence. It's good to have something to keep quiet about! The man really made an attempt to discuss with us the important parts of the walk in Chinese, but we didn’t know a single word other than the words “Tianmen” and “Komutoherovato”. Our trip ended at one of the stops, where the Chinese handed us over to the bus conductor. Let's go. To be honest, on the map the walking street was marked in a completely different place and in a different part of the city. But out of the corner of our eye in one of the turns we saw something touristy and beautiful.

Luckily, that was the street. A very important reference point for finding the street is ???? ? . We got off the bus and walked to the beginning of the street. A very old tram was waiting for us there, which immediately left right along the pedestrian street. The conductor called us so that we could make it. Without hesitation, we jumped into the retro tram and set off on a journey. One of the main attractions of the retro tram was ourselves. Passing-by Chinese were doubly happy to see both the tram and us at the same time.

The end of the tram was on the other side of the walking street. Now let's walk across the street. Crossing the street and leaving it before night is as difficult a task as checking into a hotel in China the first time. It has everything from street food and street food shops, museums dedicated to identity and food, and lots and lots of bronze statues.

Each composition of the statues reflected a fragment of the life of the ancient Chinese. Particularly well emphasized fragments associated with street food. In addition to food, there were many shops and a large covered bazaar. In one of the shops I had a twelve-year-old admirer. The boy was so impressed with my size of the nose and belly that he didn't leave us for 10 minutes. I even had to let him touch his nose, so that he was convinced of its authenticity.

Not this boy

It seems to me that the guy was sure that the nose would be false. We had other plans for the day in the city. But to be honest, when you get to this street and start wandering along the adjacent streets, you get an endless dose of pleasure. What else do you need from the Asian capital. No other attractions in the city could be better.

We are in China!

This phrase was filled with sincerity and joy. From the first night it was clear how difficult the route would be ahead. But if we continue to come across such parks and such streets, then what could be more beautiful on this trip. Among the thousands of cafes, we chose the most similar to a restaurant for locals. Moreover, the waiter took us on an elevator even deeper into the building to an even more Chinese-style restaurant. To be honest, the restaurant looked creepy. There was such a rumble from the kitchen that it seemed that there were hundreds of Chinese assembling equipment. We had some doubts whether we were ready for such a deep dive on the first day. Oh well, bring what is in the oven!

Dasha had rice with egg and tomato filling. I had rice with more ingredients than the stars in an expensive night hotel. How cool that we will be eating such yummy for almost two weeks!

Not a single Chinese restaurant abroad will even come close to preparing what is served here in local restaurants. In Kyiv, after a trip, we specially went to the Beijing restaurant and once again we were convinced that these cuisines cannot even be compared in terms of prices or taste. If I'm not mistaken, two large dishes and a bottle of 0.5 beer in a restaurant in the center of Beijing cost us 42 yuan ($6.5). And then, we obviously got excited by ordering two dishes. You could easily eat alone. How I love this word - the trip received the status of “Gastronomic! ” on the first day. But in principle, such a status on the first day should receive such trips.

The Great Wall of China

I do not know how tourists used to get to the Great Wall of China, but the story of one blogger helped us a lot. The guy devoted a whole trip to describing his routes in detail, accurate to stations and photos.

We saved web pages offline on the tablet and phone in advance. The speed of development of the Chinese subway is pleasantly amazing. The story, written a couple of years ago, referred to the terminal stations of the branches, which were already far from terminal. Before getting on the country bus, we had a good meal. The speed of service at the food court was so lightning fast that Dasha was given all her dishes faster than the cashier counted out the change. I could once again describe another delicious meal consisting of jelly thick soup, 9 bao patties, a large bowl of meat soup, a wheat drink, oily flatbread, etc. but you can’t pay so much attention to food.

Even though it's so delicious. I should probably publish a separate book “About how Dasha and I ate deliciously in China”.

It seems to me that the book will be no smaller than this story) We drove far beyond Beijing. The wall is very long and has different vantage points in different parts of the city and country. We chose a site in Mutianyu for inspection. On the bus, I helped one girl deal with money, she turned out to be a Ukrainian who knows Chinese. At one point, the bus stopped and a Chinese told us that we had to transfer to a taxi. In principle, we already knew that we would need a taxi at the end. The driver insisted that we get out now. But since there was a Chinese-speaking girl in our team, the likelihood of scams was greatly reduced. A girl from Georgia and a Mexican Mario also came out with us. The taxi driver tried to break the price, but did not expect a response in Chinese. As a result, we went to the wall much cheaper than we should have based on the story.

During the trip, we began to synchronize routes with each other, who had already been where and what to see. The girl looked at me carefully and asked if I was the same blogger who wrote a story about Hong Kong on the Internet? I got recognized again! Before going to China, she read about Dasha and me a story about Hong Kong in order to draw up a route for herself. It was unexpected and joyful!

On the spot, we bought entrance tickets and drove by bus to the rise to the Great Wall of China. You could go up on foot or by cable car. The cable car was the coolest type, this is when the bench from which the legs hang down. And yes, we are on the Great Wall of China!! ! She really is as beautiful as she is described. The uniqueness and strangeness of this attraction is that it is impossible to go through it all. It stretches for hundreds of kilometers. You just need to measure the distance you want to walk with your eye.

Our new Mexican friend Mario chose the hike instead of the cable car. We crossed paths at the top and walked along the wall exchanging the cultural experience of the two countries.

He asked Dasha to take a photo against the wall on his iPhone X. As soon as Dasha picked it up, the phone jumped up like soap and then rushed to the stone wall. From the outside, it looked as if Dasha decided to show the Mexican an expensive one-time trick with juggling an expensive iPhone. Fortunately, Dasha still managed to tame the beast and the iPhone was not damaged. We had a picnic right on the wall. The guy treated us to Mexican marzipan, and we treated him to Chinese bao pies. The descent from the wall was no less chic than the wall itself. It was a long and fast bobsleigh! I saw that many tourists are dumb and pull the brakes so often that they just get stuck on the track.

Dasha and I deliberately got into our sleds for a long time, so that everyone would go far ahead. But half the way I still fit into some Asian. Usually bobsleigh routes are designed in such a way that even without a brake you will not fly off the track, but why pull it so often? But it was fun, the wall is just beautiful in every aspect. Reverse attempts to catch the same cheap taxi were difficult. If you don't know Chinese, you won't make much money. It’s good for the Chinese, only about three girls climbed into the next car in the trunk.

When we were on the bus, we got into such a long Chinese traffic jam that we could discuss the wall for 4 hours. The wall in Beijing ended up taking almost the whole day. And it's time to go to the former capital of Xi'an. We boarded our train and got to the compartment. In the compartment sat a Chinese man with a Chinese woman. When they saw us, they literally beamed with joy.

It was evident that the couple was delighted that foreign tourists were traveling with them in a compartment. But the main trump card was the Chinese mivina, which we began to steam ourselves. It was evident that the Chinese very much approve of our choice. They even helped her to steam it according to all the rules. The conductor came into our compartment and told us in Chinese the safety rules and what to do in case of problems (we think that this was about it). She mainly said this to a Chinese couple, but at the end she gestured at us saying, “And please don’t forget to take these two during the evacuation. ” It was just joyful that we were traveling in a Chinese train with the Chinese in the same compartment. I noticed that all passengers walk in slippers. We started looking for our slippers, they were hidden under the shelf. Sealed and very wet, straight with soap suds. Well, we will be without slippers, what are we. But the girl ran to the conductor and brought us two pairs of dry slippers. What cuties they are.

Too bad the guy didn't snore as sweetly at night. I even had a strong desire to learn the translation of the Chinese phrase “Could you please turn on your side? ” But the guy seemed to read my mind, and turned to snore on his side.

Hurrah! We're going deep into China!

