catch-up

First things first, this post was lost for a while, turns out email delivery is not the most guaranteed of systems, so if anyone was bit confused as how we suddenly just ended up at the foot of a mouontain, please read on.

Second, I forgot to mention some of the interesting things about the terracotta warriors, I guess I was focusing on the beer in front of me too much.

More about the warriors
First of all, there are a huge number of them dicovered already, wikipedia claims 8000 soldiers alone. Add in the carts, horses, musicians, pigs, swans, scribes, poets, tax collectors and all the other unruly lot, there was a lot of work that was put into it. I believe I have read somewhere that an estimated 770'000 people were involved in the costruction. Hey, they even made spare armor out of stone. They were nothing if not thorough.

That is why you have to love the irony of it only taking a year and one peasant revolt for it all to be wrecked... Yup, if you knew absolutely nothing about it when coming there, I am sure the first question would be - why are they all broken?? The answer is, after the emperor died the peasants were not too happy. After about a year they revolted and smashed and buried all of it, which is why it took 2000 years and change to find them (by accident) again.

Nevertheless, the reassembled warriors are quite impressive and I would love to come back in a couple of decades when they have unearthened more and maybe opened the main tomb.

To the foot of that mountain
But enough about that, we've now left the busy Xi'an for not so busy Emei Shan. The last thing we did before leaving though was to take that cycle ride on the city walls. It was quite cool to be cycling on that old wall, and as we discovered it had not been that thoroughly refurbished. It was a rough ride, we are both still bruised, but I'd recommend anyone that passes by to do it.

And with that we can make a verdict on Xi'an. It is a big, busy dusty city that does take its toll, and what the locals call 'mist' (we know better) is constantly blocking the sun and turnig the sky bright white. So there's no reason to stay there for very long, but we were in a nice hostel and met a lot of cool people, so we did enjoy it, but when we boarder the sleeper train to Chengdu we weren't all that sad.

The overnight train was an interesting journey, we were in our own 4-bed cabin which was nice, and acording to the tickets we had a soft sleeper. Iit was about as soft as a marble table with a sheet on top. And the chinese trains are a bit unsteady and jolts to stop and start a lot which makes it a little difficult to sleep. Nevertheless it was an interesting journey. These trains come with a restaurant car, but as we suspected it was mainly oriented towards chinese taste we had stocked up on pot-noodle dinner (you get a hot water bottle in each compartment and each car has a boiling water tap), dried-fruit snacks and youghurt breakfast. So confident we would not be lacking anything essential we settled in and enjoyed the ride. The train was packed with people though, and it was quite fun to see the kids run amok in the corridor, only to stop at our compartment, look in slightly confused, then burst out in a huge smile and shout a 'hurro!!' and run on continuing whatever mischief they were up to...

Once we got off the train we hopped on a very local train to Emei shan (well the train stops in Emei, the 'little' town at the foot of the mountain), with all that it carries with it. These trains are not only used to herd a huge amout of people to their destinations, the people also seem to transport their produce, as we spotted seeral bags of rice and what looked like other merchandise on the top shelves. And at every station there was complete pandemonium when people tried to shuffle the people who were squatting in their seats out of their way with all the arguments that arose. Crowded and noisy but at the same time strangely entertaining and exciting, not the least by the fact that most stations did not have any pinyin writing on them (chinese with letters, not symbols). So we were slightly worried about finding our stop, but with a little luck, actually only help from the nice girl opposite, we got off at the right stop. From then on, and easy taxi ride to the hotel at the base of the mountain where we could look at the challange ahead of us...

Looking forward to it!!

Bus rides, Big buddhas, brutal massages

Bus rides
So, we're finally getting the hang of this travelling around China thing. True, it's tough as we can't read anything and not alot of people can speak English but the trick seems to be to arm yourselves with the following:

1. the scribbled down name of the place you are going, in Chinese - usually written by your host at the hostel/hotel
2. fingers - to indicate how many tickets you want
   
3. a guide book with simple Chinese translations for words such as Tuesday, today etc. or mobile phone calendar.
   

Then you walk boldly up to an available window and first say the name of the place you want to go to. If you get a blank look, then pass them the piece of paper with the name on it. They will then start to talk to you in Chinese. Don't even try to understand what they are saying (unless they are pointing at the next counter or shaking their heads vigorously - both of which are self explanatory). Hold up two fingers and then point to when you want to travel using the guide book or mobile phone. They will then scribble a number on a piece of paper, you pay that and hey presto, the tickets are printed/stamped and thrust at you.

