Well, we’ve done it again. We just got back from our 9 day trip to China. We stopped in Beijing for 4 days, Xi’an for 2 days and Shanghai for 2 days. It was a long exhausting trip that kept us going going going all day long every day. I think I took the most pictures on one trip that I’ve ever taken, almost 400! Our tour consisted of 14 people including Sharron and myself. There were a couple of military families, but there was also a group of 4 Department of Defense school teachers. Pretty diverse group. The tour we chartered was through an off base travel agency which may have been a bad idea as it was a little geared towards a Japanese traveler (even though we were all American).
One of the more interesting aspects of our trip was that we took along Flat Stacey. One of Sharron’s Mom’s friend’s son’s is in elementary school and is studying geography. They read a book called Flat Stanley and made their own flat people. We were sent Flat Stacey to show around Japan, but decided to take her to China instead. We took pictures of her everywhere. She really became part of the family and it will be hard to let her go back to America.
Beijing
Day 1
This is the current capitol of China and is the site of the Olympics in 2008. When we got off the plane on Saturday we headed first to a duck restaurant. We would have rather headed to the hotel first, but they thought we should stop for dinner first. The duck was not very good. The rest of the Chinese food was though and it was to be the first of almost every meal we ate to be straight up Chinese food. I think we can live for a good long while without eating any again. :-)
Day 2
On our first full day in Beijing, we headed first to Tiananmen Square. It’s pretty big, but not really that impressive. It is interesting to see their capitol buildings though. Across the square is the entrance to the Forbidden City. This is where several of the Emperor’s lived. I didn’t know much about it going in to China, but I really enjoyed it and could have spent a lot of time in there. Everything was very beautiful and facinating to look at, but our tour guide wasn’t very interested in stopping to look at everything, so we missed quite a bit of it. On walks with Parker, he always wants to stop and sniff everything and I’m constantly reminding him that we’re on a “walk” and not a “stop.” That’s how we felt. The most interesting thing I learned about was the existence of “the power behind the screen.” The last three emperors were all very young when they were put onto the throne. For example, the last emperor was only 3 years old when he became emperor. This was because a lady was really in control of China at the time. She was originally the wife of the emperor, and when he died, her young son became emperor. She let him sit on the throne, but was the real power behind it. Since she wasn’t allowed to be seen sitting next to her son on the throne, she set up a screen to sit behind it to hide her. She is not well liked in history and is known as the Dragon Lady.
After lunch we headed to the first of many mandatory shopping excursions. We were briefed by the tour company that the mandatory shopping stops were included because it would decrease the price of the trip. Almost all of the shopping places were run by the government of China, so we knew whatever items we were buying were real, but they wouldn’t haggle the prices with us like other shopping areas would. Our first such stop was at the Silk Factory. Not only was there silk items for sale, but we were also given a short instructional tour about how silk is processed into a useable material. It was actually pretty interesting and Sharron and I ended up purchasing a silk comforter. It sounds softer than it is though. The idea behind it is that that stuffing of the comforter is silk and the cover is cotton. This kind of blanket is said to be warm in the winter and cool in the summer. We could have bought a silk blanket cover, but those were much more expensive.
We also stopped at a park that afternoon and walked through the long covered walkway. There were many people there enjoying the nice afternoon and the walkway was filled with many people playing cards, dancing, playing music and just doing things you normally wouldn’t see in a park in the US. Pretty interesting.
Our next stop was the Temple of Heaven. I’d never even heard of this place, but found it to be quite nice. The temple was used for the Emperor to communicate with heaven. He could then ask for good crops and other nice things for his people. The whole area was very nice and very photogenic. We even stopped on the old sacrificial stone and had our picture taken. :-)
Day 3
Our first stop on our third day in China was the walkway to the Ming tombs. We thought we were going to reach the tombs at the end, but as it turns out, we were only visiting the walkway. Strange no? The walkway was very interesting though and had many statues of various animals and people that were guarding the entrance to the tombs.
Our next stop was another mandatory shopping area. This time we were at a Jade Factory. Though interesting, we didn’t have quite the same interest in jade as we did in silk. We did order some “chalks,” but not from the jade factory itself. Chalks are jade stamps that you dip into ink/wax and then use as a stamp. We had two made with Todd in Chinese as the stamp.
