I don't just mean balance in terms of the different things I have done, and the variety of places I have been, but also the amount of time I've spent in each city, and more particularly each country.
In fairness I have to admit that when I first set about working it out, that was one of the most daunting tasks I had to face. Realistically I probably shouldn't take any credit for it at all, because a fair bit seems to have been done more by luck than judgement.
My essential strategy when figuring out most of the details was to work out which countries I was going to see the most cities in, and then give those extra time, and also take into account countries like Japan and Korea so that I could devote extra time to them figuring they were probably going to end up as the highlights of my trip.
For places like Vietnam and Cambodia where I had no idea what to expect I just allowed for what amount of time I figured would be right and then as I made plans to do and see different things I tweaked the time accordingly.
It would be an interesting to see post-trip how I would have redistributed time or if I'd have taken one of the countries I travelled to out of my schedule. I figure that I'd probably add the extra days onto the places I was looking forward to going the most, and then perhaps I'd add time on here and there in different countries where I've found myself being very busy.
The schedule I made for myself in the beginning pretty much lies in tatters, and even now with only three countries left to visit I am still making changes to the places I'm visiting, and the amount of time I'm going to spend there. Although it's been a stressful process doing things as I've been going along - particularly when Internet issues beset my trip earlier on - I feel like it had definitely been beneficial to stay only a few steps ahead of myself rather than setting things down in stone and then having to work around them.
If I'd have booked flights for certain dates then this journey could have looked very different, so I feel that the flexibility has allowed me to perhaps come across as being less organised about things, but it has allowed me to be better at taking things as they come and reacting to situations rather than taking a more rigid approach to things.
I feel like I've done the best I could within the time scale that I've been working with, and although I haven't really stayed in any one country longer than two weeks so far, it's helped things to constantly feel fresh and not let me feel too stagnant by being in any one place for too long.
It isn't time to pat myself on the back just yet though....
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It totally surpassed everything I expected of it, and I think that if I ever return to south-east Asia again then Taiwan will be one of the first places I return to. Even yesterday's weather couldn't spoil what had been an enjoyable five-day stint in the capital, and I have to say that Taipei is definitely amongst my favourite cities so far.
I can't really describe the reasons better than I have done already, but I felt like I settled into the city almost immediately. It had a lot to do with my surroundings (hotel room, location etc...) but it also had a lot to do with the city itself.
It shared similarities with countries I've been to before, and I guess that made me feel at ease almost immediately. There was also plenty to do which kept me thoroughly occupied. Had I have had more time then perhaps I'd have explored other parts of the country, but I was satisfied with the what I'd achieved in Taipei. from what I gather, it gives a pretty good overall representation of what is generally a very 'likeable' country.
Sadly it was time to depart Taiwan this morning as my time in the country had expired - for this trip anyway.
Making changes to my route once again in order to position myself to be able to make it to my last few destinations without too much backtracking I was now heading back to China with my second stint on this journey to be spent in the capital, Beijing.
After sorting through the information on being able to visit China, as I previously discussed, it was a toss up between perhaps the countries' two most well-known cities, and although Shanghai is somewhere that I have always wanted to visit, it would have been a missed opportunity had I not to myself to Beijing too. As far as I see it, who knows if I will ever get an opportunity to visit again?
It was set to be another whirlwind tour of yet another huge city as I was restricted by the same 72-hour rule that had made my stay in Shanghai an extremely hectic one. I was expecting nothing less from Beijing, and perhaps it'd be even busier considering that it seemed like there is a massively long list of things to do in the capital. Once again I had to make some decisions about whether to prioritize certain things and miss out on others, or just try and spread myself as thinly as possible. Doing the latter worked out quite well in Shanghai, and I was pretty confident about doing the same if necessary.
I discussed the basic 'transit visa' regulations before, so I wont go into them too much, but one interesting thing to note is that provided you don't stop in a Chinese city beforehand, or on your exit route then it doesn't matter if you don't have a non-stop flight into the city. When visiting Shanghai I was pretty lucky that they had direct flights from Jeju. It was also beneficial that Shanghai is on the Eastern side of China because if I was coming from the opposite direction (as I'd looked at before coming from Vietnam) then it would have meant more complications and having to go back on myself somewhere like Bangkok or Kuala Lumpur to find a flight which didn't stop elsewhere in China. I guess that's the issue with the country being so massive, but there are certainly ways to work around it, if you can manage to get there from the right airport.
