Beijing – Tienanmen Square and Temple of Heaven

For our last day in Beijing, we finally made our way down to Tienanmen Square. It was pretty anticlimactic and boring. Like many famous squares we've been to, it just didn't look like much. We debated going into the Mao Mausoleum, where you can see Mao's mummified body on display in a glass casket, a la Sleeping Beauty. Yes. Seriously. I'm not making this up. Josh wanted to do it. Mary was afraid she wouldn't be able to keep a straight face or avoid cracking jokes, and who knows what kind of trouble that could get you into in China. However, it wasn't open.

From Beijing

From Beijing

Next we went down to the Temple of Heaven, where we saw the local people playing cards, something like hacky-sack, and musical instruments in the park area. Josh joined a group for hacky-sack for a while.

From Beijing

In the temple area, we got to see the iconic round temples, and the round echo wall, and great hordes of tourists. Like so many other places in China, we were only allowed to see the buildings from the outside, and peer into the darkened interiors for a moment while being jostled by the crowds. From what Lonely Planet had to say, the buildings were pretty interesting, but we'll have to take their word for it. Our patience with crowds has been on the decline all trip, with us increasingly finding the smaller sights we have to ourselves more gratifying than the more famous tourist destinations: even though, crowds aside, the more famous destinations clearly got that way for a reason.

From Beijing

From Beijing

We had wanted to also go to the Beijing Underground, a vast underground city built by hand during the Cold War for the people to live in after the nuclear fallout. Boy does this ever sound like something from an old science fiction movie? Doctor Strangelove perhaps? We were very disappointed to learn from the guys who gave us our ride home from the Great Wall that it is closed indefinitely. We called to verify and got no answer. Instead we went back to our hostel and played pool and chatted with other travelers while we waited for it to be time to go to the airport for our red-eye flight to Cairo. We need to spend more time on this trip relaxing.

Great Wall – Jinshanling to Simatai

Today we went to the Great Wall of China. It was amazing. Definitely a highlight of the trip. We took Lonely Planet's suggestion of a section about 3-4 hours outside Beijing where you can do a 4-hour hike without many other tourists, but opted not to take the tour of the area offered by our hostel.

Instead of the tour, we took the subway to the long distance bus station, then bus 980 to Miyun (15 Yuan each). At the first stop (not the bus station) in Miyun, a guy at the front of the bus told us that we had reached Miyun and should get off. I confirmed with the bus driver that this was Miyun and we got off hastily and without really thinking about how we were clearly not at a bus station. The guy who'd told us to get off was, of course, a taxi driver who wanted to take us to the Great Wall, no doubt at a highly inflated price. We went into a business to ask directions and were told that we wanted the bus station in city center. We went back to the bus stop and quickly hopped another 980, which eventually took us to the bus station. When we got there we were not surprised to be greeted by a bunch of enthusiastic taxi drivers. We were surprised to be greeted also by the exact same taxi driver who had conned us off the bus on the outskirts of town! Not that we had any doubts, but his driving across town to meet our bus pretty much confirms that he was up to no good.

Lonely Planet said that there were minibuses to Jinshanling from the bus station, but we didn't find them... maybe they were referring to the shared taxis? We ended up on one of the shared taxis at about double the price we'd expected to pay for a minibus (50 Yuan total), but much cheaper than it would have been from the outskirts of town (on the Wall, we ran into a pair who fell for this con and paid 280 Yuan round trip).

We arrived at the same time as a big bus full of Western tourists, presumably on the tour we'd decided to skip. They said they'd departed Beijing at 6:30 am, where as we left at 7:15 am. We were only a little surprised by this as it has been our experience that an ungodly amount of time on those tours gets spent on the bus going around to all the different hotels, then maybe switching buses a few times, and that's if you are lucky enough not to have any commission food/shopping stops. While it seems like such tours should be an efficient way of seeing stuff both financially and time-wise, our experience is that they are a rip-off (tour cost 240 Yuan round trip, we paid 42.8 Yuan one way, and got there faster even with our setbacks along the way). Of course, there's the risk of screwing up, but that's all part of the adventure... as today illustrates.

