Dragon Boat Festival in Hangzhou

So I've returned from Kunming to attend the famous Dragon Boat Festival! Our Chinese partners took it upon themselves to guide us around Xixi wetlands and show us the Dragon Boat Festival. The original plan was to have a picnic and then go to the Xixi wetlands to watch the race, but after finding out that the race started at 12 and not 1, those plans changed. We grabbed some street meat and jumped in a cab and raced off. We were all lightly clothed because Hangzhou has been hit full by blast by summer. We bought some tickets and had to walk for a long time before we found an area that wasn't too crowded, but it was still fairly difficult to see. Right as we were passing over a bridge, one of the boats took in too much water and sank. Despite my attempts, I was unable to get a picture of a sunken boat. The Dragon Boat Festival is kept from ancient times, and is very popular and very interesting in China.
There were a ton of boats in the water, all man powered. The bridge we were passing over was considered both the start and finish line. It wasn't really a race between boats on the water at the same time, but it was a race to see who could get finish a lap the fastest. We happened to be stationed right after the bridge, so all of the excitement and energy was lost. John and I wanted to see the real action and so we left the group to go find a better vantage point, which was difficult considering how crowded it was. After about an hour of craziness we went off to have a boat tour. The tour was nice and tranquil, but we were still uncomfortably hot. A couple of people had to go early, and the rest of us were getting hungry, so we headed to West Lake for some food. The Chinese students took us to a restaurant with authentic food from Hangzhou. We had spicy tofu, duck, fish, potatoes and onions, some kind of sweet bread thing, sushi consisting of pear, salmon, and horseradish, the festival food with rice inside of banana leaves, all kinds of good things. A good day, a good dinner, a good video, and a decent travel blog. Tomorrow is for Suzhou.

Shanghai

(Shanghai literally means "by the water")...
After a 06.40 bus from Huang Shan, we arrived in Shanghai at about 1.30 in the afternoon. From the long distance bus station, we took our first ride on the metro system to the centre of town.
To be fair, it was a Saturday, it was July, and the Shanghai world expo was on! We would have booked, but we didn't know when we were going to arrive, and were a day ahead of schedule anyway!
FINALLY....Shanghai, we are ready! Hotel, check....not moving for 3 nights....absolutely! We walked along the Bund, took a crazy train across to Pudong district where we went up the worlds 3rd tallest building and viewed Shanghai from the 100th floor - very impressive, if a little smoggy. We explored the French concession area which was very nice with its wide tree-lined streets and calmer nature! After much walking we rewarded ourselves with a Peking duck dinner, even though we were not in Beijing, it was still as tasty! Another scorcher of a day in Shanghai and we visited the Shanghai Museum with an impressive collection of all things Chinese. Outside we enjoyed the beautiful weather and blue skies in the park before walking to Old town to visit YuYuan gardens, a beautiful traditional Chinese garden and rockery complete with pond and coy carp. We had the traditional "xiao long bao" for lunch which are famous shanghainese dumplings, and after explored the rest of Old town...which is actually quite new looking but has been made to look traditional. Under the ornate buildings there is still a Starbucks! There are some bustling side streets if you explore a bit though! We went back to the bund, to another park, and the people's monument before watching the sun go down and the lights of Pudong sparkle once more.
The self service machine provided much confusion so we got in line for the counter, and I had a good conversation in Chinese with the sales person, and could tell her what time we needed our train because tomorrow was our day trip to Suzhou....

Mutianyu Great Wall and Kung Fu Performance

Ni hao from Beijing! Today was a very exciting day for all of us as we travelled to Mutianyu to climb high up on the Great Wall of China. We had beautiful weather today, again a high of 34C but the sun was shining and the skies were blue which made for perfect conditions for our climb. We travelled about 1.5 hours by coach out the site and went up to the wall in orange coloured cable cars. This part of the Great Wall is over 300 years old and was built during the Ming Dynasty. Once we got up to the top the students began the huge climb up and down the stairs and throught the watchtowers leading up to the highest point at this section of the wall. The final pinnacle is about 200 steps with an incredible view of the large mountain ranges in the distance. This section of the wall has 22 watchtowers that you can climb through and explore and even climb to the top of to get a better view. At this point the wall is made mostly of bricks and large slabs of granite rocks and is about 7-8 meters high. While this section of wall is 22km long and we did walk a fair distance of it, there is still maintenance work being done at the actual peak. It was so exciting to watch the students on the wall today. They took time to stop and admire the scenery, take some awesome photographs and especially at the end of our climb, they were so supportive of each other and us, the supervisors as we all made the long and arduous final climb to the top! I think that the students really got a sense of the sheer size of the wall and could even think about what it would have been like to have worked on the construction of the wall over 300 years ago! They say that it is the only man-made structure that can be seen from space. May be that means that even as little specks on the wall today that we could have been spotted wearing our green TDSB shirts from space! What an incredible adventure and memory for all of us. We have been talking about it all day and no doubt will continue to reminisce about this adventure of a lifetime shared together. After lunch we headed back to Beijing for a rest and to clean up before we headed out for a nice dinner and the performance of the Legend of Kungfu at the Red Theatre. Tonight’s performance of the Legend of Kungfu was definitely a treat and a highlight for the students. The story is about a young boy named Chun Yi and his experience in working become a Kungfu Master. The acrobatics, music, and choreography were awesome and the students really enjoyed the performance! We are all back at the hotel now packing and hopefully sleeping at this hour as we leave to fly to Shenyang in the early morning! We are hoping that the temperatures might be a little bit cooler in Shenyang, nonetheless, we are starting to get used to the heat here in Beijing. We have had a very busy but exciting time here in Beijing with lots of great adventures and what better way to end our time here with an outstanding climb on the Great Wall!

One week in Chengdu, and the Lovely Pandas

So we were going to be spending one week in Chengdu, we booked to see the Pandas at the Panda Breeding Base the next and we really wanted to make the most of it as we were really looking forward to seeing the pandas! We went with a tour group, and they took you to the Panda site really early so that you caught them in time for feeding time where they are active, most of the day they just sleep! We saw the young pandas first, and they were so sweet!! It wasn't too busy so we got some very good views of them! We then went to see the red pandas, which are beautiful and have more of a mischievous look about them. The big pandas weren't in sight as much when we saw them but we saw them none the less! The pandas were like children in suits, they had some real human characteristics! After we saw a new born panda, which hadn't even grown his black and white fur yet, and then we went to watch a very corny but nice documentary on Pandas and what they do at the breeding base. Before leaving we had a short stop at the Panda museum. Was a really lovely morning, just wanted to pick one up and hug them!
We decided to add some variety to our stay in Chengdu and booked into another hostel for the last 5 nights. Over the 5 days we relaxed, explored the city, visited Dufu Thatched Cottage, Wuhou Temple, etc. and watched a lot of movies! There was also a hot pot night for people in the hostel. There was lots and lots of food, veggies meats etc and there was too massive pots of broth, one very spicy and one mild. Each person had a small bowl of coriander, oil and chilli. What you did was put in what veg and meat you wanted in the communal pots, and then wait a few minutes then take it out with your chopsticks and eat! It was all very tasty and very hot!
Then we left Chengdu for Shanghai, for the World Expo.