Xi'an

There is no happier story in the world than the story of the Timchenkos and Sian! Traveling around the most beautiful city began with the arrival at the central railway station. The map, of course, hinted to us that there was a subway nearby. But who is looking at the map? At first we took the bus in the wrong direction, and then we took a taxi. The taxi driver dropped us off halfway and said that we would go on with our legs!

Well, ok, apparently it’s not good to bring foreigners to the address. Mapsmi led us through the wildest slums and ruins.

It felt like we were in China after another Mongol raid. The hotel was relatively comfortable. But the towel that they gave us looked like the whole company of the Mongols wiped themselves with it after the raid. We were quickly replaced with a towel and detailed on the map what to see and where to go. Xian has one nice feature - you can go anywhere and it will be beautiful everywhere, especially in the evening.

The main thing is not along that single abandoned street with the Mongols. We lived in the very heart of the old city, we didn’t drive cars in this part. Only electric mopeds and tuk tuks. The streets of the old city immerse the tourist in the world of real magic. Each street is a set of stalls and restaurants. Products are on sale. But what these products are and what they are used for is known only to the supreme druids and magicians.

It felt like I was Harry Potter for the first time, walking down Diagon Alley in search of the first bowler hat and wand. Large blue eggs in some kind of sticky hay, steaming drinks, any organs of unknown animals, in large frying pans everything boiled and blazed over powerful fountains of fire. Hundreds of Chinese signs. And the most interesting thing is that everyone walks as if this is a common thing, and not magical rituals.

Everything is very Asian. We were enveloped in a thick wave of positive and joy. Are we in paradise? We rejoiced, not even knowing how beautiful the city would be at night and what beauties the modern part of the city had prepared for us. In China, you must try Xi'an dumplings! So we started a meal with them in one of the local eateries.

I think we were among the first non-Chinese visitors there.

Xian dumplings are most often served in the form of soup, we also took a huge portion of steamed dumplings and onion cake. I rejoiced like a child. This breakfast made me fall in love with Xi'an. Portions we barely mastered. For greater confidence, more hot sauce, so to speak, a control for disinfection. The hostess was very proud that we chose her restaurant. When we said goodbye, it was clear that this was not our last meeting with her.

We decided to pull off one important banking operation. There are many banks, but only the central one can perform such an important task. Among the branches of the central one, it is necessary to find the branch that has the right to perform such a complex operation. In the department itself, you need to take a number and sit in a small queue for up to an hour. Then the most interesting part is the process. Our turn came, and we went to the window. The cashier sat opposite.

Filling out the questionnaire and rewriting it into the database began. Then to another base, and then to a third. Passport scan, passport photocopy. And two more times a scan of the passport in two other forms. From our side of the window, it felt like we were playing poker against the dealer. Our croupier with a poker face was sitting and trying to translate the name of our Ukrainian street into Chinese. The girl was obviously trying, but sometimes a slight despair was read on her face, apparently, the club did not want to go to the peak. Soon two more managers joined her. Together they filled out a number of other forms. Then came the procedure for exchanging many signatures on different forms. It was evident that all five of us were very focused on a positive result in such an important and complex procedure. After some 40 minutes, three managers did exchange dollars for yuan for us! We are winners!

Photo from Tang Paradise

The longer this whole procedure lasted, the more money we decided to change. I didn't really want to go through this again. In China, there is one difficulty, money runs out at a high speed. Even when it seems that you have withdrawn a lot of money from an ATM, after a couple of days you have to urgently look for another one. So we decided to avoid commissions and change money at the bank. But now we have changed with a margin. How would they not have to change back later. As a result, the exchanged money was enough for us as much as 3 days!

In the center of the city, two towers were waiting for us - the bell tower and the drum tower. The drum tower contained many drums of various sizes, and there was also a Chinese concert. In the beginning, one Chinese woman sat and played about one note per second. It was a little strange, but everyone sat silently and watched. There was no particular connection between the notes. According to the schedule, there are still 15 minutes before the concert, but they go often.

It is possible that this is the previous one. At one point, the Chinese woman left and musicians came out playing interesting music on marvelous instruments.

One of the Chinese women beat various bells with a hammer. Immediately after the concert, I threw my head into the ceiling with such force that the Chinese women could not contain the emotions of laughter and horror. In general, I also introduced a certain bell harmony. The towers offer excellent panoramas of the business center. Between the towers there is a park and a square. Many Chinese women often have a disgruntled bear and a yellow duck on their clothes.

On the square, the girl was just selling balloons with such a duck. But the only way to pay was by reading the QR code. Physical money is powerless here. The girl gave Dasha a balloon just like that. What a joy it is when people share their positive mood. Such moments always warm the soul.

The sun, green flower beds, blue sky and Dasha with a balloon - an idyll! Suddenly it was time for lunch. What has the old capital of China prepared for us this time? This time we were waiting for a roast of bacon, seaweed.

Pickled Chinese mushrooms, star-shaped rice, cherry tomato, century-old egg, iced tea brewed on flowers, a portion of noodles with walnut-meat sauce, lots of greens and peanuts. I have already admired Asian cuisine in many stories, but it seems to me that China has beaten most of the records here. Of course, not in reproach to the Vietnamese soup “pho bo”, for it we always have a place of honor in the stomach. In view of the lack of bread, here you can knead larger portions without fear of getting better. Now our path lay to the old wild goose pagoda!

Maps treacherously showed us only one metro line in the city.

We just wandered from one street to another and had a lot of fun. Here we officially saw the most beautiful Starbucks.

By the way, while traveling in China, we saw the largest number of them than in all previous trips. In China, coffee in a cafe is very expensive, about 30 yuan ($4.6). Prices at Starbucks are not much different from other restaurants.

Tang Paradise

The Chinese are there in droves. It often happens that Starbucks are immediately two opposite each other. We thought that the pagoda ended our program around the city, but it was only gaining momentum. The streets led us to the entrance to the Tang Paradise park. The entrance was paid for 90 yuan ($14). We went to see what was behind the gates. And behind the gates, one of the most beautiful creations of mankind was waiting for us. Why is the park not included in the list of wonders of the world?

The park has two images - day and night.

It's like two different parks. We've come at a good time. It was about 18:00. The main part of the park is occupied by a wide lake. There are dozens of temples, Chinese corridors, alleys and other beauties around the lake. It all starts with a large and powerful artificial waterfall. And then that feeling when you want to photograph everything and everywhere.

Despite the fact that we have 5 hours left before closing, we will not have enough time to see everything in full. It was impossible to see enough of the beauty of the park. Here, as if designers were working on every meter. Lots of trails and signs. You choose the first trail in the hope of returning and seeing the second. Then you get to the next branching and so on ad infinitum. We had a real photo session in the park.

Dasha in national dress made half the park happy.

The Chinese were already happy to take pictures with us, and now they generally follow us with phones. We also climbed to the top of the Chinese castle and saw off the last rays of the Chinese sun.

When it seemed that there was nowhere more beautiful, the backlight began to turn on in the park. Now I had to go around everything again and see how it glows. We seemed to have returned to the unusual Singaporean gardens. Only from Singapore we expected this, and here the wow effect was added precisely by surprise.

Why do we only have three days for this city and its environs? At night, people met quite rarely. All these paths, lanterns and arches were ours. We started walking towards the exit. The park did not want to let us go, we re-entered the places that we had already passed, although we were sure that we were going straight. Soothing music blared from speakers disguised as stones.

The lanterns in the trees seemed to be trying to persuade us to stay. But it's already around ten in the evening, and we haven't had dinner yet. In total, it took us about an hour to get out of the park. Then we feasted in one of the restaurants in the old town. For dinner we had one of our favorite Chinese dishes rice with fried tomatoes and scrambled eggs. It sounds simple, but how tasty they cook it.

Mount Huashan

"Ladies and gentlemen, this is the ship's captain, we are ready to enter subspace, please prepare for hyperjump. " Unfortunately, the train driver did not say this phrase, but it was very lacking. The morning train began its acceleration. At a speed of 300 km per hour, in just half an hour we reached the desired city, whose name we could not guess in any way, in order to buy the right tickets.