The wall itself was amazing and mostly free of tourists, with only the very occasional and normally polite vendor selling water, coke, beer, t-shirts, and postcards. For probably the first time ever, I found myself somewhere that looked quite a lot like the pictures, but with fewer people than I normally see in the pictures. We stopped for our picnic lunch in a watchtower where there was a table and chairs, and said “hi” (or “no thank you”) to the passers-by when there were passers-by, and enjoyed the bird song when there were not.

Some sections of the wall were nicely restored, while others were well worn. Toward the end of our journey, we got to an area where the restoration had not been done so well and the wall just started to feel fake. We walked the greater portion of the distance with another two people, both here teaching.

Eventually, we got to the end – a chain bridge across a small river, which was 20 minutes from the end point. We could have climbed up another few towers and had an amazing overlook, but we decided that our legs had had enough. We had the option of taking a zip line and boat, but walked down the mountain taking a few last glances at the scenery and the wall.

We got off the wall and to the parking lot at 4:05, and started looking for the bus home. We asked a few people, who said the last bus was gone (though it's always hard to tell if it's really the case, according to taxi drivers the last bus is always already gone). Eventually we found Information, who said the last bus from Simatai left at 4:00pm (though some taxi drivers were offering us 60 Yuan for two people, which is still a good price compared with the tour). After that, we stepped aside and tried to determine what course of action to take and/or how much to bargain for to get a taxi back to Miyun (last bus either 6:00 or 6:30) when two tourists offered us a ride back to Beijing (Josh had asked them earlier if they had way to get home, hoping to share a taxi). We reckoned it to be faster and cheaper and more fun, so we took them up on the offer. Plus, it involved riding in a Lexus. After a brief scare regarding a source of petrol, we were underway. One of the two men had been living in Beijing for two years; the other was a friend visiting from Holland, their native country. We talked about our trip, politics, and Chinese culture. The driver moved out to Beijing two years ago as part of a 'big life change' and his Chinese wife owns a factory here. We asked about corruption, and he related a story about how one government official in charge of inspecting plants decided they needed to buy more filters. From a certain company. Which was, of course, hugely overpriced. Sometimes corruption affects you, even if you're not looking for a 'favor'. He did seem proud that they had avoided paying any actual bribes to get the new factory up and running.

They dropped us at the metro, and we made our way home from there.

From Great Wall

From Great Wall

There are more Great Wall photos in the gallery. I'm not going to attempt to choose favorites for the blog, since I like them all so much.

Beijing – Forbidden City

Spent the day exploring the Forbidden City. Even though it was midweek, and we got there relatively early in the day (10am), it was an absolute zoo. We spent a small amount of time fighting the crowds to peer in the windows and doors of the buildings on the “central path” before giving up and deciding that no matter how cool that stuff was, we weren't going to get a good enough look at it to know. For reasons that were unclear to us (most of the buildings seemed to be minimally furnished with lots of open space), all the people had to stay outside the buildings and peek into the dark rooms through windows and doors, rather than having a path through the inside of the buildings.

From Beijing

From Beijing

The buildings off to the sides were not so crowded, but had the same problem of peering into darkened rooms and not being able to see much. There were a few exceptions, but not many.

The buildings themselves were beautiful, but basically all the same architecturally as far as we could tell, and with lovely but very uniform ceramic adornments.

From Beijing

At the far end (near the North Gate) we found the gardens and rockeries, which were great in spite of the crowds.

From Beijing

Also a temple built atop a great fake hill of rocks.

From Beijing

Somewhat fed up, we decided to go ahead and pay the extra fee for the Hall of Clocks since Lonely Planet described it as “unmissable,” even though we really just wanted to leave. Low and behold, even though the extra ticket was only 10 Yuan on top of a 60 Yuan Forbidden City entrance fee, there was almost no one in there. It seemed that all the tour groups didn't visit, perhaps because their entrance fees were “included” in the tour, they got the cheapest possible tickets?

From Beijing

The clocks were really beautiful, and from all over the world, but especially from Europe, often with Chinese motifs even in the foreign clocks. We especially liked the one with a robot writing Chinese characters on the hour (not that it was running, but we did get to see the clock and a video of the clock running).