Huanshan Mountain—So Beautiful

We arrive the Hangzhou bus station and take a tourist bus to Huangshan. We arrive around 3:00 and pack backpacks and leave our suitcases at the hotel. We share the ride up the mountain with two Israeli sisters who were also on the bus from Hangzhou. We ascend up via Eastern cable car. We were so excited to finally be there! Typically the wait to ride the cable car is hours long, but since we got there at the end of the day - no line! We got to the top and it was quite misty and a little wet. We hiked around the summit - going to "Beginning to Believe" peak, which was all white from fog. The Israeli girls didn't have a hotel booked and they looked for accommodations. Francis and I stayed at Beihai Hotel, the only 4 star hotel on the summit. Everything in the room was clean. Considering that everything used or consumed in the hotel needed to be carried up by porters or a very expensive cable car, the hotel was pretty nice. We continued to hike more, with hopes that other areas would be more clear. No mountains - anywhere. All we saw was fog with some trees peeking through. We went to bed around 8:30 pm to wake up at 5:00 am to see the sunrise. I saw amazing pictures of the sun rising behind the mountain peaks. The sunrise was even more beautiful than the pictures! Unimaginably beautiful!!
Then we visited the Scenic area in the mountain, with a guide speaking English. As we do not have many days for our China trip, we took the cable car to the foot of Huangshan Mountain, expecting the second day to the very famous ancient Xidi and Hongcun Villages.

Longsheng Terraces and the Acrobatic Show

We spent the afternoon wandering around Elephant Hill (a hill with many paths, a nice view and wild pot plants growing on the sides of the foot paths) and taking the path along the lake and river back to the hostel. The next day we were on a trip to see the amazing Dragon’s backbone rice terraces, and the hill-side village of Longsheng. The trip to the rice terraces was a bit overwhelming, on a air-conditioned tourist bus, we arrived at the Ping ‘an village where we were herded into the village like sheep and told to buy tickets to watch some hair show (the woman of the village cut their hair once in their life, when they were 18.) which we passed on and opted to wander around the village alone while the hoards of people went into to watch some woman and their long hair. We then hurled up a mountain road twisting and turning as the bus came close to flipping itself over numerous times, we eventually made it to the top, alive and safe and sound (phew). A good half-hour hike up the hill found us at a restaurant for lunch and just in time for the heavy seasonal rains to start!! We lucked out though, it poured the entire time we were eating and stopped just before we got ready to continue the journey up the hill. Another hour long hike with many other people and many amazing views and we found ourselves at the top of Longsheng Terraces, looking out on what can only be viewed as an engineering marvel of rice terraces. The expansiveness of the rice fields was amazing, and not because of the size, but how they managed to build so many onto the sides of these steep hills for miles and miles. After viewing the terraces from the many lookout points along the way up, it was time to trudge back down and through the hillside village of Longsheng. It was amazing to be up there, the majority of locals went about their daily lives as if we were not even there, and the few who had opened up shops were very friendly and smiled for every picture. The most amusing part of the trip up and back was the many tourists who opted to be carried up in old-fashioned people-carrier carts.
Our last full day in Guilin we went to the Chinese acrobat circus, where we were treated to a show that could have been part of Cirque du Soleil, with high-flying acrobatics, spinning plates and a young girl balancing 5 flaming chandeliers’ as she twisted her body in ways I didn’t think were humanely possible. At one point a jolly Chinese clown came out, now as some of you may know Scott has a problem with clowns that he has never fully explained. When the clown came out everyone was cheering and clapping.... except David. I warned him that clowns pick on the people who don’t look thrilled and sure enough, within seconds of getting on stage he called upon David and another un-sure looking Chinese woman to be his assistant in a thumb trick. A rather confident looking David got up in front of hundreds of onlookers and wound up with the clown’s thumbs tied together wrapped around him. I think this was my favorite part of the show!! And so we find ourselves embarking on the 22hour journey to Shanghai via train. Shanghai here we come!! Expo, ridiculously tall buildings, and museums galore! We shouldn’t be bored in this international city!

Huangshan Mountain, Snow White

Huangshan Mountain aka Yellow Mountain is a beautiful place in Huangshan. It’s a favourite destination for tourists and photographers a like due to its height and its natural beauty. Our hotel is in Tunxi. I experienced this beauty first hand when we arrived at the base of the mountain on the 3rd of January. We were told to pack a night worth of clothing since we would be staying on top of the mountain overnight. This complicated matters a little for myself since I was already lugging around about 13 kilograms of gear on my back and needing my hands free to take photos. Fortunately I was able to attach a small pack to the waist clip of my backpack, which allowed me to operate the camera freely. On a China trip, Huangshan is where you must visit, because it is so beautiful. We took the cable car up the initial part of the mountain - its breathtaking! The view is amazing but unfortunately photography in the cable car is a pretty much a write off due to the tinted glass, but in the end it was
a minor hurdle since the real money shots were on the mountain itself. Before going to the ancient villages Xidi and Hongcun, we first climbed the Huanshan Mountain.
As we arrived to top of the cable car, the drop was considerable; looking over the side gave me extreme vertigo and made me realize just how small I was. The next part of the journey was the trek to the hotel, about an hours walk through numerous small pathways and staircases going both up and down, steep and gradual. Eventually we made it to the hotel, a modest building but very well equip with both cable TV and Internet. After dumping our gear in the rooms, my sister and I decided to go for a little walk through the area. We decided to take a scenic path, which would take us to a certain peak where a large hanging rock was located. We underestimated the distances as well as the steepness of the steps and we were forced to take numerous breaks on the way up to catch our breaths. Eventually we made it - the view was amazing, something I’ll never forget and the pride of actually making it up there and not giving up is something that will never leave me either.
The next morning we woke up to discover that Huangshan mountain has been snowed over, apparently a rare occurrence. The changes in scenery were stark, everything was covered in a thick blanket of snow and visibility has also deteriorated. We continued the journey back to the cable car station. Now being a complete noob myself when it comes to walking in snow I decided that it would be a good idea to walk as I normally do - fast and without thinking to much about the terrain and for the most part it served me well - that is until I slipped on a downhill flight of stairs - twice - in my defence I was still carrying a full pack and my centre of gravity was affected, but I recovered and no permanent damage was done. Eventually we made it back to the cable car, back down the mountain and got on the bus to head to Sianxian.

A beautiful place—Huangshan Mountain

The destination after Shanghai is Huang Shan. After a very memorable World Expo experience, we finally got to Huang Shan, and arriving three hours later than planned, at 7am ...in a slighlty delirious state from lack of sleep, we quickly got on a bus to Tankou, the town at the bottom of Huang Shan (Shan means mountain in Chinese). Everyone got off the bus in town, and the lady was asking us where we wanted to go to, but we couldn't tell her in Chinese, so she just handed over her phone and lucky for us, "Mr. Hu" , a recommended hostel owner was on the other end, speaking English, so we told him we wanted to come and stay at his hostel and he told the bus lady! Lucky. Once at Mr. Hu's we checked in and had a quick refresh and a plate of noodles (sadly no time for a nap!) before we had a mountain to climb! We took the eastern steps route up to the top of the mountain which was about two hours of climbing (there is a cable car if you prefer). It was raining and misty, but that added to the mysterious nature of the forest up on the mountain looking over us. The climb was mostly stairs, so it was still OK in the rain, and definitely a good work out! Once we got to the top, there was actually more walking to do to see the best bits. Huang Shan is a UNESCO site, and for good reason. We were lucky that we had climbed high enough to see the tops of the peaks, and the clouds were blowing over as we got round to some of the good viewing spots further round the mountain top. We walked for two more hours around paths at the top, with many excellent viewpoints taken in along the way. The clouds cleared and we could see sheer cliffs and deep valleys below. Some parts were rather scary because we were so high up and the drop in front of us was deathly! It was incredible though, and well worth the climb in the rain! Some awesome natural formations. Obviously we were exhausted - climbing a mountain off the back of a 14 hour seated train ride with not much sleep, it had been a long 24 hours! We took the cable car down the mountain and headed back to our hotel in Tunxi. After a shower and a (very!) early dinner, we were in bed ridiculously early to catch up on much needed sleep...two out of the four previous nights have been spent on a train!! Tomorrow we will visit the Xidi and Hongcun ancient villages.

