Went to ZhongGuanCun in the morning to fix my netbook. ZhongGuanCun is like the silicon valley of China. There are many shops selling electronics and many tech companies’ headquarters are based here. 2 of the top Universities in China, Tsing Hua University and Beijing University are around this area as well.
My netbook seems like it was locked down since I was in Krygyzstan. I think my netbook has a virus. Since the OS is in Polish, no one really know how to fix it and I just want to reinstall Windows XP.

An English version of Windows XP home edition cost around USD$230 but those guys helped me to reinstall everything for 100 Yuan~USD$14.
Computer repair shop

Transformer

New subway line to the Olympic Park

Visited the Olympic Park.

Olympic Stadium, the Bird Nest

Olympic Park

Water Cube

Also a place for newly weds to take pictures

A sculpture of an old Chinese lady playing pool

Real Estate prices are very expensive in China, especially in big cities such as Shanghai, Beijing and Shenzhen. It’s a big burden for ordinary Chinese to buy a house and housing price are pushed up by speculation. Seems like a next bubble to me.

A good article regarding Chinese Housing bubble from Bloomberg, China Property Bubble May Lead to U.S.-Style Real Estate Slump

Article in Washington Post, In China, fear of a real estate bubble

Salary for university graduate is around 2000-3000 Yuan (USD$300-500) but a small one bedroom apartment, 600 square feet around the 4th outer ring road cost 1.5 million Yuan ~USD$220,000.
For around USD$200,000, you can buy a house in many city suburbs in the US.
(1500,000 Yuan / 3000 Yuan = 500). So using 100% of his or her salary, an average workers have to for 500 months or more than 40 years to pay off the loan not including interest. Plus housing in China is not free hold and the land is only leased for 70 years. Since the communist party has only in power for 60 years, no one knows what will happen yet once the lease is due. But investors and speculators are still piling in like the property will be theirs forever.

Met up Brandon and his wife for dinner. Brandon treated me to a local Beijing style restaurant.

My 16 beds hostel room

YongHeGong

Went back to Tiananmen square. Tiananmen square is the largest square in the world.
I took an exact same picture here 6 years ago. How time flies..

Tiananmen Square

Monument to the People’s Hero

Visited the National library
Older part of the library

New library building

Visited RenMin University

Ate donkey noodles for dinner

and walked to Beijing University area.

Beijing Subway Map

Met up with Ruo Nan, an old friend from university for lunch at DaWangQiao, around GuoMao area. Ruo Nan treated me to a very nice Chinese restaurant.

View from my friend’s apartment

Housing is very expensive in Beijing. A square meter (1 m² = 10.7639 ft²) around DaWangQiao will cost 20,000-30,000 Yuan (USD$3,000-4000).

Beijing is huge and is the second largest city in China. The city has a population of 17-18 millions people. Walking across just one subway stop will take 15-20 minutes, that’s why there are so many bicycles because that’s a best mode of transportation around the city.

Beijing wasn’t a capital nor a prosperous city until 1264, where Kublai Khan rebuilt the city, named the city Dadu and made the city his capital. When the Ming dynasty finally conquered China, the emperor destroyed Dadu and the third Ming Emperor YongLe renamed the city as Beijing. From 1421 onwards, Beijing became the main capital and Nanjing became the secondary capital of China. During the rule of Ming dynasty, buildings such as the Forbidden City and Temple of Heaven were built.

In 1928, following the success of Kuomintang, Nanjing was again made the capital of China until MaoZeDong renamed Bejing as the capital of Bejing on Oct 1st, 1949 when communist took over China.

Views walking from GuoMao area to Tiananmen square.

WanFuJing street, a famous shopping street

Beijing Opera

When buying stuffs in China, always have to be careful. Ate in a food court and I ordered this

and get this instead

Night view of Tiananmen

National Center for the Performing Arts

Moved to a room with 16 beds, (30 Yuan~USD$4.5)
Lama Hostel

Met up with Brandon, my old roommate from college in SanLiTun for a drink. Brandon moved to China to practise law after college and he brought me to a few bars full of expatriates.

Mongolia is an ex Soviet country, still has some Russian influences.
Lenin statue

Took bus 7 to Zoisan Hill in the morning.

