Terra Cotta Warriors&Horses

On my way to Xian, I took a much needed layover in Taiyuan. I was able to clean up after my stint in the mountains and take care of a few errands. There, I visited the Shanxi Museum, which had one of the best collections I've seen. Artifacts over 4000 years old from China's first traces of civilization were impressive. Also on display were exquisite examples of ancient Chinese porcelain, currency, architecture, and Buddhist relics.

I arrived in Xian via overnight sleeper train, which was not that bad. My first day in Xian, once the capital of China, I made my way around the well-preserved city wall on bike. I also made my way to the Great Mosque near the center of the city. Xian's position along the Silk Road made it a fertile place for religious diffusion from the Mediterranean. Outside the Great Mosque was one of the best flea markets I've seen. One particular strength was the abundance of knock-offs: Ray-Bans, Lacoste, Bretling watches, whatever!

The following day, I visited one of the most anticipated sights of the entire trip, the Terracotta Warriors! Over 2200 years ago, the first emperor of the Qin dynasty (the same one
from the movie Hero) created a vast army of thousands of life-size porcelain soldiers, horses, and chariots, complete with weapons and gear. These were to accompany him in his tomb to the afterlife. Out of all the things that I've seen ever, this was for sure top three in terms of most amazing due to its sheer size, old age, and the interesting history surrounding emperor Qin. It was definitely worth the venture out to Xian and I'm glad I got it done. So good part of my China tour!

I'm enjoying my last night of solo travel and savoring the solitude, for tomorrow I head to Shanghai where I will meet up with a friend from Houston. In Taiwan, I will also be with friends and family so for the rest of my travels, I shall be in good company.

Suzhou

Suzhou is my second destination for my China trip. We usually eat in the hotel restaurants a lot, because they're usually big, nice, and have enough room for all the guests. I met Cindy’s dad and he's really nice. So anyways, we always eat with about 5-8 people. Last night we ate in a hotel restaurant with friends of Cindy’s dad and I could understand a lot of the conversation, and sometimes when they talk about me haha. I'm picking it up pretty quickly. The only thing I'm still stuck on is reading the Chinese signs, advertisements, and businesses because you can't tell how to pronounce a word by seeing the character. You have to know the "pinyin" or the romanized pronunciation guide. So 龙 is said "Long" and means "dragon". There's no way to tell how to say it from the chinese character. But the speaking and listening is coming to me quickly.
I'm going to take a video of some of the driving here, because most people in the US would not believe me. It's unbelievable haha.
So the touring- we woke up and Cindy said we were having a western style breakfast. Actually it was eastern but had bacon and fried eggs haha. After that Cindy and I went to the Administrators Private Garden. Another ancient garden. Suzhou is known for all the ancient garden estates here. Some of them are really old too. They have people tend to the gardens to keep them looking nice for tourists. It was a really beautiful and relaxing place, with a couple different buildings/houses. The big plant in the main picture is called "o" and the root is delicious!
We were pretty tired after this (lack of sleep and working out). So we went back for lunch and met Cindy’s dad. After we ate we checked out and Cindy’s dad's driver drove us to Wuxi. It's about an hour from Suzhou and it's on the way to Nanjing. It has a newly built Buddhist Temple attraction with an enormous Golden Palace and statue. We toured through the palace where you had to wear shoe covers, then saw a play/movie about Buddha. The palace was enormous, it must've cost 10's of millions at least. Everything was decorated and it looked beautiful I couldn't understand any of it because of the accent the narrator used, but I'm ok with that haha.

When we finished that we went to meet another of Cindy’s dad's friends and his wife. The man runs a tv station and his wife is one of the anchors. The man was really interested that I play drums because he majored in music at college. His wife spoke English really well so she's the first person I got to know. It's funny she said she only speaks a little English, but she understood everything I said. In America, people like to say, "oh I speak 3 languages" and then you find out they only know phrases. People outside the US are too modest about it.

This was probably the most exotic meal we had yet. We had a type of bamboo root, pork, shrimp, fish, snake soup, and a bunch of other things. The snake was actually pretty good.

