Xi'an (Day 1)

May 28th

Today we had to say goodbye to Gary and head to Xi’an. Gary was a great tour guide. Not only was he really knowledge about Beijing and was so helpful with everything else. It will be hard for anyone to top him on this trip. Most of the day was just travel. We spent most of the day on buses, airports, and airplanes. It was all pretty uneventful. 

Beijing traffic

can you tell what kind of drinks we got?

We made it to Xi’an and our new tour guide, Lucy was there to meet us. She was nice enough and she did a good job getting all of us rounded up and on the bus to our hotel. We made it to our hotel around 4:45pm. Jed, Tim and I had pre-purchased the dumpling dinner tonight so we quickly dropped off our stuff in our new rooms and headed down to meet Lucy to take us to dinner. 

Dinner was great. They just brought us 3 dumplings of a million different flavors. The weirdest one for me was lotus root and I am not sure if I loved or hated the potato & orange dumpling. They had all kinds and it was so fun to try them. We even had hot pot (huǒ guō) and thought of Jing. The meal was a huge success in our books.

After dinner we made our way to the Bell Tower & DrumTower. Xi’an has this huge city wall. And back in the day, every morning they would ring the bell from the tower and that would signify morning and they would open the gates and in the evening, they would beat the drum from the tower and that would signify night and they would close the gates. 

The architecture was impressive and the views were great from both of the towers. Unfortunately it started to rain. We said was just watched the city and the traffic for a while from the two different towers. They have packed a lot of things in the city walls of Xi’an. Everything is walkable and there is shopping EVERYWHERE!

We decided to call it a night pretty early today. We have a big deal tomorrow. We are off to see the Terra Cotta Warriors!

Beijing (Day 2)

May 27th

GREAT WALL OF CHINA DAY!

We are so excited to get to see and walk on the Great Wall of China. We were up and out early, excited and ready to go! We all hopped on the bus ready to go.About 30 or 45 minutes into our drive the bus stopped at a Jade Palace. One cool thing that we learned at the Jade Palace is that there were jade rings on all of the Olympic medals in 2008. That was a really neat thing they did to make it special for China.

Our next stop ended up being at a Copper Vase place. It was another stop that was interesting to see and learn but I could have done without. It is truly amazing the amount of time and effort it goes into making those vases. They were pretty but just not our style. This is the same place that we had lunch. It was your typical tourist Chinese food. Wasn’t bad, wasn’t great. They shuffled tour guide after tour guide in and out of the big banquet hall. We did get to try some of the Chinese vodka. They give it to you in a tiny, tiny “shot glass”. It looked like a thimble but that was more than enough. I think if you drink more than that at a time, you might go blind.

Finally it was time to go to the Sacred Way. The Sacred Way is the walkway to the Ming Tomb where 13 Ming Dynasty Emperors are buried. The walkway is lined with statues of guardian animals and officials. There are 4 of each, two on each side of the walkway, one set standing in a position of ready and the other set in a rest position. We didn’t get have the time to go into the tombs but we were able to walk the 7 kilometers down the Sacred Way and see all of the statues. I found one in particular that I loved. I named him, Bubbie. It was so much fun running from statue to statue taking silly pictures. It is pretty amazing what measures are taken to protect people in the afterlife.

Bubbie

Our time at the Sacred Way felt short but our next stop was the Great Wall of China so we were all very excited to get back on the bus and head north. It wasn’t long before we could see the Wall from the window. It was pretty surreal and exciting to see it just stretch as far as the eye could see. Finally we got to the area that we were going to stop and explore the Wall called the Ba Da Ling. We could not get on the Wall fast enough. Gary got us our tickets, gave us a little bit of information and a time for us to meet him and we were off, running, literally. I felt like a little kid running around on the Great Wall acting silly. One direction was a little more strenuous and therefore less traveled so we headed that way. It was a steep climb but definitely worth it. We went as far as they would technically let you go on that part of the Wall. (Not all of it is in the best condition so they try and advise people from continuing on.) We spent our time making silly little videos, taking pictures of us “falling” off the Wall, jumping on the Wall, pictures of just the Wall and us with the Wall. We couldn’t get enough of it. It was truly an experience that is still difficult to wrap my head around. I continued to try and take time on the Wall to sit and let it sink in that I am on the Great Wall of China. I still don’t think it has sunk in.

I think we could have stayed on the Wall for days just walking, laughing and taking pictures that just don’t begin to capture what we were seeing but our 2 hours on the Wall flew by and before we knew it we were back on the bus headed to the hotel.