At this point, refuse the Western urge to assume that everything is ok and walk off because you are conscious of holding up the queue - check your ticket, ensure it says the correct date, time and place (which is usually also printed in English) as well as your change. Only when you are satisfied that everything is actually ok do you walk off.

Having said all that, we successfully managed to negotiate 4 buses today! All to reach the location of China's biggest Buddha.

Big Buddha
They weren't kidding when they said that he's a big buddha, he is huge! As you will no doubt see from our pictures, I can't even reach his feet. It was great though, it's a full scale park inside complete with fish ponds and other random (smaller) buddha's dotted around. The main attraction is the main man himself who is 71 meters high and was carved out of the side of a mountain. He's looking a bit worse for the wear right now as he is usually repaired every decade so he must be due one soon, still, he's a force to be reckoned with.

Note to travellers, if you're planning to see the Big Buddha, unless you have some serious reason why you can't walk up and down all those steps (yes, there are lots of steps) then go to the park and see him that way, don't bother with the boat ride which costs almost as much as the entrance ticket to the Buddha park, but you only get to glimpse him from a boat for a few minutes.

Brutal massages
In anticipation of our trek up Mt. Emei tomorrow (we will be offline for about two days), and after the many steps at the Big Buddha today, and also because we wanted to, we got ourselves a massage each this evening. Ouch! Those girls sure have a masters degree in pounding, slapping, thumping, kneading, poking every which muscle in your body!!! Still, it was kinda nice and at the end my aching muscles are suddenly all better. I don't know if they have been scared into submission or if they are genuinely better, tomorrow will tell.

It's been a good day, now the mozzies are sending me to my room and we need a good nights sleep so catch you in a couple of days.

Terracotta Warriors

Before we came here, the general opinon we'd heard about Xi'an was that apart from the Terracotta warriors there wasn't that much to see and in general its not that nice a place (the word 'dump'did feature quite often). After one day here, we can say that the city does look like a construction site and is, as Beijing, quite dusty and smoggy bu tthat doesn't mean it hasn't got its own charms. One thing that noone seem to mention is the perfectly preserved city wall, which is to say the least, quite impressive. You can go on it, and even rent a bicycle and cycle around it. IT does feel quite good that even though its a national heritage monument they let people use it. But hey, it is a wall after all, designed to withstand war, what harm can tourists on bikes do?? It kept the mongols out for a good while, I'm sure it can handle rubber tires as well. But more on that once we've actually done that...

Today was all about what everyone else does as well, see the terracotta army on site. We caught it whe it was on display in London (British museum) so we knew a little about it already.Thus we decided to make our way over there ourselves, to the horror of the tour operators, english speaking guides and people trying to flog guidebooks. Getting there is not as tricky as the tour operators would like you to think. There are several buses from the railway station and they are all very cheap. We took #306 for 7 RMB, but we were overtaken by #419 as well which seemed to be quicker (or maybe thats just down to individuial drivers, I am convinced timetables do not exist). And it seems to take about as long, judging by teh fact the the tour group from our hostel turned up at the same time as us, and they left the hostel before us.

Once there, as lone tourists you are immediatly attacked by vendors of programmes and tourguides, but if you know the basics, theres not really a lot more they can tell you. Basivcally the complex was all built by the emperor Qin Shi Huangdi over 200 years ago, and it is a vast complex () with over 20 pits filled with infantry, chariots, horses and military officers which would be the emperors army in the next life. But there is also a non-military section, full of aninals, artists, entertainers and regular people, though as these pits are quite far, we did not visit them here, but elements from them were on display in London and were equally impressive.

Coming here was one of the reasons we started talking about a longer trip and it did not disappoint at all, and the experience is about on par with being on the great wall in my book.

That was about what we had time to do today, so we still haven't got a real verdict on whether the only thing worth seing here is the army or not Even though we saw the drum and bell towers yesterday and they were quite impressive, there are just som many of those in other cities as well. Xi'an needs to provide a little more to beat the tough competition it has. Thats tomorrows mission ..

PS,

We've now created an album containing some of the more interesting pictures from Japan, and it can be found here, we'll add one for China soon.

Thoughts on China

Noisy, crowded, dusty, smoggy
I've been mainly posting the things that we've done but not given you any indications of our first impressions of China.  Please note that these have been formed mainly from the capital city of Beijing and with a country the size of China, it's impossible to make generalisations of the whole country based on a couple of cities. 