World Expo in Shanghai

Yesterday a few fellow teachers and I went into explore the Confucian Temple in Jiading and then spent the rest of the afternoon/evening at the World Expo in Shanghai. It was the most beautiful day I've seen in China so far. Before going into the Confucian Temple we sat down for some lunch right across the street and had a very good conversation with a Chinese Engineer. The conversation swapped between Chinese and English frequently and he was very excited and happy to talk with us after he learned we were teaching English here for a year and are taking a China trip now. The company he works for sells parts to GM. He is a big fan of Maradona and is going to come play soccer (I've started calling it football over here) with some Australian teachers, some Chinese students, and us this Thursday. There's a pagoda outside of the Confucian Temple that we climbed and you could see all the way to downtown Shanghai! Most of the exhibits in and outside of the Confucian temple were describing the Imperial Examination system of China. The system originated from the Han Dynasty and lasted 1300 years (a looooong time) until the end of the Qing (pronounced ching) dynasty. The Imperial Examination system was an exam to test if one was worthy of being a public official. The most common examination was an eight-legged essay. Those taking the exam were strictly observed and examination times could range to a few weeks. The World Expo was huge and full of people. To think that the entire area will be used for different development projects in several months blows my mind. We walked around and saw the outside of most countries pavilions, but had the pleasure to venture into a few such as: North Korea and Iran. Later we will visit Xi’an.

Grand Sightseeing in Shanghai

Remember 50 years ago when I went to China? Then I stopped writing once I was in Shanghai and you all assumed I had met my demise there? Nope, still kickin'. I've been back in the States for a month and a half now, don't know how much I'll remember from looking at pictures but let's find out. And now you (will) know... the rest of the story. So, that morning Jerry took us on a very quick walking tour. Most of the others wanted to go to the Shanghai Museum but since museum's tend to bore me, I opted to head over to the Yuyuan Garden and agreed to meet up with them at a specific time later. It was a bit of a walk, more than I had planned on, and took me about 30 minutes to walk to. The gardens were nice- but all the little buildings (pagodas I guess?) were the main thing there- in my opinion at least. There was a back little corner where you could climb up some stone little stairs and look over the wall to the present day world. Kind of surreal to then glance behind you and see the time of days gone by. After the garden, I wandered around Yuyuan Classical Street. Talk about crowded. It's busy anytime, but the World Fair opened today so everyone is in "town" for that. I grabbed a taxi and it only took about 5 minutes to drive back to the museum to meet up with the others. I had about an hour before I had to meet them so I walked around the area and saw that a lot of people kept disappearing into this entryway that led into the ground. I decided to follow and found myself falling thru the rabbit hole (or so it felt). Below the museum is the Hong Kong Mall. It was very odd to walk down a large spiral staircase and suddenly be in a mall. The ceilings were quite low, and one section was set up to look like Shanghai back in blah blah blah (don't remember what year). Very interesting. I decided to head up above ground and sat under a tree to read my book- I'm a geek and always carry one with me. I checked the clock on my iPhone
instead of my wristwatch and guess what, the wristwatch was 20 minutes off- I was supposed to meet up with the others 40 minutes ago. So, while I was wandering below ground, they were above ground looking for me. How "True Blood" sounding is that? Oh well, I just headed back to the hotel, I was ready for a nap anyway. That night, we went and saw the Shanghai Acrobats. They were amazing!! Saw the sign later that we weren't supposed to take pictures or video. Oops! Damon, Steve and myself all sat there filming and taking pictures like crazy- you would have thought our kid was up on stage or something. Truly remarkable. Tomorrow we are going to the World Expo.

Closer to Heaven in Beijing

Can you hear the drums waking the city of Old Beijing? We began our morning at the drum tower listening to the ancient ritual wake the city. Twenty-five drums beat together representing the weather, the time, and the season. In ancient times the drums were a way of communicating important information from village to village. After the drumming ceremony, we began our rickshaw ride through the neighborhood in the Hutongs. Children waved and shouted “Hello!” as we rode by. This was our first real glimpse at what life is like for the locals. We rode past their markets, their barbershops, and their playgrounds. During our rickshaw tour, a local family invited our group into their home to have some tea and see their courtyard. Sipping cups of warm jasmine tea and looking at their old black and white photographs took us to the heart of the Chinese culture, the family. After the rickshaw tour was completed, we headed off to the zoo for a visit with the Giant Pandas. Despite the drizzling rain, we were enchanted to see 10 pandas in action. Sleeping, eating, playing, tumbling, these charming creatures were showing off for the cameras. They are in the Hall of Pandas, a special exhibition that has been put in place for the Olympics. Our next stop on the China tour took my breath away. The Temple of Heaven is set back in a huge garden. Through the long corridor, there were all kinds of entertainments - dancing, singing, prayer, poetry, tai chi. The elderly spend their free time in the corridor leading to the Temple of Heaven. The irony is obvious. But the serene look on their face and the sheer number of locals in the gardens and corridors was enough to tell me that it was their pleasure to be there. Once we arrived in the courtyard of the Temple, I was awe-struck by the extraordinary work of architecture, art, and pure genius of this temple. We’ll say good night now from Beijing and then Zao Shang Hao from Xian!

Beijing—Forbidden City

On our China trip there are three destinations, and Beijing is the first stop. Arrived in Beijing this week and somehow managed to get a train into the centre from the airport and then got to my hostel using the underground system. Today I visited the Forbidden City with a friend I met at the hostel, and was lucky enough to get a relatively smog-free day with sunshine, even though it was still cold. We entered the Forbidden City through the Meridian Gate, and the first thing you see is the Gate of Supreme Harmony with the enormous Palace of Supreme Harmony looming behind it. Its quite a breath-taking sight and the photos really don't do it justice there was too much to take in as there are huge, majestic buildings all around you. Behind the Palace of Supreme Harmony is the Palace of Middle Harmony - nicely named to as not to seem as important as the first! However it isn't just the name that indicates how important each building is, on the corners of the roofs there are small animals depicted and the most important buildings can have up to 11 animals, whereas simple gateways will have just 1 or 2.
Some visitors chatted with us and told us the Summer Palace was also very beautiful and worth a visit.We also visited the Emperor's (and Empresses') clock gallery. Apparently they had a great fondness for clocks, receiving them as gifts from all over the world and filling their palaces with them to the extent that there was no longer any room to move. I took some pictures of the wackiest clocks thinking of my Granddad with his clock collection, however to be completely honest most of those on display were so garish and OTT that they didn't really make for good pictures! Finally we went to the Imperial Garden at the back of the Forbidden City, where there are hundreds of knotted, twisted trees with supports holding them upwards. There are also a number of small palaces and it was really very pretty. W e spent pretty uch a whole day within the city walls, and could have spent longer.
It took at least 25 minutes to walk straight from one wall to another, so that gives some idea of the sheer size!
We have 3 days time in Beijing, and expect 1 day to the Great Wall. Then we will take our train to Xi’an.