From Beijing

Since the clocks were so worthwhile and not crowded, we moved on to the extra fee Treasures exhibit, which started with the Nine Dragon Wall, a wall of glazed ceramic bricks with, you guessed it, nine large dragons molded as part of the bricks.

From Beijing

Next we saw an array of beautifully carved huge semi-precious stones, and a bunch of shiny Buddas. It was great.

From Beijing

If we were doing it again, we would have completely skipped most of the stuff that didn't require an extra ticket, and/or made sure to arrive earlier in the morning.

From Beijing

After departing and getting some lunch, we climbed the man-made hill behind the Forbidden City in Jingshan Park. The hill was apparently the big pile of dirt produced when they dug the moat, and the views down on the Forbidden City and of Beijing were excellent. After taking our time soaking it all up, we went back to our hostel for some relaxing and an early night to bed before our big adventure for tomorrow: The Great Wall!

From Beijing

From Beijing

Beijing – Summer Palace

Got a late start to the day between sleeping in (because we were tired, and because Josh got a respiratory infection from the wonderful Beijing air), a leisurely breakfast, and taking care of important tasks like booking our hostel for Cairo. Booking ahead for accommodations has been really nice. In India, is was worthwhile to just walk around and bid the guesthouses against one another as there were always plenty of rooms and rarely was anything full. Everywhere else we've been, it doesn't seem to save any money, and places often do fill up. So back in Phucket (Thailand), we decided to try booking ahead each hostel from the place before, making sure to book places with free wi-fi so we'll be able to book the next place ahead. So far, this has been working out really well, and has done a lot to reduce stress when arriving at each new city.

Anyway, when we finally got out, we decided to go to the Summer Palace, since the day was already half gone. And it is the weekend. It took forever to get there because we did like Lonely Planet said and took the bus. Big mistake. The metro now goes there and is faster and easier (took it home).

From Beijing

Not surprisingly, the Summer Palace was a total zoo. A lot of the stuff to see is old artifacts inside buildings, seen through dirty windows with horrible glare, so you have to fight the crowds to get your turn to put your nose up to the glass. Ugh. We did that some, but what we saw was very much like stuff we've been seeing in museums and temples all over Asia, so it didn't feel very worthwhile.

From Beijing

We ended up walking all the way around the lake because it looked nice and got away from the crowds. Unfortunately it was also further than we realized and ended up being like 2 hours of walking with pretty unchanging views. Oh well. Other than being a lot of the same though, it was pretty nice. There were some crazy steep footbridges that impressed us!

From Beijing

From Beijing

When we got hungry we purchased some steamed buns stuffed with pork, and found them to be very good. Unlike the dim sum we got in Hong Kong, they were not soggy, and the dough was nice and thick and puffy. We've been struggling with food in China, between the language, not liking Chinese food that much, the weird ingredients (no, not so interested in ox penis or any part of a bull frog, thanks), and the spiciness, so it was pretty awesome to find something we liked so much, and finding it to be quite affordable. Western food is available, but at western restaurant prices.

When we got back to the main area, it was almost closing time, but we decided to hike to the top of the hill to see what kind of view it would provide. When we got there we found a really cool uniquely orange and green temple, pretty unlike anything else we've seen.

From Beijing

Beyond the temple, we got great views of the incense tower.

From Beijing

Then we ducked down what looked like a random side trail and found ourselves at the top of something that really felt like a proper palace complex, a feeling lacking in the rest of the area we'd been. We followed it down and couldn't quite believe we'd almost missed it!

From Beijing

We left through the North Gate and took the Metro home. At what should have been our last metro transfer (1 stop on a different line), we instead got off and walked the last kilometer looking for dinner. We found several more stuffed steamed bun sellers and a couple grocery-like stores, including one of each within like a block of our hostel. We'd walked around looking for stuff like this yesterday, in a couple different directions from our hostel, but evidently not in the right directions! Yay! Orange juice and more stuffed buns for dinner, cup-of-noodles for Josh's breakfast tomorrow, and cold non-stuffed steamed buns for Mary's breakfast. We'll see how they are with peanut butter!