A big Budhha statue.

There are 681 steps to get up the hill.

View from the hill

Seems like Korea and Mongolia has a very close relationship.
A friendship park sponsored by the Korean government.

Had lunch at a University’s cafeteria just opposite the Zoisan Hill bus station. I like eating at University’s cafeteria because usually there are a good varieties of local food and is cheaper.
1500 Tugrug~USD1

Mongolian University

Took bus 11 at around 2pm to the airport.

The airport is around 18km away from the airport and got on the Mongolian Airways OM 0223 flight at 5.25pm to Beijing. After 34th countries, this will be my 6th flights in this trip.

Portrait of some Mongol leaders in the airport

Greetings in Cyrillic

This is what it means

Goodbye Ulan Bator

A bird eye view of the mountains

Arrived at Beijing airport at 7.25pm. Beijing airport is pretty big and new.

To get to the city there are 2 options, one is by the airport shuttle (16 Yuan) and the other one is by the airport express train (25 Yuan~USD$4). Took the later option and got to the city in 30 minutes.

Airport express train

Got to DongZhiMen and then transfer to BeiXinQiao subway stop to the LamaHostel (40 Yuan~USD6) which is just behind Gui Lu. Gui Lu is a street with many restaurants and is located at the north eastern part of Beijing, inside the 3rd ring road.
Gui Lu

View Larger Map

There’s even a Hooters in Beijing

Walked to SanLiTun from the Hostel. It’s around 40 minutes walk east and SanLiTun is an area famous for bars and pubs.

There are many new shopping malls in that area which wasn’t there 6 years ago when I visited.

The main street for pub isn’t that popular now. Most expatriates and young Chinese hang out at a small street behind. It’s a little similar to lower east side in New York city with some dive bars and smaller clubs.

Walked to the train station with Goy this morning to enquire about trains to Beijing.

There are trains to Beijing 2 times a week, Thursday and Sunday morning. 200,000/130,000 Tugrug. The journey will start at 8am and arrive in Beijing 3pm one day later, around 31 hours train ride.
Train to HohHot (HuHeHaoTe) only goes on Friday and Monday. 120,760 Tugrug
Train to Erlian goes on Monday, Thursday and Friday. 50,000 or 83,000 Tugrug

Street View

Main department store in the city

Mongolia still has a big Russian influence.

Mongolian is sort of a Buddhist country. There were many temples but were razed because of communism.

Gandan Monastery

Took bus 21 to the Naran Tuul Market such as Black Market. The black market is huge and it’s very windy, super cold there.

Beatles

Circus

There are also some Korean influence in Mongolia because during the Soviet times, Stalin moved many Koreans to Mongolia. Currently, many Koreans and Chinese go to Mongolia to do business because the country is still lagging behind and there are more opportunities to make money. I noticed that there were quite a lot of Korean signboards.

UlaanBaatar Opera House

National University of Mongolia

Finally decided to take a flight to Beijing because flying will only take 2 hours, plus I get to stay another day in Ulan Bator and get to visit Beijing airport. Also I was worried that it might be hard to get train tickets in China because of school holidays. Winter time is low season for travel, a one way ticket by mongolian airways usually cost above USD$200 but now the tickets are selling for around 200,000 Tugruk~USD$136. Just for comparison purposes, the direct train from HohHot to Ulan Bator cost around USD$130, 24 hours and the train from Ulan Bator to Beijing cost around USD$110, 30 hours.

Trains departing from Mongolia to Beijing is also cheaper than the other way, I am not sure why.

Went to a local restaurant with 3 hostel mates, from America, Italy and Singapore. There are all around 40-60 years old but looked much younger than their age.

Rice with steak and Egg (2700 Tugruk~USD$2)

Mongolia has a population of slightly less than 3 millions people and is one of the most sparsely populated country in the world. Ulan Bator has around 1 million people so almost a third of the population live in this city. Ulan Bator is also the coldest capital of the world, having an annual average temperature of -1.3C. In January, during day time the average temperature ranges from -20C – -30C and the temperature can go below -40C during night time.

Got another ticket yesterday from Zamii Uud to Ulan Bator on the train itself. Like other Central Asian countries, Mongolia has a big Russian influences and use Cyrillic alphabets.