Shaolin, Kungfu

Our intention was to get up early so we could benefit from an entire day in Shaolin and be back in time to catch our mid-night train to Xi’an for the Terracotta Warriors. We ate a breakfast of dumplings, and green bean soup together before boarding the bus. The Malaysian woman was travelling China and had many stories about her adventures around the world, we were also joined by a student from Xi’an who was going to the town of Dengfeng (a town close to Shaolin) to take an exam (a kung fu exam?- we did not ask). The bus to Shaolin was a memorable experience. Instead of taking just one hour the journey lasted close to three as the bus driver thought it would be quicker to take a dirt road rather than
the express highway direct to Shaolin. Along the road there was an epic traffic jam on a scale only imaginable in China. Finally we arrived at Shaolin, two hours after we expected (but still early nonetheless). An entire complex of shops, boutiques, restaurants and the works met us as we headed for the entrance to Shaolin. There were dozens of Chinese tour groups, and a handful of foreigners but the entire sight of the Shaolin tourist area was large enough so it did not feel too crowded. Despite Shaolin being the birthplace of both Zen Buddhism and Chinese Kung Fu its significance has been overshadowed by its commercial appeal to
tourists and fans of Kung fu movies. I was not that disappointed as I expected there to be many tourists and for the entire sight to be commercialized as I had read about it before, and it is just the reality of contemporary China. My room mate had the immense patience to take many pictures of me doing kung fu movements and poses in front of the iconic architecture and scenery of Shaolin. This aroused the attention of some of the Chinese tourists some of which wanted me to take photos with them. For me visiting to Shaolin was like stepping into a dream, a kung fu dream although I was dishearted not to have seen any real monks, except those wearing monks costumes selling crap outside the temple. I was also very excited to see the famous kung fu schools next to the temple and was lucky enough to witness a massive rehearsal for a martial arts performance featuring hundreds of young students. The temple itself was smaller than I expected but I was glad to see that it had been restored and kept clean. The pagoda forest was very cool and I took many photos here. Luoyang is really a very good place to visit.

Great China Trip: Chongqing to Guilin

Our 15th day in the far east was also our last morning on the Sunshine China cruise ship before it docks in the early morning in Chongqing (the sister city of my hometown Brisbane). We only had a half day in Chongqing before heading off to Guilin after lunch. We docked in this huge city with a population over 30million (well the municipality of Chongqing) around 8 am. Of course we get the standard merchants when you get off any form of transport trying to sell some sort of kite, map, scarf, jade etc. We headed off to the Chongqing Zoo to see the handful of panda’s they have in their compound. Due to some time restraints, we had around an hour in the zoo before we headed off to a park for a tea drinking ceremony. We arrived around the time that the giant panda’s were being feed their breakfast, so other than running to the food, there wasn’t a whole lot of activity in their respective compounds. After around 20 minutes of some ohh’s and ahhs, we quickly scouted the rest of the zoo. I can’t remember the last time that I was at a zoo (probably 15 years ago, in Melbourne when they had the Panda’s), but most of the animals here are fairly stock standard. Most of the enclosures were quite big, however I was a little bit saddened when we came across some of the monkey cages though. Our guide did mentioned that years ago the enclosures were a lot smaller, so at least the zoo management are trying to make a change. Once everybody has been accounted for, this time for real, we headed off to a park in the city. I am not sure of the name of the park, but I think it was Pipa Shan Park (I think, but no matter). I was more concerned that my sister was hit on the head with the gate beam as she was trying to dodge the merchants selling the wears. Thankfully she has a hard head! The park is located on a small mountain and one of the highest points in Chongqing, on a clear day you can get some great views of the city. The day we arrived in Chongqing was a very smoggy day (well compared to home, but probably not by Chongqing standards), where visibility was at most a few hundred metres. In the park is a small teahouse where they will teach tourist the Chinese way of drinking tea. Of course they sell tea, tea pots and various other accessories. If I was a regular tea drinker, I would probably go a bit crazy here as some of the regular tea drinkers did. After lunch we headed off to the airport for a short flight to Guilin. Guilin is famous for it’s karst hills that surround the city, the caves in the hills and the rice terraces located at Longsheng (commonly known as Dragon Backbone Terraces). After dinner we had the option for a Lijiang River cruise around the city, the city is not only surrounded by karst hills but the Li River and a bunch of lakes that have been joined by canals. You have to give credit to the local government of Guilin who have done an amazing effort in making this short cruise (around an hour long) into a great way to see this small (by Chinese standards) city. The canals have some really nice parks and they even build some interesting bridges that include pictures and calligraphy on the underside. As part of the cruise, you get to see some cormorant fishing, musical and signing performances. Later in the night we headed into the night markets that happen every night from 8pm on the main street. They don’t seem to hassle you a lot in these markets as they do in the other markets in the big cities. So you can at least wonder at your own pace and look without having a calculator shoved in your face by an overly eager merchant.

Resplendent and Magnificent Forbidden City

Last night in Beijing, I ended up going out to a Xinjiang Restaurant in a hutong just two blocks from the Super 8 and it was a good little hike through winding alleys and bunches of old people playing majhong. I got several of my favorite Western Chinese specialties: spicy pulled noodles and goat skewers. The noodles were phenomenal and I could literally have just eaten bowl after bowl of that for all I cared. I also decided to order a skewer of lamb chops and sheep kidneys. The chops were fine but the kidney made me nauseous beyond belief. The taste was so-so, but the texture and appearance was foul. One of the kidneys still had intestine attached to it and that about put me off. The best part of the meal, other than the atmosphere, beautiful Islamic decor and music, was the Sinkiang Heipi. Sinkiang is an older way of Romanizing Xinjiang and Heipi means dark beer. It was the first dark beer I have had of Chinese origin, and being partial to dark beers, this has become my new favorite in the country. Today was a good ole time going on a tour of the Palace Museum aka. The Forbidden City by myself with a headset that told me about the history. I thought it would kind of suck doing the tour by myself since I had no one to talk to, but I was surprisingly happy with the whole thing. I was able to do a full tour, which I usually can't do because someone gets tired, loses interest, or just complains the entire way--not my idea of fun on a tour. I look forward to going on more of these alone because I got to do the entire 4 hour tour in 5 hours! Yes, 5 hours. Most people would probably go insane but I took the opportunity to look at every little artifact and piece of artwork I could find. Before I got in, I took the subway from the hotel to Tian'anmen Square and got off to get another view of the majesty of the tall walls of the city, the government buildings and the amazingly brilliant Sovietesque wide streets with 25 lanes of traffic. I really do love the sight here. After going under the square to the Forbidden City side and pushing through the mobs of people, I queued for almost an hour to get a ticket and then another 10 for an audio tour. I toured the museum all day and loved every minute. Even though it was hotter than you know what, the sheer size and grandeur of the entire complex kept me looking for more. The Imperial Garden and the Hall of Military Glory were my favorite parts and the latter was amazing because it was set apart from the main part of the complex and therefore had nearly no one unlike the 50,000 other people that thought Friday was just the best day ever to go to see where the emperors used to live. In all, I took over 350 pictures and many were of signs so I could read them later when I had time to look up all the unknown Hanzi. Tomorrow I would visit the Summer Palace, the royal summer resort garden in ancient China.

Hongcun, Beautiful as a Chinese Picture

In June, 2010, my friend Sue and I took a great China trip.
After the sweaty visit to Shanghai World Expo, we went to the Huangshan Mountain. There we visited the beautiful ancient villages, the Hongcun and Xidi Villages.One of two famous villages located near Huangshan, Hongcun is the more famous of the two because it has been used in several major Chinese movies. The village is gorgeous. It is very famous and has been added to UNESCO's World Heritage List. Happily, due to the administration of the village elders, the village has stayed a living village and has changed little. There are a lot of visitors every day, but they tend to stay on the main streets and to avoid them all I needed to do was go a street in and the streets were deserted except for the locals going about their business as they have for centuries. Hongcun Village is famous for its two ponds. One is at the entrance to the village and is runs the entire length of the village. It can only be crossed by the use of a marble bridge that runs only about a foot above the water with a traditional Chinese moon bridge located in the middle so boats can cross under it. The other is located in the center of the village. It is half moon in shape and is smooth as glass and reflects the surrounding buildings. It is gorgeous! The houses in the village are in a fantastic state of preservation. I remember the Ancient City Wall in Xi’an, it is also preserved in very good condition. They are all still occupied, many by the descendents of the original owners. Each house is centered around a central courtyard which have been turned into a garden by the owners, who are extremely proud of them. Many of the houses are open to the public and as astounding. The village had several extremely wealthy businessmen living their during the Ming and Qing Dynasties and their houses reflect their wealth. They are breathtaking with every inch covered with beautiful carvings. The wealth of the original owners are boldly displayed on the main gates of the houses. It is the only real decorations on the exterior of the houses. I really enjoyed strolling through the village exploring it.