Beijing though, I can say without reservation is big.  Huge.  And noisy, crowded, dusty and very smoggy.  The post in wikipedia on smog shows pictures of Beijing just before and after it rains as an example of the smog.  During our entire stay there we didn't see the sky once, which must be bad for our lungs.  Xi'an isn't much better, though watching the traffic on the big roundabout around the Bell Tower in Xi'an can easily distract you from the smog.  Today we stood on the top of the Bell Tower and watched in amusement as a couple tried, unsuccessfully, to cross the road at the roundabout in the traffic.  Don't feel too sorry for them, there are several strategically placed pedestrian subways that they could have used to safely and easily cross the road.

Incomprehensible
It won't come as a surprise to most that Chinese is a very difficult language to pick up.  We have been here for 5 days now and I can just about say hello and thanks in Chinese.  I think that I now know the symbols for China (though Johan isn't so sure I'm right) and exit.  Thankfully, everyone seems to understand numbers so it is possible to provide the right amount for your bill and understand telephone numbers but that's about it. 

In hind sight, it was an excellent idea to go to Japan first.  I'm sure that we will suffer from culture shock soon, but for the time being, we have got over the fact that it will take us twice as long to do simple tasks like buying a train ticket or ordering food.  Japan was a good intermediary, as many more people could speak a little English and were always very willing to help. 

Now, don't get us wrong, we are enjoying it, and although some things (like the Great Wall) do stand out as particularly special, sometimes even the small things, like finding a reasonably priced, delicious hotpot restaurant in a random shopping mall yesterday, are making our journey memorable.

Sometimes Surprising
When we went to the famous Beijing duck restaurant, we discovered 5 minutes before our reservation time, that the map in the guidebook was completely wrong (again).  So we jumped into a taxi and phoned the restaurant for them to give the taxi driver directions.  Who knows what they said but the place that he pointed to was definitely not Da Dong.  So we were 5 minutes late for our reservation, the hostess from the restaurant was asking us what time we would arrive and we had no idea where we were!  We went into a nearby hotel/restaurant and said Da Dong? and the hostess there started to explain, in perfect Chinese, how to get there.  When she realised that we were quite clueless, she walked with us for several minutes before pointing out he restaurant to us.  

Modern, ancient
I was reading the China Post on the plane on the way here to Xi'an and there was an article written by a foreigner who meets up with a Chinese friend every week to practice English/Chinese.  While they were talking the Chinese friend started to speak about how he felt about foreigners who came to China and only wanted to see and speak about the historical sites and were not the least bit interested in the modern, new China that has been emerging and which the Chinese people are so proud of. 

It was an interesting article because I, like the author of the piece, must admit that I am very interested in the history and ancient culture of the Chinese and that it was a large part of the reason why I am here.  I know that China will be a very different place in 10-15 years time when it crosses the boundary from developing to developed country but I don't want to see yet another developed, modern country!  I want to see somewhere that is different from what I know.  I hope that the Chinese people truly appreciate what they have in their rich history and in the mad rush to modernise, they keep the reminders of where they have come from.

National Holiday
My final observation (for now) concerns the preparations for the National Holiday on October 1st .  While we were in Beijing, it was evident every where that we went that the entire city was getting ready for a great day.  In fact, the 60th anniversary of anything is special, this is the 60th anniversary of the formation of the Peoples Republic of China and an event which I'm sure the government is keen for the people to enjoy. There are flowers and flower arrangements being put up everywhere as well as big screens in many public places.  Repairs are being made to roads and I read in the newspaper that the people taking part in the parades on the day have already been practicing for 2 months!

I guess that when the eyes of the world were on China for the Olympics that the lengths that they went to were special, but now I see that this is just the way that they do things in China.  Everything is big, everything is practiced and practiced and nothing is left to chance.  There have even been notices given to people who live on the route that they cannot watch the parades from their windows as a security breach, no one is allowed to fly kites until the celebrations are over and even the nations pigeons have been rounded up and locked up for the duration.

Personally I'm glad that we will be celebrating the holidays on the Yangtze River (I hope) and then spending the rest of the holidays in Shanghai, a city known for it's affinity with foreigners! 

Beijing: Today

Just finished writing yesterday's post, I didn't want to mix them up because today was such a fantastic day that it deserved it's own post. I'm so sorry that we can't post any pictures here in China as there were some cracking ones!

Today we went to the Great Wall!!
What an awesome place! Yes, I know that it has been reconstructed recently as it was a crumbling ruins before and yes I know that it is a big tourist attraction but what an attraction!! When you stand on the wall and look in either direction and see it snaking over the hills/mountains and know that that bit, at least, has been there for thousands of years... wow.