On this occasion I hadn't been able to find any direct flights into Beijing (although I had found direct ones departing from there) and my journey was set be paused in Hong Kong for a brief layover:
I know what you're thinking: "Isn't that part of China?"
Well politically it is, although I don't think the residents are quite as happy with that as you'd imagine. Thankfully the rules and regulations I read through it said that Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan all count as 'international' destinations meaning that you could stop there on your way into the country and still be eligible for the 'transit visa'.
That's definitely beneficial as a bit like Singapore, Hong Kong is a place that you often find that long haul flights stop so therefore it wasn't going to be an issue that I was having a layover there before continuing on to Beijing.
Hong Kong is a place I will become more familiar with in about three weeks or so as that is the final stop on my travels through Asia before returning to England, but I guess it follows the symmetry of when I stopped in Kuala Lumpur on my way to Manila weeks before I was going there, or Jakarta on my way to Bali before eventually returning ten or so days later.
I had to get up at some outrageously early time this morning in order to make my flight on time. I know I have always tried to make a point of not setting off to early - primarily because I'm not very good at going to bed early enough to mean I can get out of bed in the morning - but due to the stop in the middle for an hour or so, and also because I was essentially taking two flights rather than going directly, it was either leave this early, or fly in the afternoon but face not getting to Beijing until 8 or 9pm.
I don't particularly like getting to cities really late as I'm always worried that it makes it more difficult to find my hotel, and also if I'm delayed somewhere then it means that I'm going to have to probably rely on taxis to get me where I'm going once I arrive - I think I've made it abundantly clear in previous posts that I like to avoid them wherever possible....
I think I actually got on the first metro train of the morning as when I was heading towards the airport it was fairly quiet in the station.
I'd considered taking the route I discovered I could have gone on the way here which would have been to get the metro to the central railway station and then get the bus from there, but I figured as this route worked so well on the way here there was no need to risk making changes.
I caught the metro the couple of stations I needed to in order to get back to Songshan Airport and then when I got there luckily for me I managed to navigate myself out of the right exit to where the bus stops were that I alighted at on Monday.
I always try to make a mental note of stuff like that, for example where my hotel is when first arrive, or when I go somewhere new, the route which I walked there using or where the metro station is, but a lot of the time I guess I just work on instinct, and so far I think it's served me pretty well.
It's always easier to get from the airport than to get back to it I find, but it was relatively easy to make the return journey to Taipei Airport to be honest. There was a bus waiting there, and once I'd established where it was going, and brought a ticket we closed up the doors and set off a couple of minutes later - it was almost like they were waiting for me to arrive!
Being ridiculously early in the morning there wasn't really much traffic on the road so it probably took us about 40 minutes or so in order to get back to the airport where we were dropped off at Terminal Two.
Naturally I needed to be at the other terminal, and after asking someone how to get there they mentioned that there was a free monorail which took you there.
I'm not sure if it isn't used very frequenetly or is just in a quieter area of the airport, but it seemed as if I was going somewhere that I shouldn't have been as I walked there and found the place where it left from!
Getting to the correct terminal I tried to use the automatic check in machines, but even with the help of someone from the airport staff I couldn't get it to register me as a passenger which was slightly worrying.
Going to the Cathay Pacific desk it took a while to check me in as they lady behind the desk had to establish that it was OK for me to get a transit visa by checking my onward flight destination from China and I presume logging me on their system some way.
I'm not sure how long the process has been in place for, but I get the feeling that it's not used very frequently as she had to check her book of aviation rules and regulations in order to check me in. Rather than a 72-hour visa, they call it a transit visa, which to me means that you're staying in the airport in order to move on somewhere else on the same day.
Once we got that little confusion sorted, she handed me both of my tickets and said that once my flight landed I'd only have 20 minutes to get to my gate for boarding time so she gave me a sticker to put on, and also gave me a seat which was right at the front of the plane meaning I wouldn't have to do my usual trick of waiting until all of the impatient people queuing as soon as we've touched down in order to get off.
My flight actually ended up leaving Taipei a little late which made me slightly concerned that I'd have to rush from my landed aircraft in order to make it to the right place, but as it turns out it didn't really matter once I got to Hong Kong as the plane was delayed anyway!
I got to the correct gate just in time and literally just as there was an announcement that we were about to start boarding, there were some discussions between the airline staff, one of whom then came over the tannoy and said that due to a mechanical failure the flight would be delayed. People were still queuing up, figuring that it wouldn't be took long before we were able to get on board, but soon they started ushering people away as we'd be spending an extra hour and a half, and then also have to move to a different gate.