Shanghai, Nanjing, Anhui

After we finished the 6 week course in China and said goodbye to everyone, I still had a week in China before I had to fly down to. So a bunch of us being Monica, Max, Jeike, Matty and Sam headed to the moutain region of Anhui. I have never in my life been so cold, it was beyond a joke. Never going back to China in the winter. I always thought I was a winter person but clearly I was not. The hostel we stayed in was the 'Youth hostel' and it was really nice, empty but good. We walked around the old town, tired and in a daze after a sleepless train ride. After a good night sleep we decided to climb the famous Huangshan mountain. We climbed a fair bit and then got to the area where you needed to get the lifts up to the peak and then realised if we went up there we would not see anything but clouds. So cold adn exhuasted we headed back down and went back to the hostel. The bushwalking club enthuasit Maxine wasn't the best of walkers it is clear to say. It was a really nice region though. We also visited the Xidi and Hongcun ancient villages, they are beautiful as Chinese pictures.
It was a chilled atmosphere. There were things to see in Anhui but we pretty much saw them within the first few days. So we decided to head back a day early to Nanjing. We got to Nanjing really early in the morning and decided to sleep off any tiredness. In the afternoon we just casually walked around the town to get our bearings. Me Maxine and Sam went to the Nanjing war museum which was actually really sad. It had a lot of history, very anti Japanese that was for sure. It was also very modern and state of the age. We also headed to see the bell tower of Nanjing, which is not a real good highlight it is safe to say. Nanjing was a cool little city. It wasn't as good as Shanghai but it was still nice to see. We ended up running in Aimee and Sharon and there we went to a Mongolian hut for dinner which was actually really awesome and delicious. Loved the food. It was nice to see. The best moment was at the train station getting tickets back to Shanghai. The line was no joke MASSIVE and there was no way of getting to the front and skipping, or at least we thought. We sort of played on our white appearance and ignorance, despite we spoke chinese, and walked to the front of the que and bought tickets, so we were in and out of there in 5 mins. No one said anything to us, just muttered bad comments and gave us an evil stare. It was an experience. Probably not very ethical but oh well. So the next day I went to Shanghai whilst the others went to Beijing. They were all off to more extreme colder places whilst I was headed towards the sun and heat of Thailand. Let me tell you I was so happy to head to the heat. I ended up having one night in Shanghai, where I met up with Owen who I used to live with in Souther China. He had not changed one bit that was sure to say, still typically English. Took two connecting flights through Shenzhen to Bangkok, so it was a bit of a long day in transit.

Huangshan: Yellow Mountain

Xuijiahui has become familiar and people have found their favorite places to go for restaurants, cafes, bakeries, xiao long bao. This past week on our China trip we made a delicious sweet and sour chicken that I definitely plant to make at home. On Thursday night the SJTU students threw a welcoming party for us at the Minhang campus, the main SJTU campus (I am at Xinhui). We sang the Ramblin Wreck song and put on a couple other performances; including a Backstreet boys song (which they all knew) and one of us even break danced. They provided most of the entertainment with some karaoke, band performances, a song from High School musical (some fo the volunteers told me they learned several of the musical's skits in P.E.) and games. Its interesting interacting with people your own age but have grown up in a completely different culture. On Friday morning we left for Huangshan (Yellow Mountains) on a 6 hour bus with 8 people, one of whom who could speak Chinese. The bus ride took to Tunxi, a town about 1hr from the base of the mountain, and spent the afternoon exploring the Old Street. Our hotel room was $15 a night but the A/C was tightly regulated and would shut off after one hour. Only the hotel had the remote so I had to call down to the front desk in broken Chinese and tell them "I have a problem, air conditioner, #506". Luckily, a storm that night kept the room cool. We also visited another very beautiful ancient village—the Hongcun Village.On Saturday we left the hotel at 7:00am to take two taxis to Huangshan. There are two main paths up the mountain so the 4 guys in the group of course decided to take the harder but supposedly more scenic path while the 4 girls took the cable car. Climbing up was no small thanks to large backpacks with all our clothes, food, and water for the whole weekend. Initially two of the girls started the climb but they turned back after 20 min of hiking. The trails were actually steps carved into the mountainside but that did not make the 6 hours hike up to our hotel any easier. Along the way we also climbed up to the 3rd highest Celestial Peak at 1810m before meeting the girls at our hotel, located on the 2nd highest Bright Peak (the highest was closed for ecological preservation). While location was great, the room had concrete floors and had 4 bunk beds in a room smaller than the average college dorm room. Still the hotel was worth it because it allowed us to see both sunrise and sunset the next morning. Most importantly we were able to drop our bags at the hotel so we could explore the summit more easily. For sunset we ventured off trail and found a group of professional photographers preparing for sunset. They seemed entertained as we took pictures of each other while waiting for the sunset, especially the "falling" pictures. On Sunday we got up at 4am to beat the sunrise crowd. Even getting up that early the crowd was large but we being Americans we climbed up the rock wall next to the sunrise viewing area to avoid the crowds. Only downside is while waiting for the 5:15am sunrise we were blinded by Asian tourists taking flash pictures of the 4 Americans on the rock. After taking a quick nap after sunrise we headed back down the mountain a different way, this time it only took about 4 hours to hike down and caught an afternoon bus to Shanghai to visit the World Expo.

Here is Xi’an!

After long run on the train from Beijing we arrived in the province of Shaanxi at Xi'an train station. It said in the guide its one of the busiest, well it is bedlam. I had booked at the Bell Tower YH and there was a girl there with our name who met us and passed us onto another man who we had to follow to a minibus which was parked quite away from the station. There was 8 of us who got the bus which dropped everybody off at their hostels,not us.Because of a one way street he pointed us in the right direction to walk! We got there eventually to find that we were put in the 5th floor with no lift! But it had the best view dead center of the old city opposite the Bell Tower,all big cities in China have them,and Drum Towers. One for the am. and the other for the evening. This town of nearly 7 million! is on the tourist trail for the Terracotta Warriors so the hostel was full of backpackers.
Of course the main reason for the trip here was the Terracotta Warriors,so we signed up on a hostel organised tour. Meeting our guide at the hostel we followed him to a mini coach where there were others waiting. Off we went, for about 5 mins that is,untill we stopped at another hostel where there was 2 more mini coaches. After a discussion the guide said that we had to ge out and wait on another bus. 5 mins later we were back on our original bus and on our way to a rendevous with our phantom bus. At a large roundabout we were met by our mini coach with a new guide called Jessy and the driver called Mr Zhang. He was according to Linda as he's the safest driver in a bus/taxi she'd had yet! Bonus, we're the only ones on this bus,so its a private tour, which means no flags to follow. The tour was very educational and Jessy really made it more enjoyable. Highlight was meeting one of the farmers who found the warriors in his field. He works for the government now promoting his book! We also visited the Ancient City Wall, the best preserved section of ancient city walls in China.Xi'an is one of few cities that has its old walls in tact. So we took a tour de Xi'an on bikes for a 15 km cycle circumnavigating the old city. it was 37C. so it was hard going in the heat, especially with all the bricks. it took about 1.5 hrs to do. In the evenings we tasted 3.8M noodles(see photo) and also we ate in the Muslim Quarter. I made the initial mistake of ordering beer, didn't realise we were in the quarter.Then I ordered what I thought was a couple of lamb kebabs only to find it was two pieces of lamb on each skewer, good start to the evening!