Unfortunately, the name of the city, translated from Chinese into other languages, has nothing to do with the correct pronunciation. Then take a taxi to another city, where the cable car begins. The route, fortunately, is well established. All taxi drivers know very well where all tourists should go. Didn't really have to explain. Impressive distances for possible queues with endless snakes. But now it's all empty! There are no queues that could drag on for hours! What is the secret of success? Just three points:

• These were weekdays after the Chinese May holidays.

• We started our routes very early.

• We are very lucky

A long ascent into the mountains in a private trailer began. Some Chinese, of course, wanted to climb up to us, but I showed him with a gesture that in 20 seconds he could get into his personal one.

At first it was just beautiful and high, then very beautiful and very high, and then the views over the “endless” heights opened up with breathtaking beauty. We have never been so high on the same cable car. So that we could more enjoy the beauty of the mountains, the cable car stopped.

The trailer swayed over kilometers of height. According to the dynamics, they asked not to worry and promised to fix everything. And the trailer swayed and swayed… silence. Anxious silence. It seems nothing critical, but somehow disturbing. What will happen to us on the Chinese “Death Trail”? However, we will find out today. The road restored traffic, and we reached the peaks. The fresh mountain air embraced us. Where to go? So many trails, so many signs...Okay, let's go where the least Chinese go. We started to climb up. The paths closed, and we are again with the Chinese.

You can't really go against the system here.

Walking along route trails comes down to visiting various mountain peaks. Moreover, the heights of these peaks are very, very large. The views down are breathtaking. We have been many times in the mountains, but this is different. Here it is clearly clear that these are unusual mountains. They are kind of striped. There is something Chinese about them that has never been seen before. Coniferous trees often grow right above the cliff.

There are hundreds of red wish ribbons on the trees. The trails to the top are quite steep. It is very beautiful to watch from one peak how people climb to another. The climbs themselves are relatively short, the cable car has already done the main route for us. Somewhere far away the mountains end and flat fields begin. The fields look as far away as from an airplane window.

In our travel history, it is Mount Huashan that now pops up at the word China. This is now our calling card. On the way, we came across stones with huge red hieroglyphs, sheer cliffs for photo shoots.

Still need to take a couple of photos. The Chinese, of course, throw insurance on you, but such insurance can only save a light and small Chinese, not a brave foreigner. Dasha and I were also integral exhibits in the mountains. The number of photo shoots with us beat records. One of the photo shoots was quite professional. The Chinese woman showed Dasha exactly what positions to stand in. And another Chinese woman, seeing me, put down her sword and called me to the pictures. The rocks with hieroglyphs were runes, it is interesting what was written there, that even with a sword they were photographed against their background.

Even in the mountains, I saw toilets with the most incredible views. Right from the toilet you look into the distance, at the beautiful peaks of the mountains. As I said, the Chinese are very partial to my nose. This means that the nose here must be kept in shape and smeared with a cream from combustion. When I started to smear my nose, the Chinese women burst into laughter. They did not expect such a nose trick. Now my nose is protected and can continue to please more and more new cities. From peak to peak, we approached a place that I did not know that we would ever get to - the Path of Death!

Death Path in the Huashan Mountains

There were a lot of people who wanted to walk the trail. Asians are generally quite leisurely people. And on the trail they are not in a hurry at all. Now you have to sacrifice half of the routes in the mountains and stand in line. During our trips, we have never stood in long queues.

We try to avoid such places, due to this we visit many others. But now it will be the first time. You have to wait 3 hours! On the other hand, we have three whole hours to finally decide that we want to go there. From the side, only a small part of the road was visible. No other feelings, except for tearing horror did not surface. Could this even be legal? Who could come up with such a thing? Not far from us was a hefty bell. From time to time the Chinese beat him, the sounds carried over the mountain heights. There is a Chinese gazebo in the distance on a cliff.

We stand and wait in line, contemplating the choice. One of the Chinese dropped the wrapper, which began to gracefully fly down. It seems to be just a wrapper, but how much fear it caused in everyone standing in the crowd. The thought of how you can fly down swept through every cell of the body. It was clear that everyone was excited.

Here we are already being hooked with insurance with two carbines. Judging by the design, the insurance can only hold two hands and a head, but not to slip out of it is everyone's business. First you need to go down to a cliff of 20 meters. On metal bars.

The bars are placed very steeply. Feet slide over them. Further we go along the hollow in the mountain. True, the hollow is designed for the Chinese leg. My heels hung a little over the cliff. But on the other hand, the whole body was concentrated in the toes. The main thing is not to forget to unhook and rehook the carbines every few metros. Once I forgot, how I closed to the side, which didn’t seem enough. Kilometers of height go down from a flat cliff. Soon the hollows were replaced by planks. I already seem to have become related to the mountain, why change it to planks, and so I hold on well with my toes. The scary moment was the transition to the first board. But what does scary mean?

On the way back, we were already more daring and the photos started to come out better. They even practiced such a trick as transferring a camera to another Chinese.

We have reached the beginning. Now you need to take out insurance and go through a narrow queue of a hundred Chinese and tourists waiting. We were looked upon as heroes. Many who knew English worriedly asked if it was scary and how much we liked it. The only answer was “Yes! It's worth it, it will be unforgettable. " Now we need to run back - to the first lift, before it's too late. I don't know what we missed next on the trails of the mountain, but what we passed now will be our honorable achievement. It was fantastic.

The way back was a banal bus-taxi-bullet train, and we are back in Xi'an. We feasted on unsurpassed dishes. This time there were many delicious mushrooms in the meat sauces.

. Xian has its own very large Chinese wall that encloses the old city. The wall is so wide that you can ride bicycles on it. If you move away from the main crowd of people and go further along the wall, then there will be lonely Chinese lanterns. When you stand under a flashlight, scenes from famous cartoons begin to emerge in your memory. It's like we're standing at the bus stop with Tottoro waiting for the catbus. Or even we are at the “Bottom of the Swamp” station, waiting for a meeting with a ghost.

Behind the wall begins the modern business center of Xi'an. Luminous skyscrapers are like giants, which the wall does not let into the old city. I wanted to sit down at the edge of the wall and start writing about our trip right there. But we didn't have the laptop or the time. We were filled with many positive emotions. In my head, I already had ideas for blanks for this story.

It would be enough to collect them simply in a heap and the story about Xi'an is ready.

Monorail

Before going to bed, we also visited an unusual park. The park has many rivers and a waterfall. Dasha was sitting on one of the benches, I was lying with my head on Dasha's lap. Above us shone the night sky of a very unusual bright purple color. It cannot be that all this is happening to us on our planet!

We are at the exact minimum on Saturn's rings now. I hope the Chinese realize how beautiful it is here.

Terracotta Army

This attraction is well known to me since childhood. I knew one thing, that the army was somewhere very far away. But now we are going to her in the bus. In fact, it is still a great happiness that we are traveling by bus. Mapsmee once again distinguished himself and led us through the slums before taking us to the bus.

The other two girls took selfies with us in kitty mode. The soldiers of the army, against the background of the mountains and the city they saw, did not cause much enthusiasm. But, I think it is impossible to miss one of the surviving creations of mankind if you have already reached Xi'an. Yes, and a second trip to the mountains would have dealt a significant blow to the budget) And today there is a plane, so you won’t get too far. In general, we are happy, we have already visited a very important part of the difficult route! Rather, in Xi'an, we will still have time to take a walk there. While we were driving to Xi'an, heavy rain was also hurrying there. I needed to get some umbrellas.

Having written “Umbrella” on the tablet, I received in response a hieroglyph very similar to an umbrella.

In the nearest store, we bought two umbrellas for 15 yuan ($2.2 each). A sad cat, sitting on a leash, watched us go.

We walked through the parks and streets, soaking up the last waves of Xian happiness.