If you ever get the chance to go to Beijing, go to see the Great Wall at Mutianyu which has very dramatic scenery and most importantly, not many hawkers or other tourists. Perhaps it gets more busy in the summer but today, it was a beautiful, warm, sunny day and there were not that many other people there. Just enough to swap photo taking opportunities with or encourage on when they are going in the opposite direction as you. Even the hawkers were mostly friendly though I heard one ask an older woman her age, much to her dismay! I think he was just trying to be friendly as in this culture, age brings respect, but I'm afraid that she didn't take it that way :)

Two things you need to be aware of when you go to see the Great Wall at Mutianyu. One is how you get up the mountainside to the wall, and the other is, of course, how you get down. To get up, you take a chair lift, very much like the kind of lift that you would take in a ski resort but with no soft snow below you, only trees. A scary enough proposition and you can, if you would like to, take the chair lift back down the mountain. Or you could do what we did and descend on a toboggan. Yes, a toboggan! A piece of kit, again meant for snow and ice, but this time it's down the side of a forested mountainside. Are they mad? Perhaps, but even I had to admit that it was really good fun and though I didn't go as quickly as some, Johan, I surprisingly enjoyed it very much.

The verdict, a must do if you come to China.

Detours
We went to the Great Wall with a tour company and so saw some other stuff like a Jade carving factory, the Ming tombs, and left the group as they were herding us into a silk making place. All good, but nothing can compare with the Great Wall.

Beijing Duck
Our second great of the day was our visit to Da Dong (thanks again Kevin) for their famous Beijing duck. We dined on a whole duck between us and ate our fill. We had our personal chef carve the duck in front of us and the kind waitress showed us how to make duck pancakes (umm... oh well, she seemed bent on it so we hadn't the heart to tell her we already knew). The meal was followed with a delicious fruit platter and some unidentifiable, but lovely, sorbet. All for the princely sum of £31, between us. And that was with beer and an additional vegetable dish. If we ever go back to Beijing, please come with us, there were a few other dishes on the menu that we saw other diners having that we would have loved to try as well!

Tomorrow
The grand plan is to fly to Xi'an tomorrow however try using an international credit card in China! It is proving next to impossible at the moment as they require copies of our passport, the credit card and a signed additional authorisation from us before they are allowed to take money over the Internet... hmmm not sure they understand this Internet thing.... good job we can use Paypal instead. But oops! Paypal they have detected "suspicious" activity on the card and frozen the funds so we can't seem to be able to pay for our tickets. Finally we have asked them to send the tickets to the airport and we will go there in person and pay by card, or if that won't work then by cash. Watch this space!

Beijing: Yesterday

Yesterday was a full day in Beijing, we went to church (!), the Forbidden Palace, and a whole bunch of gardens. A good, full day.

BCIF
The church we went to was an international church with services in different languages including English. The service we went to was at 9:30 in the morning and though the preacher was good (he spoke on 1 John 4 which we had read at our wedding) and the singing was good, there was nothing that would single out the service as happening in China... except... when we entered the building, we had to show our passports! Apparantly only foreign nationals and holders of foreign passports were allowed to attend the service!!

Forbidden Palace
After church we headed for the Forbidden Palace for a wander around. Maybe we would have learnt a whole lot more about the FP if we had taken a tour instead of going it alone however I really enjoyed the freedom that we had to wander off to any part of the Palace that we choose and spend as long as we want there. The place is huge! With beautiful golden roofs and lots and lots of dragons. It did show some evidence of the millions of tourists that go through the place every year, but the scale and magnificence of it all cannot be easily worn away.

Gardens
After the palace Johan spotted a pagoda at the top of a hill opposite the FP and simply had to climb it to take in some views of the FP. By now, "stairs are my friend" so we paid our 2RMB and wandered in. After climbing to the top and taking some pictures (there really is a wonderful view from there) we started to head down a different direction. We could hear singing, lots of chinese voices singing songs with gusto. Hmm... we thought, is this some religious, or political thing? We found a bunch of regular looking people in a pagoda singing and sat and listened for a bit. We wandered on and soon came upon another, smaller group of people playing music on strange looking instruments. Then another group playing and dancing, and another singing... Everywhere in this beautiful park, people were gathering and singing and dancing and enjoying themselves. We still don't know why but if this is a regular Sunday afternoon occurance then we would highly recommend it! The park was called Jing Shang park.