My First Visit to Huangshan, and the Villages

My main reasons for visiting Anhui were the predictable ones: See some villages, visit Huangshan. When I arrived it was raining and as any fools knows, its a bad plan to climb a mountain in a thunder storm. I decided to do the villages first. I set of early in the morning with three girls from my hostel. We were planning on taking a local bus to a big village called Xidi and then going on from there. However we ended up negotiating a price with a taxi driver for the day. He was a nice guy, and the mix of English (his only word was 'taxi'), Chinese and sign language kept us happily amused. The first and best stop of the day was Chengkan. A nice Ming (?) dynasty village with an unintelligible but very poetic entrance sign. It felt like a real village, open sewers, cows and scruffy children. It was very relaxing to wander through, although it was a Chinese village so the of course the experience came with an entrance fee. I wondered how much if any of this, the villagers ever saw. Although there was also a tour route, we decided that was dull and went for a freestyle walk. The result was us getting slightly lost but luckily we managed to surreptitiously follow a grandmother back to civilisation. Our last stop was Hongcun, the tourist spot of the day. It was beautiful
but busy and we spent much less time here than we did in Chengkan. Once again using local grandmothers to negotiate the alleyways! This was a village of street food and we sampled an abundance of different deep fried biscuits, some of which were edible. The day ended slightly stressfully as our taxi driver finished his shift without telling us. The last bus had gone and for an hour or so we thought we were stranded. When his replacement finally turned up he didn't get why we'd been worried- silly westerners, not knowing about local shift patterns! When the weather cleared up I went to Huangshan. The bus left as 6am which was a bit horrible, especially as Id stayed up too late the night before. Ah well! I went with Adam, a Chinese guy from my dorm and we joined up with a few others on the bus, so by the time we got there we had a good hiking team! Huangshan is big, so for the sake of seeing some of the nice less touristy bits at the top we took a cable car up the east side of the mountain. We then did a 16km hike around the summit. Across to the west side and then around the west deep sea canyon. This was steep and some of the paths, slightly terrifying, when you saw from the side they were only 10cm of concrete, 100s of meters above the ground. The views were lovely though, spectacular pine trees clinging to rocky peaks rising out of a sea of mist clad lower mountains. The Chinese have a crazy habit of building steps around their mountains. Its a bit odd and makes it into a tourist destination rather than a peaceful retreat, but it does mean that you can access amazing areas without being a stupidly high grade rock climber! We shared the sunset with the masses then, after a few hours sleep in a hotel on the summit (!) we shared the sunrise with the masses too. The two looked somewhat similar and although beautiful were somewhat disturbed by the camera flashes and cheers. I'm not really complaining. If it had been a sunrise in Scotland, the crowd would have been an intrusion, but this is China. You can't escape the people. All activities are communal, watching the sunrise included! The next day I spent hobbling. I caught a bus to Hangzuou in the afternoon as I needed to get back to shanghai to catch my train to Hong Kong. My first proper bus journey in china.

Giant Buddha and Lovely Pandas

After a lot of confusion at the train station and a sad goodbye to our cabin friends, our guest house eventually collected us and took us to our pre-booked room (The first one of the trip). We checked into Sims Cozy guest house a very comfy spot with all the help a traveler needs available. It was quick and easy to book our outings over the next few days to the Panda sanctuary, Leshan for the Giant Buddha and the Tibetan markets. We took several taxi's around town exploring the temples, markets, antique shops and Tibetan quarters.We reserved a spot on a tour out to the panda sanctuary. However when we realized that 50 others had done so as well we had to take action. We managed to loose the tour on arrival allowing us to wonder the park on our own. A good move. We sat watching the Giant Pandas for hours, climbing trees and taking a swim. The center is well laid out and the pandas have all the space they need and a great bushy environment. They are not so clever and would climb a tree to the point where the branches would break causing the panda to fall several stories to the ground. This would send the rangers into a panic and they would come running to check the valuable and rare creatures were ok. Panda sanctuary in Chengdu is a must-see. We were fortunate enough to see the nursery area where infant and newly born pandas where raised with care. Red pandas made an appearance as well and were a great little extra to the day. Liff secretly liked them more than the big ones. On our last day of our China trip, we decided to take a jeep with 4 other travelers to Leshan. A 3 hour drive from Chengdu its a spot where the largest sitting Buddha statue in the world resides. at 71m its massive and far larger than we expected. Here too half of china had decided that today was the day they wanted to see it and we struggled through hours of long ques to finally climb down the narrow rock cut staircase down into the valley to find him. A mission well worth it as the Buddha was HUGE! We wondered the misty forests surrounding the Buddha sweating something chronic. We once again experienced the humidity of south India in full force.

Shaoshan, the Home of Mao

A year on, and my brother and I are once again entering the chaotic country that is China! We set off from my home in Hong Kong & were across the Shenzhen Louhu border in no time. First adventure was an overnight sleeper train to Changsha which departed at 9pm and arrived at around 7am. We were lucky in finding a hotel quickly and wasted no time in getting out and about. Train tickets for the next journey were purchased, and we got the city bus to the long-distance bus termimal. From there, we took a bus to Shaoshan...the birthplace of Mao. Upon arrival we had to take a taxi up to the old town, which is quieter and set back in the hills. We spent a good few hours walking around and saw the house where Mao was born (outside which a woman and her friends were singing in honour it seemed...bizarre). We were definitely the only foreigners there, and probably one of few who were not in a tour group being led round by a flag-wielding, microphone-yelling tour guide! Walking round the area was quite pleasant with lots of rice paddies and greenery. One sign even said that these were the rice paddies Mao himself lovingly cared for! The area where Mao comes from was a nice change from the hustle and bustle of Changsha. We also visited the statue of Mao there, in front of which yet more tour groups were paying respects, laying flowers and taking group photos. The relics hall had many artifacts from Mao's life, including an enormous pair of swimming shorts! After a decent afternoon of wandering around, we took a taxi back to the new town and then our custom was fought over for the bus back to Changsha. It turns out Shaoshan is quite a random place to visit - I had to ask travelblog.org to add it to their destination list! In the evening we visited a recommended restaurant - a top 5 eat in China apparently. Had a good Chinese meal including Mao's favourite pork dish & some very odd blackened tofu dish...we decided not to order stag's testicles off the menu, or rabbit for that matter. It turned out to be a Mao-filled day of patriotism!! A good start to our China adventure. The next morning before we departed Changsha, we went for a dumpling brunch & had a bit of pot luck dumplings...I know some of the chinese food symbols, but I'm not up to detailed dumpling stuffings! So, we went for pork & it turned out to be nice corriander pork dumplings. There was also a picture of sweet looking dumpling so we gave that a whirl, and bonus...banana fritters! Our luck was in. My Chinese linguistic skills are returning and are proving helpful once again! Next adventure....a train to Huang Shan moutnain...sounds quite simple....oh no, it's getting it's own blog!