Finally, we even walked around the classic Chinese park. The park was with a lake, bridges and stones, everything was as it should be. In general, you can’t spoil a beautiful city even with a downpour! Now we are already driving along a dedicated highway directly to the airport. Avatar Mountains Coming Soon!

Zhangjiajie

We arrived in the middle of a rainy night. A positive feature of many hotels is that they have an airport transfer service. But they always send a letter saying why do you need our expensive transfer. Take a taxi, it will be cheaper, we will write to you now at what price you can definitely bargain. In general, this is a convenient fact when you know the cost with a minimum markup. Taxis throughout the country are supposed to run on meters, but here taxi drivers do not turn off the meter and ride at a fixed price.

Thus, they remain in the black. And tourists are in the red, because according to the counter it would be very cheap. Each new city is a new search for a hotel. Maps won't help. The taxi brought us to the specified address. It turned out to be, probably, the only skyscraper in the whole town. Somewhere there was even a banner with the hieroglyphs of our Ding Ding hotel. How to get into this fortress is a mystery. Cute girls from the night cafe came to our rescue. While one girl called the owner, the second one connected us to the Internet and poured us two glasses of hot water. Five minutes later, a very positive guy came running. They had a nice laugh with the girls. He gave them instructions where to send tourists in the future. Then he took us to the room, which was located in a completely different building. Smiling girls waved to us happily and wished us good luck. In a word, the city received us very warmly. True room was in the style of ultra-minimalism.

But how good-naturedly this guy smiled at us, he definitely needs to be given the “Master of the Year” award. Now we had to determine our further route. The next plane is from Zhangjiajie in four full days. In the vicinity of the city there is a park with Avatar mountains, which is the main goal of the whole trip. The park needs at least two non-rainy days. Rain is clouds, clouds are the risk of fog. According to the forecast, the sundial may not fall soon. This hotel was specially booked with two reservations for different days. Tomorrow it looks like there will be no sun at all, which means there will be no park, which means there is no need for a hotel, let's go further for now. The second day was canceled and now for the next four days we are not tied to hotels at all.

Tianmen Mountain

From a very early morning we headed to the cable car. There was still no one at all, we can go everywhere without queues. But there was one big but.

There is no bus schedule on the Internet to our next city, Fenghuang. We must first find the bus station and find out the timetable. As in all China, finding something and finding out is like getting your photo on the cover of a famous magazine. While Dasha was standing with things, I did an hour-long quest around the city, which almost ended in failure. The map does not know where the bus station is, people seem to be too. Moreover, all communications are only in Chinese. I want to note that on this trip without an interpreter, our trip would have ended at this place by force. Although in previous cities we would not have had time to get to the airport. In fact, there are a lot more stories about how we tried to get somewhere than stories about how we looked at something. But, probably, it is not necessary to describe in colors all the difficulties of getting there, otherwise tourism will drop dramatically.

And China is very beautiful, so you just have to accept the fact that if you want to see some of the best and most inaccessible beauties of the earth, just accept it. There were already darkness of people on the cable car. It's good that a luggage storage service for tourists was provided. The queue passed pretty quickly and we went to the clouds. The idea was potentially a failure, because there will be no views in the clouds.

Behind the glass of the cabin, everything is impenetrably white. Eh, it looks like they flew from one of the attractions. But then the unexpected happened. The cabin left the lower layer of clouds for about five minutes. So beautiful views opened before us that the width of the eyes of the Chinese could not be distinguished from the Europeans. We are like in virtual reality, where an ideally beautiful landscape is modeled. This is officially the most beautiful thing we have ever seen on the cable cars.

Peaks of many mountains, like holding back lakes filled with clouds, high waterfalls, lush greenery. How can such beauty really exist? It is all natural, without human intervention. There were eight of us in the booth, no one hid their emotions, we all rejoiced together. But this coin also has a downside. Then only fog and no panoramas awaited us. If there were no fog, there would be no clouds. National Park on the mountain they say Tianmen is very beautiful. But we will never know this.

Soberly assessed the foggy situation in the park. We need to correct the route. We started descending. At first it was a tunnel of escalators. We drove down for 15 minutes. Then hundreds of steps. Fortunately, also down. There must be a hole in the rock somewhere, against which everyone is photographed.

One Chinese woman gained tolerance and was able to convey to us that we are in the hole right now, and from below it can be beautifully seen. We'll have to look at the hole right inside the hole)))) Going down the stairs, we, fortunately, left the dense layer of the sky and again we are waiting for the beauty of the lower layer.

It was very nice again. But in fact, what was there in the park at the very top, we never found out. An important achievement is a photograph against the background of a hole in the rock. The system works simply - first you are photographed against the background of fog, then the fog layer is erased in Photoshop and a hole in the rock opens. And there were many who wanted to. They could just photoshop themselves at home against the backdrop of a rock) Although the expensive idea of climbing the mountain suffered a partial failure, but that moment on the cable car has no price. We were taken by a minibus along a mountain serpentine to the city.

At some point, they themselves believed that something was their place and dutifully crossed. Now we have about four hours of travel. In all buses in China, seat belts are mandatory and tightly controlled. Almost all the way, the Chinese guide told me something and even gave me tasty treats to taste. Moreover, the practice with guides seems to exist in all intercity buses. When we went to the terracotta army it was the same. Interesting, because the bus is completely ordinary, but at the same time they tell you something interesting. I wanted to sleep wildly. As for evil outside the windows, some beauties were replaced by others. We constantly woke each other up to look at the next interesting thing. And the guide told everything with even greater enthusiasm. She spoke so loudly that she even shouted over Onuku to me in her headphones.

Very soon we will open the world of Avatar

Fenghuang

It seems that so much has already been done today, but only the middle of the day! Nothing, now the search for a hotel will quickly finish off the second half. In China, it is impossible to distinguish a hotel from an ordinary building in most cases. The phrase “Is this a hotel? ” was very popular with our translator. In addition to the hotel, it was necessary to find the bus station from where the buses leave and find out the schedule. There is no harder story in the world than finding a hotel in Fenghuang.

It seems to be even nothing like the numbers, but the holes in the floor instead of the toilets just killed. When asked if there was a room with a large toilet, the Chinese could make big eyes at most. He was surprised that we lacked the size of the hole. The shower, at best, just pours onto the floor, and in the standard case - into the toilet hole, over which you need to somehow wash.

By some miracle, we did move into a type of pretentious hotel with a toilet. The search for a bus station for departing buses took place in two stages - a failed one, and a successful one. But the search for food and a meal, as always, dispelled all difficulties. This time we ate at a Chinese burger joint. Ordered Chinese burgers and rice platter.

As we read in one story, it is not worth going to Fenghuang on purpose. But it seems to us that the author simply did not get to the old city. The modern part of the city is an ordinary city. And only rare banners with a photo of an explicit photoshop indicate directions where to go. Gradually we approached the old city. At first, the old shopping streets began, on which it was really interesting to stare and taste. Loved the herbal jelly in masala chai sauce.

The cult of food here was on top.

From rice cakes in the form of characters, to mini-factories for automatic preparation of jam cakes. Here, a woman sits right with a guy, and in front of them, automatic production is set up right on the table. The streets were only a warm-up for the main beauty. The old city stretched far along the river. What looked like photoshop on the banner was right in front of us. Many houses stand on the water, every 100 meters there are bridges. but not just bridges. Each bridge seems to be trying to surpass the beauty of the previous one.

This city has collected the best moments of the cities of Venice and Porto. Here the people seem to be constantly in celebration. The celebration seems to never end. The length of the city allows you to walk for so long until you run out of strength. At the same time, interesting bridges will continue further and further. And what a street food! And sunset, sunset!