Once we got back to the hotel, we joined up with Dave & Gina to head out for dinner and adventure. Gary was heading home for the night and taking the public bus to the subway to his house. So we tagged along. Steve, Anita & Miranda all joined too. We all walked to the bus stop and waited for the double decker bus 7. There public transportation system is great and runs like clockwork. There is no screwing around. When the bus got there you had to immediately jump on or you get left. The bus is PACKED! Standing room only. Tim and Steve are so tall that they have to bend over to stand in the bus. Gary was great with helping us pay our bus fare and get our tickets while we were sitting in traffic. We got plenty of stares as we were the only foreigners on the bus. After about 20ish minutes, we were at the subway stop. So we all hopped off and headed underground. The subway system is super nice. They have a security check where you have to but your bags through the X-ray machine and everything. Everything in the subway was in Chinese and in English. I felt so spoiled. It was fairly easy to figure everything out. However, we did learn the hard way that the machines don’t take 1 yuan bills only coins. Once we got into the subway, we all went our separate ways. Tim, Dave, Gina, Jed and I headed one way, Gary headed home and Steve, Anita & Miranda went a different direction.

The five of us were on a shopping mission. We headed to the Silk Street Market. We had no idea what we would find and boy were we amazed! It was 5 stories of crazy bargain shopping. You had to haggle for everything and Jed and I were terrible at it. Tim & Dave on the other hand, LOVED it and excelled at it. By the time they closed, we had:

-        -  Only made it to 3 floors

-        -  Watched a lady put a flame up to a Chanel bag to show it was not flammable

-        -  Saw kids in baby chaps

-        -  Yelled at and thrown out of 2 shops cause we were too low on our price

-        -   Lady grabbed Gina’s wrist and would not let her go

All of us walked away with souvenirs for friends or something for themselves and some amazing stories and memories. By the time the Silk Market closed, we were ready to find dinner. We were really close to a place in the Lonely Planet book so we decided that would be perfect. We wondered up and down different streets for a while trying to find it with no luck. Finally we asked a rickshaw driver he knew where it was. Of course he did and for $0.65 a person they were take us there on the rickshaws. How do you pass up a deal like that! So the 5 of us hopped on two different rickshaws and off we went. It was a lot of fun. We were super close to the restaurant so it was a short ride and I think they even took us the long way to get there. We had actually walked past the restaurant when we were trying to find it. 

The restaurant was great! Because it was so late there were not a ton of people in there. When they gave us the one menu we immediately had to laugh and we took lots of pictures. The menu was at least 6 feet tall! It was crazy! It took us a while to just go through it all. Thankfully the book had recommendations on what to eat.  Dinner was great and it was so much fun to be out exploring.

After dinner it was time to head back. The buses had stopped running so our options were subway then get a cab or walk or just get a cab from where we were. We had ridden on a bus, the subway and a rickshaw tonight so a cab seems like the perfect answer. So we hailed a cab for the 5 of us. The cabbie flipped out when all 5 of us got into the cab so Tim, Jed and I jumped out and off Gina and Dave when. Since our track record was not so great with getting cabs in Beijing we decided to just go back to the subway. We ran into a few little hiccups trying to get back to the hotel.

-          - Couldn’t find the subway station (did find a hotel where we finally asked)

-          - Because the buses were not running we were not sure which stop to get off and walk from

-          - Ended up walking about 3 miles back from the subway station back to the hotel (did the math backwards in converting km to miles)

It ended up to be a pretty funny adventure back full of a comedy of errors but there were a ton of locals out eating dinner and hanging out. We definitely had the opportunity to see what the locals do in the evening and how they spend their time. 

We made it back to the hotel at 12:06am. A completely successful evening. Tomorrow we leave for Xi’an. There is still so much I want to see and do in Beijing but I can’t wait to see what Xi’an has to offer us.

Beijing (Day 1)

May 26th

I couldn't sleep. I was up at 4am ready to go. Maybe it was because I slept for 8+ hours on the plane or maybe it was just the excitement of being in China. I couldn't wait. So when the alarm clock finally went off, I was up and running. After a quick continental (American) breakfast, we met up with our new tour guide, Gary, and the rest of the group of 22.

Our First Stop: Beijing Olympic Park
We were able to see the IBM building they built to look like a torch, The Birds Nest & the Water Cube. What is so amazing about all of this is the funding for almost all of the Olympic Buildings were raised by donations. Most donations were made by Chinese individuals & families that do not live in China. CRAZY!

Today we learned that the haze that you see in the pictures is from Coal Plants. This is just a part of the Beijing experience. We were told that during the Olympics, they shut down the plants for periods of time in hopes to clear the air a little. They were also assigned certain days they could or couldn't drive on to reduce car smog. That ended up staying in place even to this day.

We were not able to go into any of these buildings but it was really cool just be there and see them and walk around where all the Olympians were in 2008. They are amazing structures.

We all hopped back on the bus to head towards the Forbidden City & Tiamanmen Square. But our tour guide, Gary had a few stops in mind first. We made a stop at a Pearl Market. They taught us about salt water pearls vs fresh water pearls. It was nice to learn and neat that is was something we learned they did locally (fresh water pearls) but we weren't interested in buying super expensive jewelry.