After lunch we headed to the Great Wall of China. Wow. Our tour guide had decided we weren’t going to the area we’d been scheduled to go to, but instead would go to the more touristy one. Wrong. We overruled him and still went to the section we wanted to see, the Mutianyu section. It took around 2 hours to get out to it, but we had a great ride. The countryside was very unique and we really enjoyed seeing a part of China that not everyone sees. The wall itself is spectacular. It’s really everything you think it’s going to be. We took a gondola from the parking lot up to it and then hiked from the starting point in the middle all the way up to the highest point that’s open. Wow, it was quite a hike with many many many stairs to climb. What I didn’t realize is that there are still massive sections of the wall that are not open and are partially destroyed. It makes sense when you consider how big the entire thing is (around 4,000 miles). We were only there for around 2 hours, but it was a great experience and probably my favorite thing to see in China.
Day 4
On the fourth day we headed to the Emperor’s Summer Palace. As the name implies, this was where the Imperial family used to spend time during the summer to get away from the city. Like in the Forbidden City, this place was shaped by the Dragon Lady. Here she imprisoned her son and then her nephew. She probably would have imprisoned the last emperor as well if that dynasty had not been overturned. There was a big palace/temple on the hill that looked very fascinating, but we weren’t allowed to go up to it. The rest of the grounds were very interesting though and we enjoyed our tour.
This days mandatory shopping took us to a tea house. We were told it was supposed to be a Chinese tea ceremony, which it was, but it also had a large emphasis on purchasing the tea from the ceremony. Sharron and I liked some of the tea, especially the Jasmine tea, but we didn’t like it enough at those prices. :-)
After the tea store, we headed to a Hutong area for lunch at a local house. The Hutong areas are what you would think of as older China. The houses are very small and smushed together very tightly. Many of them share courtyards and other rooms. To get to the Hutong, we had to ride in the back of a Rickshaw, or bicycle taxi. The one Sharron and I rode it was very rickety and we thought for sure it was going to fall apart with us in it. :-) The ride went smoothly though and we had an enjoyable lunch at the house. We didn’t meet any of the occupants until after we’d eaten and then only the hostess. She was very nice and explained that she retired from her old job to do this several years ago.
Sharron hadn’t been feeling very well, and the Hutong visit didn’t help much. After we ate she felt very sick, so we loaded her into a taxi and sent her back to the hotel to recover. It was hard to not go with her, but she insisted that I continue on the tour and take lots of pictures for her.
Our last touristy stop we made in Beijing was at the Lama Temple. The history of the temple is that it used to belong to a count, who later became emperor. After he was emperor, he turned it into a palace. Later, it was donated to the Lama monks, who used it as a Lamasery (like monastery). What was really significant about it was that part of its use was to select the new Dali Lama. It is still in use today as a Lama temple, but not as a fully functional Lamasery. It is most famous for having many representations of Buddha. We saw many buildings with Buddha’s in them including one with a 26 meter Buddha! He was accompanied by 10,000 smaller Buddha’s. We weren’t allowed to take pictures inside any of the buildings, and it’s considered bad Chi to take pictures of Buddha, but I was able to pick up a tour book with many pictures in it for Sharron.
Our last official stop we made in Beijing was at the Pearl Market. This wasn’t quite one of the mandatory shopping stops, but it was close. Honestly though, it was the most fun shopping stop we made the entire trip and I was really upset that Sharron couldn’t be there with me. The store itself was 5 floors tall. The first floor was divided into electronics and “other.” The point of this store is that nothing is legit and they will haggle with you on the prices. The second floor was all clothes and hand bags and such. Many Gucci and North Face products were found (but not purchased). The 3rd - 5th floors were all pearls with the top floor having the best looking stores and the 3rd having some very shady looking dealers. The only thing I ended up buying was some old Chinese coins. I’m pretty sure they’re fake, but I like them, so that’s ok. I also walked next door to the toy store and saw all the fake PS3’s, Xbox’s and Wii’s. One guy was selling Transformers, but I resisted the urge and didn’t buy any.
Xi’an
Day 5
We had to get up at like 4:45 to leave for Xi’an. That was pretty difficult as Sharron still wasn’t feeling well and the rest of us were pretty tired from all the touring. We spoke to our tour guide and had him call ahead to our next tour guide to have her check us in to our hotel early so Sharron could go straight there.
Xi’an (pronounced she-an) is one of the less developed cities in China. It used to be the capital many many years ago. I can’t say I’d ever heard of it before this trip, but when I found out that this was were the Terracotta Warriors were, I was ready to find out.