A multi-storey pagoda with curved roofs at each level majestically looks out over the city from the mountain. We urgently need to take a boat ride down the river. Moreover, the price against the background of Venice is very small. The cashier sold the tickets, but advised me to wait until dark. Okie! Not a problem, especially since we don’t mind staying here forever. A girl approached me and asked me to take a group photo with a large group of children 7-9 years old. I gladly agreed and turned to the children. The children, seeing me, began to scream in panic and run around.

I was a little embarrassed, as if I were Gulliver, who was going to devour the midgets. But the desire to take a picture with me still won over the delight-horror!

Night hung over the city. The lighting came on. As if in a Xi'an park, the city took on a completely different look, several times more beautiful than the previous one.

All the pagodas, buildings, restaurants, bridges seemed to compete who glows more beautifully. Even the water rapids glowed. A mini-cruise on a boat creates an atmosphere of complete immersion.

One of the Chinese unrestrainedly sang Chinese tunes. The guy caught our curious look and began to sing in Chinese “Katyusha came ashore”. He sang another clearly Russian song, but we could not recognize it. China just never ceased to amaze us with beautiful cities. It doesn’t fit in my head, how someone could say that you don’t need to purposefully go to the city. Yes, this is one of the mast si in China!

At night, of course, it is not customary to fill up, but this sweet watermelon and my favorite semolina viscous sweets in batter. I don't know what they are called, but the first time we ate them was in Penang, Malaysia. We made an attempt to reach the end of the old city - in vain.

It will simply endlessly generate beautiful houses and bridges.

It was already quite late. Without hind legs, we got into a taxi and went to sleep soundly. Maybe we will dream again how we walk in the old Fenghuan. The last highlight was the very cheap price of a taxi.

We definitely made the right decision in the morning, urgently descend from the mountain and go to the phoenix city of Fenghuang.

Yellow Dragon Cave

From early morning we drove to the city of Wulingyuan. This city is best suited for visiting the legendary Avtarovsky park. We drove for about 5 hours. During a long stop, someone stole a one and a half liter bottle of water from us. Instead, he left a bag with a liter of water and a liter of cola. The bottles weren't opened, so basically we're not complaining.

The closer we got, the worse the weather became, which eventually turned into rain. The mountains were covered with clouds. So it's foggy in the park. We shift the park for tomorrow, and now a taxi to another city, where there is a giant cave. The weather is not a hindrance to the cave.

In front of the cave, we decided to quickly intercept the local street food. We first came across bad food in China. We were shocked and horrified. It was very unexpected! The nearest restaurant quickly corrected the situation. True, it was difficult to choose a restaurant, everywhere it was smoky, like fog in the mountains. Moreover, the owners themselves, who cook, smoked.

The cave was so big that inside we even rode a boat along the underground river. The number of moves and halls here is enough for hours. There is even a 30-meter waterfall that flows among the spacious hall.

The waterfall, of course, is not full-flowing, but the lighting was made for it as if a ray from heaven descends to earth.

The age of the stalactites here was measured in millions of years, especially the old ones had the corresponding tablets. Particularly low growths were tied with red rags to protect against collisions. But I still managed to find one that did not have a rag. I caught him clearly with my forehead. Both the forehead and the stalactite showed unprecedented strength.

Outside, the weather had completely turned into decline - it was pouring downpour. We planned to settle for the night in the park itself, but did not manage to get there before closing time. And we are very lucky. Despite some advice in other stories, as of 2018, settling in the park is either impossible at all, or quite difficult. We strongly advise against doing such a trick.

She grabbed me painfully by the muscle on the other leg. Come on! I demand that Fluegergeheimer be taken out!! ! Before starting the massage, I prepared the word “Stronger, please” in the translator. I had to urgently change it to "Just don't touch that part. " After that, there were a couple more attempts to put pressure on the pain, but we did not give up. After the massage, I was not sure if he helped me before tomorrow's mountains or vice versa.

The town was strictly vegetarian.

Finding a cafe with meat food was not easy. In the end, we went to a restaurant like “All you can eat! ” ” and fried various types of meat for themselves on a personal stove on the table. We met a Russian tourist in the restaurant and synchronized our plans. He has not yet been to the park, but instead of a cave he visited a glass bridge. We excluded the glass bridge from the route, because from the photographs it does not inspire the effect of something unusual.

And what kind of bridge is there after the path of death. Now you need to sleep well - the next two days are the most important.

On the way to the room, a painted zebra followed us. Zebras were on the walls and one of them had strictly Chinese roots, judging by the eyes.

Zhangjiajie National Park

A detailed route with the name of the views and details of getting to the park are described in this story.

About three years ago, Dasha googled that the idea of the flying mountains from the film Avatar was taken from the Chinese park Zhangjiajie. During the editing of the film, the base was removed from the mountains and they turned out to be hanging. We looked at a lot of photos on the Internet. We were very disappointed with the location of the park. It seemed almost inaccessible for tourism. To be honest, I did not believe that I would be here.

The only clue was that 5 years ago we also looked at photos of Peruvian Machu Picchu and did not believe that we would ever get there. We got to Machu Picchu, we will get to the park with an unpronounceable name. Even when we bought tickets to China and set this park as our goal, we could not lay a passable route to it for a long time. It was really a lot of sittings to make the route. It would seem to take a plane and fly straight to the city. But flights across the country are more expensive than a flight from Kyiv to China. And without knowing which low-cost airlines fly where in China, it’s hard to make a route. But now we are here and ready to help everyone in the world to make routes across the vast country. Now we know who, how and where travels / flies.

In this park, you can catch such long lines at the entrance that long flights with budget airlines will seem like a trifle.

So that part of the dream will have to be postponed until better times. It was quite early in the morning. We made the right decision to extend the hotel for a second night and not risk settling inside the park. Within walking distance from us is one of the entrances to the park.

The principle is this - you buy a pass that is valid for four days. Within the park, all minibuses and buses are free. The park has many entrances and lifts. The park itself is at the top of the mountains. You have to take buses from the central station to the entrances. We slipped through the ticket office and the passage to the central station in the first ten. And on the first bus we went on the route. Many went to the park on excursions, and constantly waited for everyone to gather at the guide. What you should not do in this park is to waste time waiting, or even a week is not enough.

The map of the park was made in the old style, all the routes and roads on the map were so obscure that it was impossible to understand how they were connected at all. True, we got used to the map over time. Here we were again rescued by mapsmee, who for some reason knew the paths of the park well. From the bus, we transferred to a mini-train, which took us deep into the mountains. We were the first on the route, as we chose it for the ascent. Panoramas were promised along the route, but they are worthless against the background of what awaits us at the very top. The ascent was difficult and already lasted more than an hour. It was necessary to choose a route with a cable car or an elevator, and leave this one on the descent. When it seemed that there was nowhere harder, the situation took an unexpected turn. Something hit me hard on the bag of food. In some seconds, a logical chain of thoughts flashed through my head, ending with a flash in the memory called “Greetings from India”.

I know she looks much smaller in the photo

I grabbed the package as tightly as possible, I start shouting to Dasha about the monkey attack. I turn around, the monkey is half my height and is not going to retreat. Attempts to scare her off only made the situation worse. The monkey showed by its appearance that it was preparing for an attack. We moved away about five meters. I grabbed a stone from the ground, threatened the beast that I would throw it. But the animal seemed to calculate the possible trajectory. I threw a stone at the monkey, she deftly dodged and the chase began. The remaining one and a half kilometers up the stairs we overcame in some minutes, and even with heavy cobblestones in our hands. There was no one on the route except us, the monkey did not retreat. Mapsme treacherously let us down, and we ended up on a beautiful and very high viewpoint with a single entrance.

While the monkey and I threatened each other, making diametrically opposite maneuvers, Dasha tried to find a path with a descent, but everywhere there were cliffs down. Giving food to the monkey is also not an option, then it will definitely not be left behind.