From Beijing

Xi'an – Rest Day

The plan for our last day in Xi'an was to see some sights in the city: bicycle around the city walls (in the hot-hot sun), visit the Chinese Mosque, and see the Big and Little Goose Pagodas. Which would have been cool, I'm sure, but after the previous 3 long and full days (transit has eaten a stressful chunk of each day we've been in Xi'an) we decided we needed a day off. Booked our next hostel in Beijing, booked our flight from Cairo to Rome, tried to upload photos for the blog (connection is too slow), played some pool (Mary lost on account of calling the wrong pocket, again!), chatted up other tourists, went back to the very good First Noodle Under the Sun restaurant for a couple more great meals, and generally relaxed. It was good and much needed.

In the evening we got on our overnight train to Beijing, from which I am writing this the next morning. I think there is a pretty good chance that today is another rest day.

Hua Shan – Sacred Taoist Mountain

Got up early, though not as early as planned, for our day trip to the sacred Taoist mountain of Hua Shan. We expected it to take around 2.5 hours to get there, but between lousy connections and the bus taking 3 hours instead of 2 (there was construction), we didn't get onto the mountain until 1pm after an 8am departure! This made for a pretty short day there, given that we thought buses would stop running back to Xi'an around 5:30pm. It was also exceedingly expensive at 100 RMB each to get in and another 150 RMB each for the gondola up the mountain on top of 20 RMB each way for the shuttle up the private road from the entrance to the gondola (around $42 each). And that's not counting food (we brought a picnic), or transit from Xi'an. I don't think National Parks in the US cost that much!

However, it was totally worth it.

As we were disembarking from our bus and looking for a taxi to the mountain, we met Kasper and Ciska from Belgium, who had been on the bus with us and we'd seen going to and from the Terra Cotta Army site on the same buses with us yesterday! We ended up spending the day exploring the mountain together. It's been ages since we've spent a day sightseeing with other Westerners and we really enjoyed the English-speaking company.

The scenery was spectacular, with impossibly steep cliffs and otherworldly rock formations. Also some amusing signs: “no walking while watching, no watching while walking”, “no striding”, and “from this descends the mountain” were my favorites. At some point when I have a decent internet connection and don't have a million other things to do with it, I'll need to research the geology of the mountain, but we speculate that it is made up of sedimentary rock turned on end, as we learned about at the Hong Kong History Museum. Certainly, that's what it looks like!

From Xi'an

From Xi'an

From Xi'an

From Xi'an

From Xi'an

Upon getting back to Xi'an (buses do run after 5:30pm, but we waited over an hour for our bus which finally left at 6:50pm), we went back to First Noodle Under The Sun, where we had some great spinach noodles and some chicken that wasn't too bad aside from the rather unappetizing inclusion of parts of the chicken us Americans don't normally eat!

From Xi'an

There are more photos in the gallery.

Xi'an – Army of Terracotta Soldiers

Today we made the obligatory trip out to see the Terracotta Army. It was impressive, but awash in tourists. Like the tomb yesterday, it's museum was built over and around the pits, but it was not as nice in several ways: we found ourselves much further away from everything, there were loads of other tourists, there was no glass between us and the artifacts which is probably bad for them, and there was a lot less variety among the artifacts. The only things the Terracotta Army really had going for it over the Tomb of Emperor Jingdi was fame and life-sized figures.

Still, there is something to be said for stepping into the pages of a captivating National Geographic feature from your childhood. And for all it lacked in presentation, it was still impressive.

From Xi'an

From Xi'an

For dinner we went to First Noodle Under The Sun, where we had some really good sweet and sour pork and a dish that supposedly had a single noodle some 8 meters long!

From Xi'an

Xi'an – Tomb of Emperor Jingdi

Failed to wake up as early as desired for going to see the Terracotta Warriors or for the day trip to Mt. Hua Shan, and instead decided to visit the Tomb of Emperor Jingdi. Lonely Planet called this “the most underrated highlight of Xi'an” and we would have to agree. It also said it should be your second priority after seeing the Army of Terracotta Warriors, and we disagree with that, thinking it should probably be a higher priority. Also contrary to Lonely Planet, we discovered that public transit does (now) go there: the helpful staff at our hostel told us that we could take the #4 tourist bus, told us where to catch it, and wrote something down for us on a piece of paper to show to Chinese people.