Thankfully (well maybe not thankfully, but it killed some time) we were moved from Gate 44 to Gate 522 which meant a 20 or so minute trek from one side of the airport to the other to eventually find our new point to departure.
At around 1pm we were called forward to board and eventually touched down in Beijing close to 4.30pm.
Arriving a bit later was no real issue, as it would still be light enough to make it easy to find my hotel, and being a 'transit' passenger it was pretty quick to get through immigration as there are rarely any passengers there using the service.
In Shanghai there was only one counter labelled 'foreigners', but here there were quite a few, although thankfully I was classed even lower than a 'foreigner' being a transit passenger this time!
We had to board another train in order to get from Terminal Three where we'd landed to go and get our baggage. From there I'd read that the fastest and best way to get to my hotel was to use the Airport Express Train which would take me just one stop on the metro away from where I am staying.
It was a twenty minute journey to the first stop on the Express Train line which took me to the metro, and then from there I travelled the one stop to the closest one to my hotel. Unfortunately as I've had in other situations, I had to figure out the best way to get from the metro to the hotel. In Busan and Shanghai someone who'd left a review of the hotel had written up instructions of how to find it from the metro, but on this occasion I'd had to use Google Maps which is never the best way to do things.
With my screenshoted Maps image of how to find the hotel, I studied a local map that was at the metro very carefully and after getting the feeling that I was walking in the wrong direction twice I eventually saw a brightly lit 'FX' in neon lights which is the name of my hotel.
Obviously I don't have a great deal of time to spend in Beijing, firstly due to visa restrictions, and secondly due to the late arrival of my flights so I decided that it would be a good idea to not waste any of it despite the fact that it was starting to get a little dark out.
One thing which I'd intended to do whilst I was in the capital was to see the site of the 2008 Olympic Games.
We know my interest in sport has no bounds, but I remember vividly watching the games in China and being fascinated by the arenas which were used.
I was lucky enough to be able to work at the 2012 Games as a volunteer, and although I haven't had a chance to go back to the Olympic Park just yet, I am fascinated to see what they have done with it. Part of the London Olympics vibe was 'legacy' which meant doing something with the arenas which were used and the space for the park itself.
A couple of years ago I was lucky enough to be able to go to Greece, and I went to the site of the 2004 Olympics and it is literally just a wasteland - perhaps this might explain the countries' current financial struggles....
As far as I was aware Beijing weren't too worried about re-using the stadiums from the Olympics despite spending an extautionate amount of money on them, but I figured it would be interesting to see them in their current state almost eight years on from the event.
It was a bit of a mission to get to the Olympic Sports Centre stop on the metro. I only had to change once, it just took me ages to arrive. Once I did I was genuinely surprised by the amount of people who also got off there. Exiting the station I was even more shocked to see the sight of tours walking through there being led by people with those miniature flags (or teddy bears on poles) and the sheer crowd of people trying to get through the security was astounding (obviously there was no queue - I am in China after all).
Once I'd got there there the park itself was actually really busy, and it made me wonder what it was actually like when the Olympics were on. I figured that it would be a quiet little area, perhaps with a few people walking around, but I guess it is still a major draw for people - even on a Saturday night.
I walked around first coming to the Stadium on my right which was particularly lit up, initially at the front and then all the way around, and then I also came upon the Water Cube on the left hand side which was looking spectacular decorated in bright colours.
Because of how late it was you obviously couldn't go into any of the arenas, but I walked the full way around the outside of them both as well as heading towards the gymnastic centre, and getting close to the observation tower - something which I think may have been constructed post-games:
I must have walked around for about an hour or so before deciding to head back to my hotel, and as the park was closing at 9pm, and it was getting pretty close to then the metro was absolutely rammed. I decided to walk down the road a little to see if there was another stop further down - a slightly risky strategy - but I eventually found somewhere.
As far as I know the Olympic Park has been stretched in both directions and the side I walked on has become an area where people spend their nights roller-skating, dancing and singing in karaoke. There were lots of people out and about enjoying themselves as I walked past and then caught the metro back to my hotel.
It was really late, and having not even explored the area where I am staying as yet, I followed the same route which had helped me fluke my way to the hotel earlier on - not knowing if that was even the correct way to go!
I picked up some noodles from the shop and prepared an all out 'attack' on the major sights of Beijing tomorrow!
You and Me
Liu Huan and Sarah Brightman (2008)
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