Having described a couple of semicircles, we were able to break through to the entrance. I launched another boulder, and this beast jumped up the tree right above me. Luckily, I didn't have the courage to jump on me. Now we were running down the stairs. Chinese, living Chinese! We ran up to the park worker with a big broom in her hands. I showed her that a monkey was after us. The short girl lifted her head at me and looked cross-eyed. Silently looked at me, I became even more afraid of her look. The girl looked into the distance and saw an approaching monkey. The Chinese woman stepped aside, like a real journalist who would not interfere in the disassembly among the wild fauna.

She probably just thought that the brown monkey decided to attack the two white ones. The sprint continued. The next was a more adequate Chinese worker. He was able to swing the broom.

But the monkey ran along another path, to the intersection to our continuation of the route. We had to quickly run until she was at the fork ahead of us. We ran through the fork. Trees rustled somewhere. The monkey has gone astray. We need to get away urgently. A Chinese tourist walked towards us. I tried to explain to him what awaits him next, but he silently continued on his way. How much does a monkey need to eat Chinese to leave us alone. Luckily for us, either the beast lost track or actually switched to that Chinese. When we were sure that we were safe, we just sat down and moved away from how we can quickly run with heavy stones uphill. For some time it was scary to let go of the stones.

This rock was separated only a couple of meters from the mainland. The transition is made of metal grating. Looking down you can see a giant crack. While we were admiring the beauty, a beautiful butterfly sat down at the foot. The butterfly moved closer and closer to my big toe.

I started taking pictures of her closer and closer. When the butterfly came close to the finger, a long and frightening-looking proboscis began to stretch from its mouth. Dasha screamed in horror, the picture was really dumb. Well, in this park, all living creatures are so indifferent to us. Butterfly offendedly flew away. We continued to build a route along unpopular paths among the Chinese. There were even overgrown reviews. But the most unusual thing we saw during this trip is McDonald's in the mountains!

How did he even get here?

Among the hundreds of stalls with street food, the only McDonald's restaurant made its way. True, the toilet did not work in it, there was no water in the washbasin. We have been in China for a long time, and the reboot from Chinese food was just right. It was a delicious double cheeseburger and latte. Dasha did not deviate from Chinese delicacies and ordered rice with meat in poppy??? ? . On the minibus we moved to the far part of the park.

Here even Chinese tourists appeared again. Time flew by quickly, it seems only recently it was 06:45, and already 16:00. The park will close soon. You need to get to the exit-descent within an hour. But the maps show us that we can try and watch one more of the main reviews “One step to the Haven”. Just a mile and a half up the stairs. What happens if we don't get out in time?

In this case, there is a bus service phone that can be called from a Chinese phone. The option was gone. All logic showed that you should not do this, you might not have time to get out. Moreover, the map can also give an error and lead the wrong way. Yes, and on the route we are already about nine hours. But, on the other hand, we will significantly simplify tomorrow's route for ourselves, in general, go ahead! It's good that the morning monkey taught us how to run in the mountains. We were obviously not moving as fast as the GPS tracker on the maps required in order to invest in the predicted time. But we knew that the review was one of the best, one blogger wrote about it. Along the way, we met workers who were closing shops and moving in the opposite direction. When we got there, we realized why we worked so hard. It was not an ordinary survey of the mountains-columns.

There were endless distances, at a very high altitude.

It was like another park and other mountains. How to make it back, there is clearly less time left than we spent in one direction. The map shows that you can cut through the forest, but there will be a river on the way. The thickness of the river on the map is very small, and there seems to be an implicit path. But why does the map not agree to lay a route through the path? But what are we, either pan or gone. Halfway down the road, we turned down the path into the woods. Immediately they caught a sign that in the evening or in the snow, you can’t walk along this path. There was no time to think, go ahead. Maybe even swim now. Fortunately for us, the thickness of the river turned out to be 10 centimeters. It's eased up.

We crossed the river and got onto the road! The same extremals have already accumulated here, waiting for the bus. There were many buses, one even had a driver. But he was not in a hurry, it was necessary that everyone climbed out of the mountains for sure.

We read that someone stood in line for this elevator for 3 hours. This is given that there are three elevators and each lifts 60 people at a time. This time we are the first on the very top of the mountains.

View from the elevator

There was no one at all on the most popular reviews! It was probably the most beautiful and joyful for two days. Really yesterday's evening review and the morning one called "Avatar" are the best. Perhaps because there is no one here at all. Just me and Dasha. " And I! "- added the monkeys. At the sight of the monkeys, everything tightened inside. But! These were much smaller and it was clear that they would definitely not risk approaching tourists. Of course, they did not take their eyes off, but they were peaceful monkeys that are here in families. We had some bad luck yesterday with an overgrown hermit. There is a temple on one of the Avatar mountains. To the mountain crossing over the abyss through a natural bridge.

Dasha is there

There is an abyss under the bridge, and somewhere far below the tops of trees stick out. Happy!! ! Beautiful! That's just the camera, starting with Fenhuang, gives small failures. Hold on, it's hard for all of us here) Chinese mountain temples with red ribbons are something very charming. The beauty of the ribbons against the backdrop of green mountains.

There are disks hanging over the abyss that you can hit, add life to this quiet place. Slowly, the Chinese began to catch up and the monkeys finally scored on us. Here in the mountains they cook simply delicious fried dumplings. I ate one portion and immediately ordered the next one.

The food is inexpensive and most Chinese. Unfortunately, not everyone shared the joy of the Chinese meal. We met guys from Russia who have been suffering from hunger in China for the tenth day. Can't find food to their liking.

And the map forcibly does not want to give out exactly where McDonald's hid in the mountains. Fortunately, we were already experienced and put a mark on them in the right place. On this day we walked along the best views of the park. No wonder this place was marked as Avatar.

Here even the bird from Avatar was sitting on the cliff. When I was photographed as a brave rider on a bird, we almost had another fight with a monkey. I decided to try to drive her off the bird by stomping on one wing with my foot. I thought the monkey would jump off the other one. But the monkey made a couple of jumps and stomped on its wing so that I ran from the bird. Well, what did I want. Yet we are only guests here, and the animals have a home.

We spent less than three hours at the top of the park today, and were charged with beauty as if for yesterday all day.

Although last night's "One step to the Haven" will now forever remain in the secret memories of our memory.

There I am: )

There were more routes on the map, but we had seen enough of the peaks. Now it's time to explore the Golden Whip River at the foot of the park. She has repeatedly teased us from above. We went down more than an hour on a serpentine road. At times there were caves and tall but narrow waterfalls. We could not even always see exactly where the water flies. There were street food cafes on the route, which were clearly not in demand. Either you had breakfast at the hotel or you ate upstairs. But then one cafe still managed to hook me. The guy shouted “Coffee 5 yuan! ” ” Coffee for 20 hryvnia in China? I was already beginning to believe a little that coffee is a very rare fossil that simply does not exist for less than $5. And here for $0.8. The seller of this cafe is clearly a certified marketer.

Now they also received a charge of vivacity from coffee.

Golden Whip River

Below us was waiting for a picturesque route along the river at the foot of the Avatar mountains. Very green, very fishy, very turquoise!! ! To the desired exit from the park 3 km in one direction, to the end of the route 3 km in the other direction. Hmm, so we go first 3 km to the end, and then 6 back! It was the most wonderful decision. Even the monkeys are very cute here. Here they walk with their families with their little monkeys.

Sunny bunnies gently shine in everyone's eyes. This route is like a cleansing of the body from all the difficulties that we experienced every day during the trip. On this river, all tourists take a popular photo against the background of the three Avatar mountains. Our camera gathered all its strength, took the last photo with difficulty and glued the fins together. You have to give credit to the camera.