When we arrived, our first stop was at the city wall. We again loaded Sharron into a taxi and sent her off to the hotel. The city wall is a full wall around the inner portion of the city. By bike (which you can rent) it’s supposed to take around 100 minutes to ride around. The wall dates back many years, but it’s only one of many walls the city has had in its long history. The most famous wall encompassed almost 6 times as much area as the surviving wall does. It was pretty cool, but we really only were able to tour one of the gate houses and not the whole wall. Our friends Rick and Kirsten and I wanted to rent bicycles and ride around it.
For lunch on this day we went to a “Hot Pot” restaurant. It’s very similar to a Japanese style of cooking called Shabu Shabu, but instead of having a shared pot, everybody has their own. In it, you cook all of your food including meats and vegetables. What was really tasty about this lunch was that you were able to create your own sauce out of many ingredients. I loved my sauce which made me really enjoy my meal there. It was my favorite restaurant of the trip.
After lunch we headed to one of the local history museums. Much like the rest of China, it was under construction (probably for the Olympics), but they had temporary viewing rooms that were open. What was partially interesting and partially annoying was that our tour guide was very versed in Chinese history and really wanted us to hear the history of each dynasty. What we didn’t really do is stop and look at each item. Of course, I stopped and looked at whatever I wanted to and ended up missing a lot of our guides speeches, but I had a good time.
After the museum, we traveled to the big goose pagoda. When I first got to Japan, I found out that a pagoda is a many roofed building. What I learned in China is that a pagoda is also used to honor Buddha and that it’s considered where he’s buried. We also heard many times that if you become enlightened, as Buddha did, that you become Buddha. I had never heard this before, but it’s pretty interesting. What was fun about the big goose pagoda was that you could climb inside it all the way up to the top. A few of us braved the stairs and made it to the top. It was fun.
A little silly, but our last stop of the day was at the Little Goose Pagoda. I couldn’t really see the point of traveling to two pagodas in a row, but that’s what we did. This one had more roofs and looked bigger, but was actually about 20 meters shorter than the big goose pagoda. Again we were allowed to climb inside all the way to the top. I really liked this pagoda better as there were less people touring it and it had a lot more personality than the other one. At some point, lightning had struck the roof and destroyed it. The new roof is one of the previous floors so you can actually stand on the roof. The stairs inside are only one person wide and by the time you get to the top, the floors are so short you have to bend over to walk. I just thought that was more fun and less touristy. :-)
Day 6
When I woke up on this morning, I discovered that I had caught Sharron’s bug. I had gotten the tour guide to stop at a Chinese pharmacy and pick Sharron up some medicine which I would now be sharing. This helped me feel good enough to continue touring.
Our first stop on our first full day in Xi’an was at the Bampo Village museum. The museum was built over an old Bampo village archaeological site. You can see many impressions left where huts used to be and they found many burial plots as well. It was interesting, but many people in our group, including us, weren’t very impressed. :-)
We thought our next stop was going to be the Terracotta Warriors, but instead we were taken to a factory where replica Terracotta Warriors are made. We learned that no complete warriors were found in the excavation, but that the curators of the museum wanted to have complete warriors on display so they hired a factory to produce many for the display. They turned out so well, that many other museums wanted replicas made for their displays. Once the company became well known, many requests came in for more replicas. The public too made many requests for replicas until finally the factory went into the business of building replicas of all sizes for public and private use. They claimed that the use the same methods used by the original builders of the warriors, but who really knows. Sharron and I bought a small officer warrior as a souvenir.
Finally, our next stop took us to the Terracotta Warriors Museum. Again we figured we’d be going straight in to see them, but instead they had us go see a 30 minute movie about them first. Not only was the theater circular, but there were no seats. To top it off, the movie was cheesy as hell and the dramatic recreations dragged on relentlessly. Ugh. After the movie though, we did finally make it in to see the warriors. The building itself is quite large. Only the first third of the pit was filled with the replica warriors. The other 2 thirds were filled with either broken warriors or were empty. It really was very cool to be there, but many people noted how sterile it felt. It almost made it seem like the exhibit had been faked. What was strange was that part of the tour said that no records survived regarding the warriors. Every other site we’d been to had tons of documentation that survived which is how they’re able to keep rebuilding old buildings. Really though, even if it was fake, it was still large and amazing to see.
After lunch, we headed out to a site featuring hot springs. It sounded very cool, but turned out to be quite lame. All of the old pools of water have been turned into amusement park like lagoons. They now conduct theme park like shows at this place nightly and it really looked like it. Our tour guide though must really like this place as she went on and on about its history. The only thing I thought was interesting about it was that during the 1950’s, the socialist leader of China lived there. The Communist faction showed up there to capture him one night and there are still bullet holes in his building from that incident. His room has been redecorated to be as it was when he lived there. Kind of interesting.