An interesting thing Chinese people do is that they never take out the bones of a fish, even the small ones, so you have to find them yourself. Also, they bring out the whole fish, skin and all, just dead and chopped into slices. But they always leave the head.

After dinner we drove the rest of the way to Nanjing, the third stop for my China tour. I fell asleep in the car since it was a two hour drive. Now I stayed the night in a hotel about 5 minutes away from Cindy’s house. They said today can be a rest day if I want since I was so tired yesterday. But I slept well. I have to go get breakfast now in the hotel before it closes. I'll tell you how Nanjing is later :)

Summer Palace

In the morning of our second day in Beijing, we visited the Summer Palace. The Summer Palace was originally commissioned by Emperor Qianlong as a giant retreat in honor of his mother's 60th birthday in 1750. In 1860 many of the palaces were burned down. The Summer Palace was rebuilt with funds that were supposed to be used for the Navy. By this point Empress Dowager Cixi retired here in 1889. As the guide books state the Palace represents first hand the corruption at the time, the opulence here was bought with siphoned money as China crumbled. The entire gardens were for the Empresses exclusive use. I was interested in seeing this site but at the same time had ambivalent feelings about the history.

We arrived at the West Gate of the Summer Palace. Well it appeared once Neil reached Dale by cell phone she had arrived at the more popular East Gate. Keeping in mind that this park is 700 acres in size it took us an hour to find Dale. Neil and I found out during our leisurely walk through the beautiful garden area that we both liked the peacefulness of this area and didn't much care for crowds. Once we found Dale we made introductions and I found that she was working on her undergraduate degree in economics at the same college as Neil. It was her hope to go to Graduate School in the US, she had a great command of the English language. She arrived with an English head set for me, and had down lots of research It became obvious that Neil had called her the evening before in a panic that he was assigned to take me on a tour. We proceeded on our tour for about another hour, and then the skies opened up and it began to pour. They opened up their umbrellas and were happy to continue with the entire tour. By this time, I was wet and had slipped no less then three times in my wonderful american croc sandels. It was now close to 1:00pm and I knew they wanted to take in lunch. By the look on Dale's face I realized I might have insulted her, I said is that ok if we enjoy lunch. She said, I fear I did not do a good enough job preparing I told her that she had done a wonderful job and that I had thoroughly enjoyed the China tour but with the rain I just felt getting out of the weather was a good idea. She agreed and I think accepted my apology.

We waited in the rain for our driver for about fifteen minutes and then headed towards their campus area for lunch. They wanted me to experience having what they called a Hot Pot Lunch. In about 30 minutes time we were dropped off at a mall area. There were a lot of students mulling around as we entered the shopping mall and proceeded to the third floor to find our restaurant. On China tip, the local food is also an attraction. I saw a lot of interesting shops along the way. Once again the menu with all the pictures came and Neil proceeded to make selections. Out came this large pot with one side full of a clear liquid and the other side with a liquid that was red in color. I was told that was the spicy side. Then platters of raw meat and vegetables came out. I was told they were lamb and beef. You prepared your food very similar to how we prepare fondue. It was very good and also filling. Before long more meat and shrimp came out. I think Neil could see from my eyes that I was amazed at all this food for three people. He tried to send some of it back but they of course would not take it. Dale explained to me that he was embarrassed at the amount of food he had ordered. He did not want to be wasteful. I tried to tell him not to worry but I think he was quite concerned that I was the wife of the big boss and he was wasteful so he prepared to eat everything!

I had a very nice conversation with Dale about the culture again, she seemed to have a passion to learn about how we raised our children. She told me that she was raised very strict and was not allowed to ever have friends or extra curricular activities. She said she was made to study all the time, and if she did not do well her mother would be very angry with her and shouted. She could not imagine that young adults in America were given the independence to make career choices, friend choices and were allowed to go out on the weekends. I tried to explain to her that her mother was not wrong in her views but that this was her culture. She thanked me over and over for talking to her. She said she was so afraid to go against her parents and come to the US to study. She explained to me she wanted to get her PhD in Child Psychology and stay in America to practice. I tried to encourage her to make the choice she wanted but also to continue to respect her parents and her culture. It was a very hard conversation to have, I hope I was successful. We finished lunch and Dale headed back to her Dorm and Neil and I headed back to the hotel. It was now 3:30pm.
Well tomorrow is Friday, we will visit the Forbidden City, Temple of Heaven, and Beijing Hutongs.