He is well done that he did not glue his flippers while we were at the tops, otherwise we would have had to dispel his ashes from the mountains from such a sharp desperation. Attempts to bring the camera to life were unsuccessful. Starting from Fenghuang, he seemed to be trying to warn us. When we photographed the beauties there, he nodded in different directions at times. As if telling us: "No, leave me here. "

He actually nodded, apparently lost control of the stabilizer, and the lens physically moved inside the case left and right. Now it is clear that in the morning the crack in the lens did not seem to me. In general, the camera, your journey is over. Just make it to the service center. Then we took pictures with a mobile phone. After passing the first three kilometers, a surprise awaited us. Another lift, but it does not lead to the park. We had surveys in our records that we never found in the park. Looks like they're all there.

Also marked “Must see! ” ". Everything was complicated by the fact that today the plane was from another city, and we didn’t even have a 9-kilometer route in our plans. We still had a very illusory hope to repeat the attempt to climb Mount Thyme into the sky, and see a hole in the rock. But it was so out of the question of time ...

Better a golden whip in hand than a mountain of thyme in the sky! But now also this mountain with a lift. Eh, planes fly every day, and this is the only chance to see what the cable car hides. Go! Must see views turned out to be not so mast. In any case, after hundreds of seen rocks, these rocks were not particularly different. But there is one plus, now we have probably looked at all the main reviews. Mission Complete! You can walk down the mountain back to Whiplash. Mapsmee warned us that the descent would take more than one hour. Eh, we don’t have time, where is our cable car down.

After returning from the sights, you can send a photo to your relatives by mail in the form of a postcard. The pass to the park is a plastic card on which the entry date and fingerprint are stored.

Let me summarize the park. It is definitely worth visiting such an unusual natural phenomenon. For a leisurely inspection, two days will be just right. If you avoid climbing on foot, you can meet the day. But two more relaxed days are better. In the reserve for bad weather, you need to have about two more days. But if we honestly compare Zhangjiajie Park and Mount Huashan in Xi'an, then Huashan wins. But this is our personal assessment. But, if you have already reached the depths of China, then you need to visit both attractions.

And now to Shanghai!

Shanghai

We left the park tired. But it was necessary to gather all the strength and overcome the route to Shanghai. To achieve the goal, we need four buses and one plane. And we will also need to check into a Chinese hotel at about two in the morning. Our bitter experience told us that we were unlikely to move in. We just had to somehow survive these nine hours of the road. “Concierge” service is connected to my bank card. Here the concierge played clearly. We wrote an email to Kyiv, they from Kyiv, by some miracle, were able to communicate with the Chinese hotel by phone and sent us an answer that the hotel would wait and would not give our room. In front of the airport there were installations in the form of Avatar mountains, five meters high. For those who did not have enough in the mountains) Our low-cost airline still did not want to fly to the airport. We sit and wait. The Chinese do not care at all, as if there should not be any aircraft. I went to the girl at the counter.

With the help of an interpreter, she showed me the phrase that the plane is now falling. Somehow not very inspiring to read this before the flight. The absence of an airplane means for us that we will not know what time we will be at the hotel, and we will definitely not get on public transport. In other countries, I would call it a new adventure. But in China, it could turn into a new nightmare in the middle of the night. But then a miracle happened. We got off the plane, a night bus pulled up. The bus drove for 40 minutes and stopped 200 meters from our hotel in the vast city. We went to the hotel, and there they were waiting for us. The girl really slept, but right at the reception. We were put in the most luxurious room. I wanted to eat, there was a convenience store near the hotel. We could not believe it, for the first time in the entire trip, something happened on its own in our favor, and even in such a chain. Moreover, all this happened on the very day when there was no strength at all to decide anything.

Our entire subsequent program is quite relaxing. Now you can sleep for the first time in 10 days.

Early in the morning, the phone rang in the room. The phone rang loud and insistent. And most importantly, the classically unpleasant sound of home phones. I could not understand what dimension I was in, but I was able to reach the tube. A cheerful Chinese woman wished me a good morning in a shy Chinese-English voice and happily added that this is an Alarm Clock service! But I didn't ask for any alarm! The girl happily repeated once again that this was an alarm clock service and hung up. I think that the manager at the reception, seeing how few days we have in Shanghai, was just worried that we would not have time to see everything. Breakfast at the hotel was very strange. I don't know how to describe it, but this buffet had everything against our taste buds. Or is it a hard night road, plus lack of sleep, that's how it affects.

The Shanghai hotel was booked with three different reservations, especially to allow for varying the length of the trip. At the reception we were told that we need to change the room to a cheaper one according to the second booking. We were transferred to a room much easier and cheaper. In general, China, such China. We drove into the city, because we are in Shanghai!

The weather was clear and sunny. The green parks in the center seemed even greener and more expressive. But the incomplete breakfast and the overall complexity of the whole trip demanded a feast! We went to the mall in search of expensive confectionery. That is, so that they do not sell pies with red beans. Oddly enough, the task turned out to be easy. Now breakfast number two. A large cake with buttercream and fresh strawberries, a large cup of coffee, a generous chunk of brownie and iced lemon tea. At overseas prices, of course, 60 yuan (9.

$ 3) for this does not sound so much, but for a snack in China, we have not yet unfastened such terrible sums for two.

Yes, and meals only a couple of times reached this amount. Honestly, no matter how difficult it is during a trip to China, but while eating, all the problems of travel fade into the background. A long walking street stretches from the shopping center. While walking down the street, I was like a battery charged with positivity and energy.

Everything is so Asian! I even danced with a bear at the store. We need a charge now. We need to master the next metro of the next city.

China Metro

As stated in the notes, “If the distance to be traveled by subway exceeds 95 kilometers…” Here are the subway distances that really terrified me. Traveling on the subway in China is like a second life.

They explained to the Chinese-speaking girl-operator the whole depth of the problem. She didn't understand. We explained the problem to her more strategically, avoiding words. She didn't understand at all. Her assistant came up, who decided everything. At the next entry station, we just had to persuade the other girl to call first. Another girl simply ignored us, as if we were not there, but her assistant decided everything. And finally, in order to leave the final station without a paid card, we approached the final girl, who let us out without a word. Phew, those 0.8$ are not gone!

In fact, it was important to find out if the system works with an obvious problem in logic in favor of passengers who fell into this logical loop. Works! Well, the final demonstration of the length of the metro was on our last day, when we drove more than 50 stations in Beijing in a day. The most interesting thing happens in the cars themselves.

At the stations, zones of entrances and exits from the cars are lined. The carriages always stop at the same place in front of the sliding doors. You must enter the doors on the left and right, and passengers exit in the center. But when the doors of the carriage open, rugby begins. The task of incoming passengers is to prevent the arrivals from leaving. The task of those who arrived is that it is necessary to break through the shoulders pressing on the sides. Entry and exit occurs simultaneously through narrow doors in three streams - two incoming and one outgoing. A new sport begins in the car - running in the style of "Lynx" or "Shanghai Leopard". Whoever reaches the place first sits down. For example, the whole row is sitting, the car is half empty, few are standing. At the beginning of the row, a seat is vacated in front of you, the chance to sit in such a seat is almost zero, because the Chinese woman who was standing at the end of the row has already taken acceleration and will have time to sit down even if you have already begun the seating maneuver.

Or Tetris. A place is vacated in front of you and a long row moves at the speed of light so that the Chinese woman from the other end of the row does not run.

Once a place in the center was vacated. On one side, an eagle boy flew, on the opposite side, a tigress grandmother. They reached the center almost simultaneously. The situation could only be resolved by a photo finish. But in the subway, such a fixation of the winner has not yet been invented. The boy and grandmother grabbed the handrail near the seat and for a moment met their eyes. At that moment, it seemed to me that an explosion of energy would happen and we would all fly away. This moment felt like an eternity. Who will win? We worry! Imagine if one of us had already begun to sit down on this seat? Minimum fractures and bruises from the collision. Today the Tigress defeated the Eagle!

There were also quite interesting combinations for dexterity, when a place is freed up near Dasha, but a Chinese woman is standing nearby, who is looking in the opposite direction. Moreover, the more space is freed up, the more indifferently the standing girl begins to look into the distance. I think we all already perfectly understood that Dasha had no chance to sit down. A small conclusion: if you are not insured on a trip, do not meddle on the battlefield!