Train Station

Got to the train station at 10.30am. Met Tuya, a Mongolian on the train and she helped me changed into Mongolian Tugrug and got me a cab to the city center. Got off at the state department store and spent 1.5 hours walking around trying to find UB hostel. The hostel has moved to a location different from the map on Lonely Planet.

Lunch, Khuitsa (a mixture of lamb, potatoes and noodles, 3800 Tugruk~USD$2.5)

After spending the last 4 nights on a train, I am looking forward to sleep in a youth hostel tonight. From HohHot to Ulan Bator, the train tickets in total cost me (36+66+191=293) 293 Yuan. However, by taking a direct train from HohHot to Ulan Bator, it would cost 972 Yuan. Both options took the same amount of time, will arrive at the same time and it’s actually the same train. This is just a travel tips for travellers.

UB Hostel (USD$6).

National University of Mongolia

Visited the Natural history museum (1000 Tugruk~USD$0.7).

In front of the National history museum. (1200 Tugruk~USD$0.80). To those who were asking what I am wearing, this is what I am wearing in the cold Ulan Bator weather.

The national history museum is quite interesting because I get to piece together some of the old dynasty and empires I read in middle east and central Asia. The Mongol empire during 13th century is the largest empire in the world, the empire touched an area from Vietnam to Poland and has some influences on world history during the 13th and 14th century.

There are many ethnic groups in Mongolia. Majority is the Khalkha and they made up 85% of the population. The second biggest group is the Kazakh Turks.
Ethnic Mongolian dress

Yurt

Sükhbaatar Square

Mongolian stock exchange is the world’s smallest stock exchange by market capitalization.

Because of the cold weather, I was a little hungry and ate 2 plates for dinner, Lamb soup noodles and Lamb Goulash. (5400 Tugruk~USD$3.5).

Lamb is a common dish here because Mongolia is a big animal husbandary country. On the train someone told me that half a kilo of lamb here only cost 2 Renminbi.

I heard some horror stories about a few tourists got robbed on the street.
The sign on the hostel doesn’t help.

Internet cafes here close at 9pm but the post office provides 24 hours internet access. Went there to update my blog and got back home at 2am and had to climb the gate to get back inside.

View Larger Map

Arrived at Erlian around 6am in the morning. Weather here is colder than HohHot. Walked around and found an internet cafe. Spent a few hours at the internet cafe while waiting for sun rise.

Train station

Found out that there is another train that will cross the border from Erlian to Zamin Uud, (ZhangMuDe) a town at the mongolian side at 5.10pm. There are trains from Erlian to ZhangMuDe on Mon, Tues and Thursday. Decided to take the train instead since it’s an easier option than taking multiple vehicles to cross the border myself, especially the weather is quite cold now. Today the weather temperature ranges from around -30C – -15C.

Mongolia couple

Got on the 685 train (66 Yuan~USD$10) at 5.10pm and crossed the border.

It looked like there were smoke on the train but actually it’s just hot air because the weather was too cold.

On the train

the conductor was selling another ticket to Ulan Bator on the same train. The ticket costing 39,200 ~190 Yuan~USD$18.

My bunk mate, from shangdong

Hot air

After going for around 10km, the train stopped at the border town of ZhangMuDe for a few hours for immigration controls and changing the tracks. The train departed from ZhangMuDe at around 9.15pm.

Arrived at HohHot(Huhehaote) at 6am in the morning. HohHot is the capital of Inner Mongolia province. The weather here is pretty cold, below -20C.

Stored my bag at the train station for 8 Yuan. Since the places I will be going next are be colder, tried looking for warmer clothes.

Traffic jam

Got on bus 58 to the provincial museum. The design of the museum is very beautiful and just like the few other provincial museums, the museum is new and free.

Unfortunately, the museum is close on Monday.

Like everywhere else in China, lots of contructions going on

ZhongShan lu.

Another shopping street

Businesses in China are very competitive.
2 other similar Nike looking stores just beside this Nike store.

Park

City View, Mongolian yurt like buildings

There is a mongolian translation on most signboards. Mongolian word for China Mobile.

Da Zhao temple.

Animal products

Soy water and douhua (5 Yuan~USD$0.8)for lunch.