Shanghai
Day 7
We were able to sleep in much later than when we left Beijing and didn’t have to be ready until 8:30. We were then off to the airport for our flight to Shanghai.
Again when we arrived we discovered it would be a long time before we headed to the hotel. Shanghai is a very large city, much like New York. I really had no idea how big it was, but consequently, it takes much longer to get around than it did in the other cities we visited. Our first stop in the city was at a history museum. Sharron was not particularly interested in the museum, so we only wandered around a little. Kind of interesting, but by this point we were getting a little China-ed out.
The museum is located in the center of town, so we were able to hang out in the town square for awhile.
Our last touristy stop of the day was at the Jade Buddha temple. As the name implies, the temple houses a jade Buddha. 2 actually. They were both gifts from Tibet and the Chinese monks built a special temple just for them.
We drove around a little bit more and then headed to another mandatory shopping stop. The way I’d perceived it, it seemed to be pretty cool. However, when we got there, we were led into what appeared to be an apartment building. We went up to the 8th floor and were led into an apartment. Inside were many counterfeit purses, wallets, etc. Wow, it was totally a shady deal and I still can’t believe that our tour guide took us there. Nobody bought anything and we were all ready to leave just seconds after we got there. Unbelievable.
For dinner that night, Rick, Kirsten and Sharron and I headed out to an Irish Pub. Even though I wasn’t feeling too great I figured I still wanted to check it out. It turned out to be pretty good, but I wasn’t really happy with the beer that I had there. We had fun and stayed around to see what the live music was. It turned out to be a lady singing acoustic pop music. Not at all what I was hoping for. Oh well.
Day 8
Our last full day on vacation was a free day for shopping in Shanghai. Our friend Kirsten knew about a pearl store that her sister has been to many times that has great deals on pearls. We didn’t end up going along with her to get there, but did find our own way there later. The store is on the second floor of a knock-offs mall. It’s not nearly as big as the one in Beijing, but it was much more legit looking, even though it really wasn’t any more legit. :-) We ended up getting Sharron three 15″ strands of pearls, which they made into one long strand. It’s pretty nice. We also got her a Tahitian pearl necklace that has like 15 pearls interspersed on a silver chain. Pretty fun, but not as good as the store in Beijing.
We decided we wanted to next head down to an area of town known as the Bund. It’s a riverfront area and we hoped to find some more shops and some nice restaurants. Really, it wasn’t very exciting and there were 1,000’s of Japanese tourists there, so we didn’t enjoy it very much. The area we were at was across the river from the TV Tower, so we had a good view of that and snapped a couple of pictures.
We had read in our phone book about a new aquarium that sounded good, so we got a Taxi and had them take us there. It ended up being right below the TV Tower, so we got another good view of that. The aquarium itself was pretty nice and we had a good time spending about an hour there. The last part of the aquarium is a moving walkway that takes you through a long underwater tunnel. Several environments are present, but the shark area was the best. I only thought it was OK until I looked up and was staring into the real life version of Jaws (at least from my perspective). The shark really wasn’t that big, but his teeth were sticking out at all kinds of funky scary angles. I grabbed Sharron and showed her and she was scared too. It was really cool.
For dinner that night we decided we wanted Mexican, so the hotel sent us to a place they thought we’d like. It turned out to be Taco Bell. Taco Bell Grande anyway. At first we thought it was fast food, but it turned out to have nothing to do with a normal Taco Bell and was a traditional sit-down Mexican restaurant. It was pretty good. :-)
Day 9
Before heading back to Japan, we spent the morning touring a Chinese Garden. It was pretty nice and really had more of a palace feel to it than any other garden I’ve been to. It was located in the middle of a really Chinese looking area that was again home to many stores selling their various “real” merchandise. We had some free time after the garden and decided to spend it at McDonalds instead of shopping. I think we made the right decision. :-)
So that was it for China. We were then off to the airport for our trip back to Tokyo. 9 days really wasn’t enough time to see China, but they sure tried to squeeze it all in. Realistically, they should have left some stuff out so we could spend more time enjoying it all, but as Sharron and I have said, we’re probably not going back to China again, so it was nice to see as much as we did. We really had a good time and I would highly recommend China as a place to go see.
Something funny that I realized on this trip is that I can travel to anywhere in the world and get around ok as everything everywhere is in English. The names of stores might not be, but almost every street sign in every city I’ve been to have been in English. :-)
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