Splendid Yangtze River Cruise

Well we have been on our China trip for 9 days now and wanted to really get to know the Chinese culture better, So we booked ourselves onto a cruise up the Yangtze River (well a basic boat tour to be more accurate) with a Chinese Tour Group! Being the only westerner's on board we received a lot of attention in the way of long stares. A few "Ni Hao's" (Hello's) slowly began to bring the group round to the idea that we were in fact friendly people! After a while they began to respond with "Hello" accompanied with a big smile. We had succeeded in our quest to win some of our travel companions over. The boat trip was very basic, but we were pleased to have a western toilet (as opposed to a squat toilet) with streamer style toilet roll in our room and a flask of hot water ready for our nutritious pot noodles! We set sail from Wanzhou Pier and continued down river. Our first stop was at the Zhangfei Temple which was bizarrley lit up with red neon strip lights. It wasn't quite the 'old meeting the new' that we had expected, but it did have
some original calligraphy wooden and slate plaques on display which allowed it to keep some of its authenticity. It commemorates Zhangfei, a distinguished General from the Three Kingdom Period. The next day, the internal bells on the boat rang at an unearthly hour of 6am to get all the passengers up to view the Qutang Gorge, the first, shortest and the grandest of the Three Gorges. We decided to just open the room curtains and stay in bed for this. At 8am, we arrived in Wushan city and were rounded up to take a small boat to visit the Little / Lesser Three Gorges. The scenery was beautiful and the trip was made even more enjoyable as a kind chinese man "Cheng" wanted to practice his English and translated some of the information for us. There were songs and laughter down the river and Andy didn't fail to entertain everyone by dressing up in the traditional costume for part of the journey! Cheng also helped to explain what some of the traditional street food was, so we started bartering for a few things - potatoes on a stick, baby cockerel on a stick and those sorts of things. Cheng
laughed as we managed to get them for less than he paid! Andy was quite daring in trying the baby cockerel, but didn't eat all the parts that the Chinese were eating. We returned to the larger boat to continue our journey past the second of the gorges 'Wu Gorge' with its famous high and misty peaks, and then onto the Xiling Gorges. Another beautiful day. It was another early start and we took an excursion to Jiuwan Stream on a traditional Dragon Boat which had a petrol powered outboard motor on it - again the old meeting the new! We had a boat all to ourselves as surprisingly Andy made us late as he was doing his hair! This was a lovely little stream where we walked across an inflatable walkway and up into the gorge cliff side. We then all sat down for a traditional Chinese play 'Ritual of the Soul' which was very colourful and involved lots of loud piercing singing. Other entertainment involved our travelling companions just standing up and leaving or just having loud conversations throughout the play. The last part of the Yangtze River Cruise tour was a trip round the Three Gorges Dam which was very wide and apparently produces trillions of watts of power each year!! Then we disembarked in Yichang, and flew to Shanghai for the World Expo, and Hangzhou and Suzhou.There was a man on board who had an England jacket on whom we asked to have our photo taken with. He was quite a shy man, but was very flattered to have been picked out by us for a photo and after this he always made a point to say "Hello" to us when ever he saw us. By the end of the tour, we felt like celebrities! We lost count of the number of photo's that had been taken of us, but that made it an even more fun journey.

Temple of Heaven, the Altar

We were in no rush today. Our train for Xi’an was leaving at 9:30 tonight and we only had one thing left to see - the Temple of Heaven. We slept in a bit, had breakfast at our hotel again, visited the Beijing Hutongs, and then drove to the Temple. Beijing is handy that way. Nearly ever major tourist attraction has a metro stop named after it. It was crowded. Surprise, surprise. The Temple of Heaven is not an active temple. It is a museum now. A huge museum that is larger than the Forbidden City if you include the gardens. The actual buildings are not quite as impressive though, but it is well worth a visit for only 35 RMB each. The gardens are beautiful and so is the architecture. The Temple of Heaven was originally built in the 1400 and 1500's. Much of it has been reconstructed since the 1800's due to fire or some other type of damage. It is beautifully restored. It includes a 267 hectare park with a gate at each compass point, so it is difficult to get lost. The temple got its name because it was originally the place where the Son of Heaven who performed solemn rites and prayed for good harvests and atonement for the sins of the people. I don't know what is meant by Son of Heaven. The temple halls are round and their bases are square. This symbolizes heaven and earth. Round earth - okay, I get that. Square heaven? Mmm, you lost me. Many sections of the temple were crowded enough to make me want to run away, but I tried to be a good sport. We went back to Qianmen Street and grabbed a bite to eat at KFC, then had a Starbucks, then took the metro to the Beijing South train station which is the cleanest, nicest, most luxurious public transport building I have ever entered. It was cleaner than Seoul's airport and had real chairs arranged attractively for waiting. Our train was boarding, so we didn't even get to sit down, but I was so impressed with this train station. I was equally impressed with the train. We got soft sleepers and shared our berth with a nice Chinese couple. The rain was new, clean, and very comfortable. Each bed has its own flat screen TV and headphones. Honestly, I dreaded this train ride, but we had no choice. It turned out to be really great and we saved money on a hotel! This brings our trip to Beijing to an end. It was a great China trip with great weather and great company. To Xi’an for the Terracotta Warriors!

Summer Palace, the Great Resort

For my first destination of my China trip, it is Beijing. And for Beijing, the first to visit, it is the Summer Palace. The Old Summer Palace known as the Gardens of Perfect Brightness, were destroyed and burned down by Anglo French forces in 1860. The Garden of Clear Ripples (renamed the Summer Palace after it was destroyed by Anglo French forces) was constructed between 1115-1234 during the Jin dynasty, was a luxurious garden of horticulture and architecture that the Emporer would frequently visit during the summer. We visited both the old and new Summer Palaces of Beijing today and had a lot of fun seeing them both. Definately my favorite gardens so far. The Summer Palace was situated around a lake, (not polluted! the first body of water in China I have seen yet that was unpolluted!) and you could walk all the way around it. We didn't have time but I'd like to see the rest of it if I ever come back. It wasn't too crowded because it was pretty big and it wasn't too overcast either. My guide told me the Forbidden City, which was my next destination, is also very vast. First we went to the Old Summer Palace and spent about 2 hours there walking around. It had some interesting buildings and was a nice relaxing place, like all the gardens in China haha. After that we had lunch at a cool little (at least it looked little) restaurant. But it was actually a very long building in the back, just the front was crowded between two buildings. The restaurants specialty was dumplings, which have been one of my favorite chinese foods so far. When we finished we caught a cab to the new Summer Palace and had a nice tour of it. You could pay to take a boat ride out onto the lake but the lines were enormous so we decided just to walk. It had a huge island in the middle with a long bridge that we walked to get out to. Overall it was a great attraction to see, especially since it wasn't as crowded as some of the others. For the next day, I would hike up to the top of the Great Wall.

Visit to Forbidden City

This morning Tracy and I got an early start and went to Tian'anmen Square but didn't look at the zombie of Mao Zedong yet. We're doing that later this week. Today we went straight for the Forbidden City. It was still a little foggy but we had a great time. First you have to go through Tian'anmen Square, then take an underground tunnel under the main road, to the other side right outside the Forbidden City. Even from far away at the back of Tian'anmen Square you can see the huge portrait of Mao Zedong on the wall above the gate to the Forbidden City. After you get to the other side you're ushered through the huge wooden doors and into a tunnel, opening out to one of the many many buildings. I never knew the Forbidden City was so big. I wish now I had bought one of the maps of it but you can probably find them online. You walk up a lot of stairs to the first building, and go around it to another courtyard with another three huge buildings. We did this 3 or 4 times before reaching the main attraction, Tai He Dian, the building that the Emperor worked in. With his empirical chair. It was really hard to get a picture because there were so many people flocking against the gates. They didn't let you inside this building. Getting out of the crowd reminded me of the mosh pits at concerts in the US :P The Forbidden City is a city created for the Emperor to live in. It's construction went through many different dynasties before it was finally finished. We also bought special tickets to go through the treasure room and the room or clocks and watches. Both were pretty interesting and luckily air conditioned. We were soaked in sweat by the time we left though. Tracy said they keep all the really nice treasures hidden and you have to be pretty rich or powerful to see those ones. In the afternoon we will visit the Summer Palace. We plan two days for Beijing during our China trip. Tomorrow is for the Great Wall. From there we decided to go find something to eat. It took forever to get a taxi because Tian'anmen Square is right in the center of Beijing and really busy. We ended up eating at a nice restaurant inside a huge Beijing mall.