Ningxia

This was a 4 days China trip to Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region which is the smallest province in China. About 30% of the population are the Hui minority group are Muslims who originated from Central Asia. Islamic architectural and food can be seen almost everywhere here.
We based ourselves in the province capital, Yinchuan and make day trips to surrounding places of interest.
Our China tour agency has arranged well for us the car and guide. Our first destination was Helan Mountain but we had to turn back because of rain, strong wind and lightning after having brought the tickets and entered.
We went to the Shapotuo desert on the 2nd day which is a key tourist destination because of its natural beauty especially at the section of the desert where the Yellow River runs through. It was interesting as it’s the first time we have seen a desert. The children enjoyed themselves with camel rides, playing in the sand and the speed boat ride on the yellow river. They also offer river rafting on rafts with
floats made from goatskin which was the local’s traditional way of crossing the river.

On the next day, we went to the Sand Lake which is a desert with a large lake and sand dunes. It has scenic view but climbing up the sand dunes was not easy at all. The activities offered there are similar to those at shapotou desert. Again the children were happily playing with the sand while we enjoy the view around us. On the way back to Yinchuan, we visited the Mausoleum of the Western Xia state. The pyramid shaped tombs are the burial sites of the kings whose kingdom was wiped out by Mongols in 1227 after 6 failed invasions.
The tombs design is one of its kinds found in China. There is also museum showcases the 200 years history, lifestyle and achievement of this kingdom. This reminds me of the Terracotta Warriors in Xi’an.
On the last day, we went back to visit Helan Mountain to see the rock carvings that were created by different ethnic nomadic groups about 2000 years ago. The carvings include gods, animals and daily activities. You can viewed them by walking around a pavement but it take some imagination and good observation to see
of the of the cravings. Next destination city is Beijing, for the Forbidden City and the Great Wall!

Lama Temple

David and I had a great night sleep and thankfully I didn't wake up with a head the size of Texas. My back now was just itchy and still a little sore. David once again affirmed, yup I had gotten bit.

We were excited to for our private China tour today to see the Lama Temple, Hutongs, Drum Tower and to have a ride on a Rickshaw. We were to meet Alice in the lobby at 10am. Sure enough she was there waiting for us. We proceeded out to our driver and we were on our way.

I had told David so much about Alice I was excited for him to meet her. She had become more like a friend then a tour guide. David was enjoying talking with her as we drove and he was asking some general questions. She laughed and said, "are you a journalist?" In reality the people in China are leery about saying too much about their country and having their names associated with it. David immediately assured her he was not and apologized if he had frightened her. Honestly, his questions were very general in nature so I was somewhat surprised by her reaction.

Our first stop was going to be the Lama Temple. The temple is Beijing's most visited religious sites and one of the most important functioning Buddhist temples. Only about two dozen monks live in this complex today, but the temple once was home to as many as 500 monks. We were dropped off at the entrance and the first thing you smell and see is the thick spicy smoke of incense. There are five main halls to visit. One of the halls houses a 85 foot Maitreya Buddha carved from a single sandalwood block. Unfortunately you are not allowed to take pictures inside any of the halls. The entire open courtyard is full of people burning three sticks of incense and bowing to the Buddhas. Jenny explained to us, even those that are not practicing Buddhist in China come here to ask for a wish and light the incense. If your wish is granted you are supposed to come back and thank the Buddha. She also said during one of the Chinese Holidays celebrated on January 1st the entire area is covered in smoke and the line to get into the Temple is very long. Outside of the temple are shops after shops selling incense. We wonder how they all stay in business.

