Qype: Putuoshan in Shanghai

Shanghai

Putuoshan is an island off the coast of Shanghai. You can reach it by an overnight ferry or you can catch the train down south a bit and then a speed boat, which only takes about 5 hrs all up.
The island is like one big and beautiful manicured garden filled with ponds, temples and statues. This is a living Buddhist community and tourists would be evenly matched by the number of Buddhist monks and other Buddhists paying respect in the temples.
The temples themselves along with the giant Buddhist statues are really inspiring. This is a little picture of what I imagine China was like centuries ago. It’s a mountainous place with lots of little trails and steps, very like the scenes in every Kung Fu movie where the pupil is learning their trade from the master.
I didn’t book a hotel before hand and had no trouble finding a place. Like everwhere else I like to avoid tours and I wouldn’t worry about organising anything before arriving. (Of course I don’t know what its like at different times of year and I have throughout my carrer as a tourist slept on the odd beach)
The natural beauty of Putuoshan is such a relief after Shanghai, paricularly the yellow sandy beaches. And the food, oh my god that incredible seafood; well yeh it’s really good! Such a cliche that, for instance, the Indian food we get here is nothing like the food in India etc. But the Chinese we get here is closer to McDonalds than the stuff they serve up in China. Imagine a little pet shop out the front of every restaurant you go to. You can’t speak to the people, because NO ONE in China speaks English, so you just point at the animal you want and half an hour later it turns up on your table cooked the chefs favourite way.
In Putuoshan the restaurants are filled with aquariams. A lot of the fish or water bugs in there I could only recognise again by their taste. I love this kind of eating except that it is really hard to ever have the same dish twice.
The difference between Putuoshan and the rest of China is brought into stark juxtoposition when you round the final bend at the north of the island and are brought face to face with one of China’s lagest navel bases. Super techno machines like destroyers and submarines and aircraft carriers sit only a mile away from Buddhist statues. Signs all over the place warn you that your camera will be taken and possibly even worse things will happen if you photograph it.
Really gets you thinking. The Buddah and the missile. Like the art of kung fu vs the Chinese army. I’d back Bruce Lee..

Check out my review of Putuoshan - I am gotiges7 – on Qype

Qype: The Shanghai Museum in Shanghai

Shanghai

This museum is the antidote to futuristic Shanghai. I was what I craved after days of shoping and partying and gauking, like a hopeless character in a computer game with only chinese instructions.

The building is moderninst and well designed. It wouldn’t be out of place in a European city, yet it’s curves speak subltly of Asian history as it provides a strong central structure to the tranquil Peoples Park. Wikipedia has just informed me that “the new museum building is designed in the shape of an ancient, bronze, tripod cooking vessel called a ding.”

The inside of the structure is as interesting as the outside. Criss crossing esclators run on either side of a central high ceilinged space that allows for ample natural light.

There are five floors and I never felt that I was crowded as I wandered between them. I think that was largly due to the well thought out design – with multiple pathways up and down levels and in and out of rooms.

There are so many great displays that it’s hard to describe them. My favourite would be the Ming furniture displays. There are recreations of entire rooms from the Ming period. Bedrooms complete with beds and chairs and chests of draws and cabinets. All simple yet beautiful and very functional carved wooden pieces with facinating joinery.

I also really like the Chinese Minorites display. Obviously the issue of Chinese minorities is quite political, but at least here there is some record of them. Unfortunately you do get a sense that these are historic or dead cultures, not so much living contributors to a modern China. An amazing thing is how many minority cultures there are. It’s this depth, rich history and cultural complexity that make China one of my favourite countries to visit.

Check out my review of The Shanghai Museum – I am gotiges7 – on Qype

Qype: Poseidon Diving in cairo

cairo

I’ve always thought of diving as a bit of a lazy sport. I prefer more active things rather than just floating around looking at fish. Others rave about it though and as we had decided to lay up in Dahab for a few weeks, it presented as a more interesting option than lying on the beach and drinking beer. (still plenty of time for that though.)

We checked out heaps of the local dive centers. Imagine your most enthusiastic Egyptian tout crossed with your over sexed ski instructor and you can understand the kind of poeple that work there.

Poseidon presented as a more relaxed and proffesional alternative. The management were clearly very experienced, and the buisness was well established, but our instructor was taking on a group for the first time. I work as an outdoor instructor myself sometimes and I really didn’t mind at all this guys inexperience. His training was very recent and up to date and his enthusiasm for us to do well and enjoy ourselves would be hard to compete with.

So for four days we had this guy teaching just the two of us. All the diving was shore based to keep costs to an absoloute minimum. It was very cheap – I won’t say how much becuase they wouldn’t like it – but like anything in Egypt – You’ve got to haggle!!

The Red Sea is amazing. I’ve dived or snorkelled all over but I think the fish life here is the best I’ve seen – better than The Great Barrier Reef. (The coral there is much better but..)

The course too was just so much fun. Our isntructor had a great sense of humour – a highlight was playiing Matrix fights under water. You take your flippers off and do Kung fu moves in really slow motion, I promise it’s more fun than it might sound and I’m chuckling about it as I write this.

He was really safe though. At one point my then girlfriend freaked out and he calmly took her back to the surface and kept communicating with me as he took her up.

If you are cotemplating a dive trip to Egypt then I would definately go for Dahab and Poseidon over going to Sharm al Shek and staying in a resort up there. Dahab’s way more fun and much, much cheaper.

Check out my review of Poseidon Diving – I am gotiges7 – on Qype