We then wandered through Bei Hai park which they were decorating in preperation for the national holiday next Thursday (Oct 1). Beautiful floweres, chinese lanterns and huge screens are being put up everywhere in Beijing in preparation for this day. We're making tracks soon so we will avoid the celebrations as it's supposed to be mental!

Wangfujing St Food Market
Hungry now, we headed for a food market off Wangfujing St. As a tourist, I'd probably give this one a miss unless you are keen to try fried insects (I wasn't) or any type of meat on a skewer, though at 1RMB each = 9p, I'm a little suspect. Though I have to say that neither of us have come down with anything yet (touch wood) so maybe it's not so bad.

Goodbye Japan, Hello China

I'm sure you are now aware that we are in China and unfortunately, with the iron ring firmly in place, we are unable to update our blog while we are here. At least, not in the traditional way - this post is being written via e-mail so I have no idea how it will be formatted but hey, I'll fix it when we reach Singapore in 5 weeks time.

Goodbye Japan
On our final full day in Japan we joined a trip and went to see a sumo wrestling tournament day. We were very lucky to be in Japan in September as wrestling matches only occur 3-4 times a year for 15 days at a time. We saw day 5. We are planning to upload some photos to picasa (if we can) so look out for our next post which will provide the link to see the pictures. The sumo was a great experience, the must surprising thing was that so many of the sumo wrestlers now do not come from Japan. The current reigning grand champion is a Bulgarian man! I have to admit though that in the getup, he looked very Japanese from our seats :)

After the match we hung out with a couple of people we met on the tour and had a great dinner, a lovely time for our last night in Japan.

Next day, off to China!!

China
We were very excited and a little nervous about entering China, it's weird, although we have done nothing wrong, don't have swine flu and have the correct visa, you still feel like they may throw you out at the last minute! Of course nothing of the sort happened and the official at the boarder was very lovely and even allowed us to rejoin the queue at the front after we filled out a form that we'd missed.

Finding our hotel was a bit of an adventure as the instructions from the hotel stopped at the metro station and as we didn't have the name of the place in chinese, the taxi driver didn't really have a clue. Finally, a kind Chinese girl who knew some English stopped by and spoke with the taxi driver for us and called the hotel who gave the driver instructions. Thank you, whoever you are!!

My first thoughts of Beijing are as expected. It is a large, developing city with a curious, but not unpleasant, mix of the old Beijing and the new Beijing. Our hotel is situated in an old-style courtyard in a hutong which was converted so it still preserves some old world charm but with modern western style toilets! The smog is something to be seen however, and that did come as a surprise. I do hope that they do something about it soon or else there will be a generation of Chinese people with breathing problems very soon.

Temple of Heaven
Today we spent most of the day at the Temple of Heaven. This was where the Emperor used to make annual sacrifices and prayers to the gods for good harvests around the winter solstice (end of January). Several ancient structures stood in large and beautiful gardens which we were free to wander around.

Top tip: enter from the south gate rather than the north. You don't have to, however that is the normal tourist route so things in the automatic guide will make a little more sense.

Of course Johan managed to bump into a group of four Swedes who were doing a six month exchange at Beijing university who were out doing the tourist thing there. Those Swedes get everywhere!!

Tiananmen Square
We also found ourselves in this famous square at sunset and were wondering what so many people there were doing taking pictures and waving their mini-Chinese flags. Turns out there is a flag lowering ceremony every day at sunset which is a must-see occasion.

The square itself is... well, a big square. Probably as impressive as Stonehenge, not a lot to see there but you really shouldn't miss it. In two weeks time they celebrate Beijing day so the square was closed this morning due to the practice sessions they were having there. There were also big screens up and lots of beautiful flowers everywhere to mark the occasion. It's a shame we won't be there for the day (Oct 1) as I'm sure it will be a great celebration.

Ding Ding Xiang (or Hot Pot Paradise)
Dinner tonight was at the Ding Ding Xiang (thanks for the tip Kevin) which serverd a speciality hot pot. For those of you (like us) who think that hot pot is made in Lanchashire by a chief called Nigel should think again. This was an individual bowl of soup placed in front of you with a variety of meats and vegetables which you cook yourself in the soup. Kinda like steamboat, if you know what I mean, but each person has their own steaming bowl. Very, very good food.

Well, off to bed now. Will try to find a church tomorrow (hmm... we are in China) then check out the Forbidden Place. Or maybe we'll find ourselves somewhere completely different...