After our visit to the Temple we proceeded to go to a restaurant for lunch. We went to a restaurant that was Sichuan style. We had some wonderful food that tasted much more like Chinese food in the states. After lunch we headed on to the Hutong area where we would have our first Rickshaw ride and a tour of a typical Chinese home. Hutongs are alleyways that are living museums of the old city. They are still used streets of courtyard houses and shops. They are full of life: washing is strung out from windows and telephone poles, vegetable and flowers are planted where ever space is available. Old folks sit playing chess, drinking beer or tea. Jenny pointed out that all the houses are painted grey or are grey brick, she explained this is because in ancient times the only house that could have colors other then grey were in the Forbidden City. I cannot imagine why they have stayed to this rule as it looks pretty sad to me. Especially since the sky seems to always be
grey as well. We enjoyed a Rickshaw ride through some of the area and then proceeded to tour a typical Chinese home. This seemed a bit touristy to us although it was interesting. The gentleman that owned the home sat across the street and waved to everybody as they went in to his home and paid the fee. Jenny did explain this home had been in his family for many years and this would be the only reason he still had it today. It was a typical courtyard home where four small individual rooms all opened up into a small courtyard. Each room was for different members of the family based on age or gender. She also explained to us that the number of posts over the door symbolized the importance of the family that lived there. She said most of the people that had lived in these homes during the time of the Dynasties were members of the government.

We then went on to our final stop which would be the Drum Tower. Until late in the 1920's this tower housed 24 drums and was Beijing's timepiece. Sadly all but one of the drums was destroyed and the
one remaining is in need of renovation. The climb to the tower consists of 67 stairs that are straight up, I figured this would be a piece of cake after the Great Wall but it actually took my breath for a few minutes. We were lucky that when we reached the top we would be able to hear the drum ceremony that they perform a few times a day. It was wonderful. We then headed downstairs to meet our driver and proceed back to our hotel. We said our good byes to Jenny, swapped emails and went back to our room. It is hard to explain but just being out for the day in China seems to make you feel dirty. I am not sure if it is the dust, the smog or just he amount of people. Once we were showered we decided that we would have a quiet night in the hotel...........or so we thought!

We headed downstairs to the lobby at around 7pm to take advantage of the happy hour. I ordered a cosmopolitan and David ordered a Gimlet. The offer is buy one get one free of each type of drink. As we were sitting enjoying our cocktails with no one else in site we were talking about our experiences over the last eleven days, and feeling pretty lucky that we lived in a country that was clean and allowed personal freedom. It seemed a little bit away from us on another sofa in the lounge was a young man that was acting a bit odd. I might tell you at this point that we had some previous issues with the hotel and the General Manager and his assistant had been in touch with David to make their apologies. I will not bore you with the details but the issues were around the services we were offered as part of the Executive package that we were not receiving. So back to the young man, he seemed harmless although I did mention to David that he was running around the lobby area quite strangely. Well he decided I guess that we were good company so he sat down with us, which was not a problem at first. He then proceeded to throw pillows at us, take our newspaper and then reached for Richard's drink. David kindly told him it would be best if he would leave.
I joked once again with David, that I really was not searching for blog material but somehow it just finds me. Well the young man would not leave so I motioned to the hostess to come over. As I have stated in the past most of the people in the hotel do not have a great command of the English language but she seemed to be aware of what was happening. Well in minutes there must have been an all points bulletin call that the "nice" Americans were having issues!! No less than five "suits" appeared into the area and tried to assist with the problem. Rich and I truly felt bad, it was obvious that his young man was mentally impaired and we really are accepting people but the throwing of the pillows and the attempt to drink our drinks was more then we could handle on our own. Well just as the suits appeared somehow so did the General Manager's assistant, he was off duty but stopping by. He at once came over to us to see what had happened now. We explained and low and behold here comes the General Manager of the hotel we proceeded to
have a few more cocktails with the two of them and enjoyed some great conversation about their lives. They asked where we would be dinning that evening and we told they we were going to the Japanese restaurant in the hotel. Within in minutes someone was walking us to the restaurant and making sure we were well taken care of.

We were seated in a private room around a typical Japanese cooking table. We made our selections and also purchased a good bottle of red wine! Dinner was wonderful. Since drinking wine is not a common part of the Chinese culture the young lady poured wine into our glasses a sip at a time and stood there with the bottle of wine all evening. David and I thought it might be morning before we finished this bottle as we took a sip and she replenished. Finally at one point the young lady left the room for a minute, David quickly got up and poured full glasses of wine and finished the bottle. When she returned to pour our next sip, she
smiled and left the room. I hope we did not insult her but we had finished eating quite sometime ago. So off we went to our room laughing about our quiet evening in the hotel.