Chongqing City And Nature Tour

Chongqing is famous as a historical city, hot pots and as one of the 4 "furnace cities" in China because of the high summer temperature. Besides all these, it also has plenty of natural landscape to offer. Our guide picked up us from the airport upon our arrival. And we were driven to the UNESCO World Heritage Site Dazu Grottoes to see the Buddhism theme stone carvings. We also visited Ciqikuo - a 1000 years old town. It used to be an important commercial centre. Today, it is one of tour attractions in Chongqing with shops catering to tourist. On the second day, we began our China tour to visit UNESCO World Heritage sites Furong Cave and the natural bridges rock forms in Wulong. Furong Cave is the only cave in China listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is one of the 3 "Greatest Cave in the World". The tour package came with an additional grassland visit. We were surprise to know that there is grassland in Chongqing. The journey to Wulong took 4 hours. The tour bus travelled along Wujiang and the gorge scenery was beautiful. The Furong cave was a 1 hour exercise climbing up and down the steps inside the cave. It was beautiful but tiring. The natural bridges rock forms was huge. We had to take a lift down to the bottom to start the 1 hour walk back to the top. The 2nd day grassland visit was much more relaxing. The 4th day was spent in the city visiting the Hongyadong and the Chaotianmeng harbor. The habour is where Jialing River and Yangtze River meets. It is this strategic location that made Chongqing an important city since ancient times. We also visited the Chongqing People’s Assembly Hall. From far, it resembles the Temple of Haven in Beijing. Chongqing is a hilly place and the buildings are built along the hills. Hongyadong was a good example where the building has 2 first floors. Then we will take a Yangtze River Cruise to Yichang, and visit Shanghai World Expo.

From Shanghai to Kunming

After our Shanghai Expo tour, we are in Kunming, arrived a couple days ago after a 36 or so hour train ride across China, however, we have prepared for this, China is so vast, and we have plenty of time for our China trip. But, to back up, our first night in Shanghai worked out nicely- we hopped on the maglev train, a very fast airport train, then to the metro, and a taxi, and we were at the hotel on the Bund. It was a really old place with grand colonial styling.
The next day in Shanghai we walked around the Bund a little, and the Nanjing Lu pedestrian shopping district, had some good food, went into tea shops, etc. We had a taxi adventure getting to the train station- we were going to ride the metro, but at the last minute decided a taxi would be easier, since we had to taxi to the metro anyway. But the taxi took us to the wrong train station, and we had to pay off some dudes to get us another taxi since there was a huge line, and we needed to catch a train. So we haggled with the new taxi driver a little, then payed him to scoot us across town. It was an aggressive driver and he got us there in time. The train ride was fun, we met some people, entertained little kids, as they entertained us, ate train food, listened to crazy vendor woman selling stuff every couple hours, slept in hard bunks, and saw beautiful scenery. In Kunming, we met up with David, and had diner with him and his friend Samantha. Yesterday we rented bikes and rode across town to a park that has a bunch of pagodas and shrines on the cliff face of a mountain. Some monk a few hundred years ago went there and chiseled a bunch of trails in the stone. Now it is a big tourist spot, but pretty cool. A great view of the city, and a fun cable ride up. We did a lot of hiking up there too. Last night we finished up the day with dinner and massages. We were too tired to meet up with Alex for beers. Now it is time to meet him for breakfast, and plan our day. I think we are going to Anning, near here, for hot springs... Until next time, zaijien! Looking forward to my next China tour!

Yunnan Spectacular

For the Spring Festival, Maple Leaf shuts its doors for a week and lets both teachers and students free on the world. Some of my coworkers headed to the Philippines and Thailand, while others chose to lay low in DaLian and just recover from what felt like a long stretch in term 3. I went to Yunnan Province, and got as close to Tibet as I probably ever will, unless time and money suddenly afford themselves more frequently to me. We arrived in Kunming and things instantly went awry. My travel buddy hadn't printed off the Chinese directions to our hostel, and we couldn't get the number to work. We were both getting hungry and feeling pretty tired, so we went to a different hostel to get help in finding the place we had booked. In my haste, as we were checking in, I realized (with a deep, sinking, frantic realization) that I had left my purse in the taxi we had just exited. Inside that purse was my passport, Tom's passport, $200 cash, my credit card, my Canadian and Chinese bank cards, my ipod, my camera, all the information for our flights and hotels, and my house keys.
Next day, we took a four hour journey to Dali, an old, walled city north of Kunming. The bus was fine, but the rural toilets were not. I don't think I will ever get used to using a squat toilet with no door, while people cruise by looking for empty toilets. My sense of privacy is decidedly Western. When we arrived in Dali (and stayed at the Lily Pad, which I recommend), clouds had settled low over the city and the rain wasn't just threatening, it was starting to punch. We ducked inside a chicken restaurant to wait it out. From the chicken restaurant, we made our rounds through of several of the local bars. We didn't see much of Dali that night, but we sure did get to know their local brew. In the morning, we explored the Ancient City of Dali. Dali has the feel of a Southeast Asian city with its backpackers' guesthouses, restaurants, and banana pancakes, but it also feels like a small and ancient Chinese city (mission accomplished, Dali--I presume that's the feel you were going for), minus the busses and power lines. It's set against the mountains and a great lake. I would have liked to stay a little longer as it felt like a great place to unwind and explore. We had, however, booked a minibus to Lijiang for that afternoon (we rode with heavy smokers who tapped their ashes into sloshing buckets of water), and three hours later we arrived at the amazing Panba Hostel (more like guesthouse/mini hotel). It's set down a very quiet alley that is not far from the centre of Old Town Lijiang, but feels like worlds away from all the tourists and hard-bargaining shops. Our patio overlooked the roofs of the town and the mountains beyond. We explored a little and grabbed some dinner canal-side, then went back to our room to get ready for our two-day hike in Tiger Leaping Gorge. We took another (ugh) three hour minibus ride to Qiaotou and Jane's Tibetan Guesthouse, where the gorge hike officially starts. We got some info from Jane and then set off. The weather that day had started off freezing cold, but the sun quickly bore down on us. We climbed higher into the hills and looked down over terraced fields of rice, some bleached yellow from drought, some emerald green from close attention. We passed mule after mule, and goat shepherd after goat shepherd. We hit the 28 bends and climbed up, and up, and up, and up, and up (I would like to write that 28 times just so your eyes can begin to feel as tired as my legs did, but I'm nicer than that). After 4 hours, and around 5pm, we came across the Tea Horse Guesthouse and decided to call it a day. We sat around with a few other hikers and ate noodles. Our room was sparse but clean, and we had a gorgeous view of the soaring, snow-capped mountains. The only thing that was difficult for me was the bathroom: another open-door squat toilet with a strange, angled and tiled contraption that ran down between the concrete trough you had to stand over. I wish I'd taken a picture. However, despite my complaining, it was very clean. And it had a view of the rice terraces.