The direct train from HuHeHaoTe to Ulan Bator cost 972 Yuan since it’s an international line. Decided to get to Er Lian, the border town with Mongolia first and crossed the border myself in order to save money.

Took the 10.05pm overnight train K4652 to Er Lian (36 Yuan~USD$5.5, hard seat). I wasn’t able to get a sleeping berth because the train was pretty full.

The train was packed like Sardine

because the train to Er Lian yesterday was covered with snow and was canceled. At the same time, inside the train was quite merry. Wasn’t able to sleep and had to take turns standing.

Arrived at YinChuan train station around 7.45pm in the morning.

YinChuan is the capital of NingXia province. YinChuan is sort of a small medium size city in China with a population of around 1 million. There are many Hui Chinese in the city and it’s consider as the autonomy region of Hui. A third of the population in YingChuan is Hui Chinese.

YinChuan is spreaded from the east to west. The train station is sort of separating the east and the west part of the city. Took bus 1 from the train station to the last stop, east bus station. The bus station looks new and is quite clean.

Some propaganda by the governent celebrating the 60 anniversary of the founding of People’s republic of China.

Saying the communist party did a mistake during cultural revolution, but then it learned from its mistake and moved on to a more glorious path.

Saying China has achieved a great victory, defeating America in the North Korea war.

Great communist party took a wrong direction in causing cultural revolution and caused some damages.

Saying everyone should read Marx.

Mosque

Hui Chinese selling mutton

City View

A little similar to Intel bunny

A modern lady

Stadium

ZhongShan Park. The frozen lake.

Like the museums in Lanzhou and Xining, the provincial museum in YingChuan is free and brand new. It was only built 2 years ago. I can feel that the government must have a lot of funds to build such a nice museums. Inside the museum is pretty impressive as well.

The toilet looks exceptionally clean which is an uncommon sight here in Western China.

Library, looks very new as well.

Translation literally

Science museum

Driving lessons at the parking lot of the Exhibition Center

Exhibition center

There are a lot of new constructions going on in YinChuan.

I didn’t expect the city YinChuan to have so much going on since it’s not a famous city. The city is very well planned, streets are very clean and public buses are new and are using renewable energy.

The city is constructing a very nice looking community, Forest Park

It seems like the mayor of the city is doing a very good job.

Took bus 26 to the west part of the city and then got on the K2326 6.38pm overnight train (96 Yuan~USD$14, upper sleeping berth) to Hohhot (Huhehaote), inner Mongolia. I needed to be back from Mongolia and reenter China by Jan 9th so I have to rush a little.

[mappress]

Xining is the capital of Qinghai province. The city has a population of around 1 million and has a sea level above 2000 meters. The city has a good mix of Han, Zhang (Tibetan) and Hui.

Xining is spreaded out from east to west just south of the yellow river. Took bus 9 to the provincial museum.

Inside the museum

A Tibetan exhibit section

The museum is quite new just like the one in LanZhou, just a little smaller. Both museums are free. At first I was impressed by the infrastructures in China but even now museums are well constructed. It seems like these two provincial governments have a lot of funds to spend. China has a huge reserves so the country is able to direct its surplus to construct not only hard assets such as roads and buildings but even soft assets with cultural and historical values.

Just 35 years ago, the country was embroiled in cultural revolution where museums and cultural relics were destroyed but looks like now things are changing for the better, or that is what it seems on the surface.

Xining GuangChang

Wushu Practice

Yummy duck neck (5 Yuan). It’s very spicy.

Activities on the frozen river.

A Chinese family. Because of one child policy, the whole family is able to fit in one cart.

RenMin GuangChang

Noise pollution monitor

Tibetan (Zhang Zu) family. I heard that around 20% of the population in Xining are Tibetans.

Went to a QingZhen restaurant. QingZhen restaurants are usually opened by Hui (Chinese Muslims) and they don’t allow outside food such as meat to the restaurant.
Mushroom noodle (6 Yuan)

Mountains behind the train station

Mosque

Xining is quite a diverse city. Tibetans monks and Hui Chinese (Muslims Chinese) walking on the street.

Performance across the train station

Got on the 7.24pm overnight K916 train (120 Yuan~USD$18) to YinChuan.
Inside the train station