Tomorrow is our last day for our China tour and Alice will be taking us shopping to the Silk and Pearl Market !!

Dali

On my China trip, I made a bike trip from Dali old town to Lijiang old town with my friend Jelly and my guide Li. The Chinese guide is a very nice boy. I have learnt a lot Chinese when we were travelling.

D1 Having no problem to find the guesthouse. The guide led me to the hotel directly and helped me check in. In previous China trip, I used to mistook the hotels in Xi’an, that was awesome experience. So this time I appreciate this very much. I have right name but the are three guesthouse was called four seasons guest house in Xi’an old town.And unfortunately they three such hotels with the same name.I found my friends at the last one.

We started our trip at 8am.We have very good landscape when we cycled between Mt.Cangshan and Erhai Lake.We have saw a lot of local people farming there.And above all the best thing is the hotspring in Xiashankou,and the guesthouse is a good price:80yuan for room with a bath room,and a small hotspring pool in the bath room.
We spent one night at a small village called Xiashankou(actually it’s was full of hotels because of the hotspring).People form the down of Dali come here very often,because it’s 75km from the downtown and 60km form the Dali old town.And it’s flat road is very good for cycling(very few mountain to climb in the trip).

D2 After a wonderful night at Xiashankou we started our cycling journey to Baihanchang(Jiu he bai zu xiang).The fresh milk in Xiashankou is so good,because Xiashankou is very close to Denchuan which is the major milk producing area of Yunnan province.You can buy the bottled and boiled fresh milk.
Today we have at least 50 km to climb up. According my GPS we have arrived at a mountain with the altitude 3000m,and we begun at 2200m..

D3 It’s a luckily day today.A road from Baihanchang to Lijiang was under construction so there is very few traffic,but actually there is few construction too.It seemed like that this road has been reserved for us.When we arrived at the peak of the mountain a beautiful landscape show in front of us!

Back to Home

Finally after 12 days and then 27 hours (and a half) on a train we arrived in Guangzhou, we were almost home!
By chance as soon as we came out of the train there were signs directing us to buy tickets to Shenzhen. Half an hour later we were on the train back to Shenzhen (albeit with no seat...until later when people got off).
When we finally grabbed some seats two women began talking to us. The contrast between the two women could not have been more striking. One was a young, skimpily dressed Cantonese who barely spoke English and had instantly fallen in love with my room-mate, the other was a middle-aged Harvard educated international business woman who spoke fluent English, had children working in banks all over China and Hong Kong and had many fascinating stories of life and business to tell us. Both women were amazed however that each of us spoke Chinese (even though we only said a few words). My room-mate got the number of the young lady who I definitely thought was a hooker, I on the other hand regret not getting the business card of that woman who was joined by the husband and grand children since I’m sure she would have been a good contact to have. Oh well, lesson for the future.
Then, finally after passing immigration and the like we were back in Hong Kong!
Home!
Many visitors to Hong Kong complain that it is crowded and polluted, but compared to most big cities in mainland China it is quiet and the air is fresh.
From Hung Hom we took a direct bus back to Pok Fu Lam. After a quick elevator ride to our floor, I rushed to the toilet for the most satisfying release of the entire two weeks.
This trip was tiring to say the least. After staying put in HK for a while I think I will return to the Mainland soon (especially now since I have a multiple entry Visa).
The top places I wanted for my China trip are:
Shanghai (post-Expo), Hangzhou, Huangshan, Suzhou and Nanjing (one trip)
Then Xinjiang Province and maybe Gansu
Hainan Island
Wudangshan Kung Fu temple in Hubei, along with the Three Gorges Dam and the Yangzte towards Sichuan.
Sichuan province: Emei Mountain, The Wulong Panda reserve, JiaZhaigou and Chengdu for Hot Pot!
And then back to Taiwan in the Republic of China.
I despite the complaints and stuff (which is just for humour), overall I do love travelling China!- it is such a fascinating country after all.