Qibao District

In the meantime, we arrived at the historic district. The area is located on the water channels and has many souvenir shops. The area is famous for its lack of tourists. But since the bulk of tourists in China are Chinese, the replacement of Chinese tourists by ordinary Chinese is almost imperceptible. But it was nice to spend an hour in such an area. Gastronomy at the highest level. The type of scam "Golden Eggs" also flourishes here.

At first, she bred something for a long time inspires a potential participant into the microphone. Then the participant chooses an egg, and not a simple one, but a golden one! Pays money. Takes a hammer. And bam… Won a 5 yuan ($0.8) prize. Again a long lecture from the announcer. Second egg! Bam. Already a prize for 10 yuan (1.6$). Moreover, the announcer shows a special table of winnings progress. It can be seen that our friend not only won 5, but then 10 yuan.

Based on the table, a man confidently climbs the career ladder and will soon win something important. Interestingly, the guy beat the eggs very carefully, apparently so as not to accidentally break the iPhone, which could be inside. The most outstanding prizes there were toy sets and used gadgets. The demand for eggs was incredible.

For us, the gastronomic district was remembered for the fight with the squid on a stick.

It seems like he is fried and can not resist.

But no, his sharpness was so strong that it was not clear to the end whether it was mastery or not. But anyway, it was delicious. Even despite the terrible spiciness, I would eat it again.

Bao Patties

Our next attraction was a large country park. But the distance on the metro turned out to be so monstrous that we only got to the closing of the park. It was possible, of course, to take a bus from the metro and buy time, but this would not have changed the situation. Who came up with the idea to close the huge park at 17:00. Horror swept through the body from the thought of how many stations to go back to the center. We had to drive back to the historic district, and then drive to the center for a long time.

Tanzifang District

That's what pleased the city, so it's the streets of the Tanzifang district.

True, the food turned out to be so expensive that we had to leave the area for a meal in another area. The area consists of a dozen narrow streets, along which there are various interesting things. It all looks so unusual, as if you were in a new country with its own customs and architecture. This is a very cozy and warm place, a tourist paradise. Each shop or cafe is trying to stand out for the better. Hundreds of trinkets on the walls, and even over the heads of tourists. This place again reminds of Harry Potter, as if streets for wizards were hidden among the Muggle world. Literally beyond the crossroads is wide and strict Shanghai, and here it is completely narrow and different. We were beckoned by a pink building from which a bright pink light shone. Inside were a variety of slot machines filled with plush toys. From the portrait, the leader of a very famous Asian country was looking at us with a soft toy in his hands.

Everything around is pink and very cute. One would assume that this is a three-story house for Barbie. Cotton clouds clouded my eyes so much that I did not notice plastic balls under my foot.

I flew like a giant broke into Barbie's house. Visitors, as well as the hostess of the institution, were very tense watching my flight. I could not understand what was happening, but I flew, fortunately, clearly onto a soft pink sofa directly to Patrick from SpongeBob. The girl explained to us that in this house you buy a game card for slot machines and play.

The chance of winning a toy is very high. The living proof is the visitors with packages of toys in their hands. Looks like we've just been to the cutest place in China. Today Mapsme took us to the hotel through beautiful parks with large lakes.

Very unusual beauty, when the two of us are standing by a dark lake, there are dense trees around, bright skyscrapers rise behind the trees. Good night China.

Good morning China! Today we are going to old Shanghai. They say he is simply beautiful, so we will soon find out. You just need to survive breakfast at the hotel and the metro) Still, after breakfast, I had to go to the pastry shop again to balance the balance a bit. The old city was really outstanding. It was much larger than the Tanzifang area and didn't look like the rest of it at all. The whole architecture was abruptly replaced by an old seasoned style. Here you can shop, eat and have fun in entire entertainment centers.

We chose a fairly new entertainment for ourselves. We sat on the chairs and peered through the eye holes.

Every day we had some kind of failed attraction. Today, at the other end of the city, a very old and closed pagoda was waiting for us. But again, to restore world balance, we immediately went to a restaurant and ordered ourselves the most delicious fish dish in all of China.

This is not a dish: )

The fish dish was so big and so expensive that it was priced like two desserts from the cafe yesterday. At first glance, the restaurant did not inspire confidence at all, but as it turned out, they put all their efforts into the fish. After a hearty lunch, we had a siesta on our schedule. We started the engine of the electric catamaran and set off on a journey along the rivers and islands of a large lake. The speed was so safely slow that even the Mexicans would envy our siesta.

Who knows what promotions and what Korea we are waiting for next.

To be honest, we expected a slightly more showy city from Shanghai. In fact, it looked quite ordinary and was significantly inferior to Hong Kong. But what cannot be taken away from Shanghai is the evening beauty on the waterfront. It was already quite dark and the embankment was more than a kilometer away. But the crowds were already larger than in our center during the holidays. It was clear that absolutely everyone likes the embankment here. The moment when night skyscrapers from the opposite bank open up before you for the first time is priceless.

One got the impression that the skyscrapers were built here only to please the eyes of tourists at night. Dasha also liked the embankment, but hardly anyone can comprehend my moral satisfaction from skyscrapers in the same volume. And how many night weddings were here, and all with bright red dresses.

We took the subway back. The second time to see the "lava" was not necessary.

Today was our last day in Shanghai. In the morning it was immediately clear what to do - we went to the area with skyscrapers. Now we need to see how everything is arranged during the day. This time we chose the city ferry for the crossing. It also turned out to be a kind of excursion along the river. During the day, the business center was also quite attractive. It is not clear what exactly they liked during the day, but just wandering back and forth was the norm. We had another funny situation. For three days we tried to find the mysterious French Quarter in Shanghai. But we couldn't find anything even close to France. Although the fact that French music was playing in the market, and there were no Chinese-style houses on the streets, apparently showed that this was France.

We spent the whole last day in the misty summer palace.

This is the territory of such a huge garden that, with all the desire, you won’t spend less than a day here. We ate the latest Chinese food with all our might, but you can’t eat all of China)

Total, our strictly Chinese conclusion. China is one of the most beautiful countries in Asia. Here nature and cities will not leave anyone indifferent. China has always seemed to me not very attractive in terms of tourism, we thought that Beijing would turn out to be an ordinary Soviet city. In fact, this is a very progressive first world country with fantastic transport communications. But the difficulty lies in the fact that all the beauty and improbability do not lie on the surface. It's all located deep, deep in the heart of China.

According to Dasha's stories, the most interesting thing happened in the women's toilets. The most spectacular toilets consisted of 6 holes in the floor. You can sit down and look the Chinese women in the eye if you overcome the embarrassment. Therefore, it is better to go to the toilets when there is no one there. If the toilets are in the form of booths, then the fun begins. The Chinese woman approaches the booth, pushes the door. On the other hand, a seated Chinese woman resists pushing the door back to its closed position. The first Chinese woman does not retreat and after 5 seconds makes a second attempt to open the door. The girl urinating also does not intend to give up her position so easily and, resisting even more forcefully, closes the door back. Perhaps the Chinese woman was simply dull and did not understand the first time that the booth was occupied. A little more time passes and the third attempt to capture the fortress begins.

The Chinese woman does not seem to back down from the goal of getting into this particular booth, despite the fact that there are free neighbors. But the sitting girl never gives up! When Dasha got into a similar situation with a booth without a lock, she simply did not close the door to the end, and the standing Chinese woman on the other side just stood and stared at Dasha buttoning up her jeans. Well, their behavior in the toilets is very strange, but among the whole crowd, it seemed only to us that it seemed strange. Perhaps, once upon a time, one old Chinese sage said: “That I am ma to ka na wa”, which literally meant “If you like to go to the toilet - love and keep the defense! ”

Detailed description of the route and costs in next story.

Translated automatically from Russian. View original