After our longer then we would have liked stop at the Pearl Market, we headed to Qianmen Street. There was a lot of cool architecture, shops and this is where we ate lunch.

Gary dropped us off here and give us free time to shop and eat. He recommend KFC and McDonalds for lunch! We thought he was crazy and had no plans of eating at an American chain fast food place. Thankfully Gina came to our rescue with her Lonely Planet book. She found us a dumpling place to eat right on Qianmen Street. And it was INCREDIBLE!



The name of the restaurant



We learned a lot from our first dining experience in Beijing. Some quick lessons:

1. Just because the elevator has a particular floor marked with Chinese characters, that doesn't mean that is the floor you are supposed to go to.
2. Some restaurants have you pay as soon as you order instead of at the end of the meal.
3. Don't take the ticket off the table or even move it from the corner or you won't get all the food that you ordered.

 After lunch we made a quick photo stop at the Beijing Theatre. It was such a unique design. If only we had time to see a show in here. That would have been awesome. Maybe next time...

Next we headed over to Tiananmen Square. Wow this place is HUGE! Our tour guide made the joke that it would fit 1 million Chinese or a half a million Americans. We had the opportunity to talk around for a little bit and take it in before we headed into the Forbidden City.



The Square. Hard to capture the size.



National Museum of China (east side)

The Great Hall of People (parliament) (west side)



Monument in front of Mao's Mausoleum (south side)




Forbidden City (north side)

There were people everywhere, tourist and locals alike. It was so amazing to be walking around Tiananmen Square. Time went by quickly and we regrouped and headed into the Forbidden City. It is now opened to the public but before 1925 only the Emperor, family and council were allow in the city.

There is just so much information and history about this place. Every time you turned another corner there was more to see. I guess that is what happens when you build a city with 9,999 1/2 rooms.

We learned that "The Last Emperor", Puyi, became Emperor at 2 years and 10 months old. That is crazy!

After our tour of the Forbidden City, Gary was going to take us back to the hotel on the bus. But it was only about 5pm and Jed, Tim and I were not done exploring the area. From where we left the city gates of the Forbidden City, we could see a lookout at the top of the hill.

So we decided to say good bye to our group and set off on foot to see what we could find. We found Jingshan Park. After a short hike to the top, we were able to get an incredible view of the Forbidden City and a lot of Beijing.

After our time in the park we decided to head back to the hotel. This didn't end up being as easy as we would like it to be. Gary told us not to get a cab near Tiananmen Square or the Forbidden City because they would way over charge us. He recommended us going out the park on the far side, finding a hotel and having them get us a cab. Great idea! In theory... the short version of the story is this...
- wondered aimlessly for a while
- ran up a roaming bill on Tim's cell phone for over $50 in 3 minutes
- found no hotels
- found a cab
- made it back to hotel
- paid too much for a cab

It was such a crazy experience and a great way to get our feet wet for more hiccups the rest of our time here.

But we weren't done for the day. It was still early and there was more to do.

Our next adventure: Dinner
We weren't sure where to go for dinner so we thought we should just ask the front desk. They can speak some English so we were hoping they could tell us a place to go. We asked and they didn't understand anything we said. We pointed to the question in our translation book and they sent us over to the concierge, Ryan. They asked us what we wanted to eat and asked if we wanted Italian! Really? Italian, in China? Of course, we wanted Chinese food. So they recommended Peking Duck. I wasn't a huge fan but I figured Tim and Jed could try duck and they would have something there for me. Ryan walked us out to get us a cab and no cabbie wanted to take us so we asked if there was something that we could walk to. The guy looked shocked! Apparently the foreigners that say at this hotel don't tend to want real Chinese. He told us of a place right across the street. He walked us over there, talked to the people inside, got us a number and menus to look at while we waited. He was so great and a HUGE help. The restaurant was definitely authentic. We were the only foreigners in the place and we got quite a few stares but we didn't care. After quite a wait, our table was ready and the rest of the restaurant was beautiful.


The restaurant

 

The pictures just don't do it justice. There was water under the glass floors, little bridges over little waterfalls, and super fun drapes for individual table privacy. The food was super spicy but really, really good. They had dog on the menu but Jed & Tim just weren't ready to tackle that yet.

We had an amazing dinner and headed out for a little walk before calling it a night. All these little street vendors popped up around the hotel and on bridges. They had random clothing racks that they were selling random articles of clothing, ipod nanos, bootleg dvd's, a ton of different food, some fresh fruits and others were cooking different meat kabobs and tiny little spotted eggs. We looked but didn't buy. After our walk, we were ready to end our first day in China. Had to get a little sleep before our next adventures.