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Published: October 27th 2006
How Beautiful is This Place?
I was in heaven during the close to four hours I spent exploring the Forbidden city.Sitting here in Kathmandu, that's in Nepal for all of you geography flunkies, planning a trek that could last for a few weeks, I decided I can't go without getting the blog up to date. Wouldn't want to come back with hundreds of great pictures of the Himalayas and have to start uploading pictures from China. China is a great place, a place I feel I really short-changed and a place that I will return to sooner rather than later.
Being my second visit to China, if you call 3 days in Hong Kong and 1 day in Dong Guan in 1998 a visit, I was able to see the changes that have occurred during the last eight years. And there have been many changes. In a word China is; people, cultures, history & ancient sites, sky-scrappers & smog, development & new construction, shopping malls, American & European company logos everywhere (Citibank, McDonald's, Starbucks, Wal-Mart, Pizza Hut, KFC, HSBC and too many others to list) and a country that is unique in the world. Change has been swift in China, I can't believe I visited around 8 years ago, the entire city I visited went from a town with a
Terra Cotta Money Shot
Since you are always kept at a distance from the statues, this was the best pic I could manage. few streets to a city with many wide streets, newly constructed large apartment buildings, new highways and huge amounts of traffic. Unfortunately there has been little thought or care given to the impact on the environment all this change and development would cause. There is a perpetual layer of smog throughout China, I noticed it the day we crossed from Vietnam and it continued for around ten days before I saw a blue sky again and that was only for one or two days. It's really quite sad, I almost felt in another ten years you might not be able to see across the street the smog will be so bad.
Traveling China is an eye opening experience. The lack of people who speak English hits you square in the face when you step off the bus in China for the first time. If you fly into Beijing you'd get a different experience and an easier time communicating. Outside the big cities there aren't even signs in English, mind you there are 1.3 billion people in China so a small town might have 1 million people. And trying to read Chinese is a lost cause. The simplest of tasks
The Great Wall
What a sight to take in! might become an arduous and frustrating experience. But that's the fun of travel. Here goes...
Our Route... Nanning...Guangzhou...Hong Kong...DongGuan...Shenzhen...Xi'an...Beijing... It all started in Hanoi, Vietnam. I got woken up by the hotel staff around seven in the morning. Up until this point I thought we were leaving the hotel at 8am but it turned out to be 7:30. So groggy, sleepy and still very tired I said a half-hearted goodbye to Kate, who deserved a huge goodbye for all the good times and fun she was part of, but I just couldn't muster the energy that early. So it was once again just me and the King Goon himself. We caught a bus, destination Nanning, China, where hopefully we could catch an overnight bus to Hong Kong. Everything was quite normal crossing the border, aside from the fact it was a much busier border crossing and it involved a lot more walking to cross the no-mans-land between Vietnam and China. We hopped on a different bus on the Chinese side and were off again. We get to Nanning, jump off the bus and the fun begins...So neither of us speak Chinese and it seems to us no one
Me and My New Chinese Friends...
Wish I could remember everyones name...Guo is in the middle wearing the green shirt, Hasegawa is on the left end and a special thanks goes to her for the pictures of the evening. in the bus station speaks English, we are already getting stares from locals, not in a bad way, just in a shocked to see two white guys kind of way. Luckily we find a couple of young Chinese at a travel desk who speak a bit of English. They help us find out about buses, obviously the direct bus to Hong Kong was sold out, next best option to get us close was an overnight bus to Guangzhou. It takes 20 minutes to get a taxi to the other bus station (at least 5 cabs passed us by), then an hour sitting in traffic to get to the station. We haven't eaten all day, it's now about 7:30pm and we get to the station and bam... 10,000 Chinese people headed for a holiday, forty eight gates, twenty different ticket lines and not one word of English! A nice Chinese person points us to the line for Guangzhou, I write the time we want to go and the ticket lady puts the bus departing closest to that time, the price and then I give here the universal symbol for sleeper seat, head resting against your hands. A few hundred Yuan exchanges
Notice the Chop Sticks
Can't make dumplings if your chop stick skills are lacking. hands and we've purchased our first bus tickets in China. A little KFC (an experience like no other, this was the busiest KFC in history) and some snacks for the ride and we board the bus and find beds instead of seats...China overland rules! Arrive around 6:30am and go through the same lack of communication trying to find a bus to Hong Kong, luckily the Photocopied Lonely Planet we picked up in Vietnam for $7 USD paid off, we found the bus and 30 hours after leaving Hanoi we arrived at our final destination Hong Kong...