When we asked for directions, a nice Chinese man who spoke pretty good English took it upon himself to see us onto the right bus. It turned out that the #4 tourist bus was just a special #4 city bus, special in a way that we didn't really understand, but he spoke to a few #4 bus drivers before giving us the go ahead to get on one of them. We were just sure he was fishing for a tip (tipping isn't part of the culture in Asia, in fact it is traditionally considered offensive, but many people in India, Southeast Asia, and presumably in China too, have discovered that it is part of our culture and a way to make a buck off tourists by being helpful—or more often just annoying—and then demanding a tip), but no, apparently he was just going the extra mile. Granted we try to do the same when the opportunity presents itself, and don't expect to be paid for it, so I don't know why we were so surprised.

The #4 bus took us a long way north, then parked behind a bunch of other #4 buses. We were told to cross the street and wait for another #4 bus (actually, for one particular one that was getting serviced when we arrived). This didn't seem right to us, but we asked the other people at the bus stop on the other side, and they helped us get on the special #4 bus to the Tomb rather than the regular #4 bus back into the city.

The Tomb was pretty awesome. The exhibition hall was full of little terracotta figures of soldiers, regular people, animals, and even women soldiers. Not life-sized like the Terracotta Army, but still really impressive. The arms were made of wood.

From Xi'an

From Xi'an

Then we moved on to the “Underground Museum” which is built over and around the excavation site, with glass barriers between the museum and the temperature/humidity-controlled dig area. The glass was exceptionally clean, and the lights were well placed to keep glare to a minimum. In some areas there was a glass floor and we were walking directly over the dig. And we had it almost completely to ourselves. It was incredible. Apparently excavation is still underway and some days you will see people actually at work down there, but we were there on a holiday.

From Xi'an

From Xi'an

From Xi'an

From Xi'an

From Xi'an

This is the mound marking the tomb. In all the excitement and awesomeness, we almost missed it!

From Xi'an

In addition to making for one of the best archaeological museums we've been to, it also seems like they are doing a superb job of preserving the relics in this way. This is definitely going down as one of the highlights of the trip.

Chengdu – Panda Park, Zhaojue Temple, Travel to Xi'an

Woke up early to so as to make it by bus to the Giant Panda Breeding Research Base in time to see the Panda before their 9:30 AM feeding time, after which they apparently tend to go to sleep for the rest of the day. The pandas were pretty cool. They are quite ridiculous-looking animals, and all the more so for eating bamboo! It was really neat to see the Giants in person, and the Reds were really cute and pretty active.

From Chengdu

From Chengdu

From Chengdu

From Chengdu

From Chengdu

Once we'd had our fill of panda watching, we moved on to Zhaojue Temple. On the way, we saw a bunch of beggars, which had been conspicuously absent elsewhere we've been in China, so much so as to make a person wonder where they'd gone. Outside the temples apparently. There do seem to be relatively few beggars in China.

We ate lunch at the vegetarian restaurant at the temple, which was quite an experience. You had to queue for a good while to order, so the previous labor-intensive way we've ordered in the past seemed pretty much out. Instead there were little papers with the full menu in Chinese, and you were supposed to check off what you wanted. We spent quite a bit of time comparing characters from Lonely Planet with those on the menu, finally identifying only 3 dishes completely: fish-resembling aubergine, three kinds of seafood soup, and white rice. We ordered the fish-resembling aubergine (which was okay), the white rice, we-have-no-idea-what bean curd (too spicy!), and some random vegetable dish that Josh saw at another table and got the other patrons to show him on the menu (pretty good).

The temple complex itself was pretty boring. Lonely Planet's description made the temple grounds of groves and paths sound much more interesting than they really were. The hanging banner things were kinda neat though.

From Chengdu

After, we went back to our hostel to hang out, book our hostel in Xi'an, eat dinner, and so forth. In the evening, we got on our overnight train to Xi'an, from which I am writing after a surprisingly restful night.

* * *

Train ended up getting into Xi'an pretty late (2pm instead of 11am), so by the time we got checked into our hostel, there wasn't really time to do anything. It was a relaxing evening though.