Here are the highlights and stories that made up our trip through China. Starting in Hong Kong, we arrived during Chinese Independence weekend so the city was packed with people, we even got treated to a fireworks display. Spent our time in Hong Kong walking the streets getting a feel for the city. Hong Kong just isn't my type of place for traveling, it is one of the most densely populated cities in the world, everything is expensive, the main past-time is shopping, so we treated our selves to great food!!! During the visit we had Chinese Hot Pot, which involves a large
Jiaozi at Guo's Place
This was me and my new friends from Beijing eating Jiaozi (dumplings). bowl of soup in the middle of the table and you order ingredients and build your own soup, simply amazing! We had Dim Sum, my mouth is watering just thinking about it, the best BBQ'd Pork of all time, Shu Mai (Shrimp Dumplings) and many other treats. I went Sushi crazy trying to satisfy the craving I'd had for the last few months. I even have a connection from work, so my friend Jose, treated us to a great meal. Even got to try Webbed Goose Feet and Sea Cucumber. The treats from Jose didn't stop there, he gave us a ride to Shenzhen the day we needed to cross back into mainland China, he took us out for another Cantonese Lunch and Dinner, put us up in a five star hotel (there was even a pillow menu on the bed & breakfast buffet...unlimited coffee!) plus the Mets game was on ESPN in the morning and then to top all that off he paid for our flight to Xi'an and arranged for his driver to pick us up at the hotel and take us to the airport...thanks again Jose!
So instead of a 27 hour train ride we hopped
Pagoda Along Wall
This was one of the Pagodas on the wall surrounding the old city in Xi'an. They lit all the Pagodas up at night. of the two and a half hour flight and we were in Xi'an. Actually we had gone overland from Bangkok all the way to Hong Kong before we finally caved and flew to Xi'an, that was five countries between the end of July and the beginning of October overland. One note about the flight; about half an hour before landing the flight attendants led the entire plane in a stretching routine, it is the funniest things I've ever witnessed on a plane, if you ever have the chance fly Shenzhen Airlines. Our main reason for heading to Xi'an was it happens to be home to the world famous Terracotta Warriors. I was very excited for our visit to the warriors, it turned out to be a bit of a let down. I expected the ruins of Rome or Jerusalem and instead I got the Disney World of archaeological sites. It was very cool to see, the soldiers are over 2000 years old, but they have all been restored. Only one warrior has ever been found that was still intact. I would prefer looking at a pile of rumble with a bit of the site restored, but instead the Chinese are
Welcome to Hong Kong
When I was up by the Peak Tram in 1998 you could see clear to Kowloon, but as you can see from the pic, smog has become a large problem in all of China...but hey the skyline still kicks ass. intent of restoring the entire place. It was a fun day anyway, we decided to take the local bus instead of signing up for a tour so finding the bus in front of the train station was a mission in itself, but it was very rewarding when we arrived at the end of the line and we were actually there. Other than that we spent most of the time in Xi'an walking around, we went for a memorable walk through the Muslim Quarter, it felt like I had stepped back 500 years in time, meat for sale was hanging in storefronts, restaurants were preparing soup in caldron's, there were small Chinese men with small goatees and skull caps sitting around and all the streets were small alleyways. The best part of the walk was I didn't see another tourist. Xi'an is a large city with over 6 million people but we stayed in the old city which is surrounded by a huge 10-15m high wall, the city itself provides glimpses of the past to the present ranging from 2000 year old structures, city walls built hundreds of years ago, Temples built hundreds of years ago to modern sky scrappers covered
with neon lights. Obviously the food was great in Xi'an. The only other highlight was the night we did KTV (karaoke) with a girl from Brooklyn and a girl from Germany, man none of us could carry a tune, but it sure was funny!
After five days in Xi'an we opted to fly to Beijing and save ourselves a 12 hour overnight train ride. The Capital! Beijing is a massive city, 14 million people, home of the upcoming Olympics and they never let you forget that either, there are signs all over the city counting down the days. Beijing is home to many famous tourist spots...Tianamen Square, The Forbidden City, the Great Wall, the Summer Palace, the Temple of Heaven and who knows the countless other sights I don't even know about. We found ourselves with prime location in the center of Beijing and we decided to spend the first full day in Beijing walking around Tianamen Square. On our way two girls approached us about practicing English, so we invited them to walk with us...BIG MISTAKE...had a great few hours walking and chatting but then they took us to a tea ceremony, which was awesome, unique and a
More Forbidden City...
I went picture crazy... completely different experience, especially once the bill came and it was $125USD each. Those little hustlers, but I wasn't about to let that ruin my time in Beijing. As you might have guessed from the amount of pictures I put up, I really loved the Forbidden City, the more time you spent looking at something, the more details you noticed. There were hand carved blocks of marble, huge bronze jars, amazing paintings all over the buildings, hand carved wood figurines on every building, gardens, intricate jewelry and ancient treasures from the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Plus the place is gigantic, spent hours walking around and didn't even make a dent. Then there was our tour of the Great Wall, simply amazing! To think this wall was built hundreds, in places thousands of years ago blows your mind. We visited the wall at Mutianya, luckily this was the less touristy part of the wall near Beijing, well let me tell you there were plenty of tourists. At least there was an alpine slide for the ride down...so much fun! We walked along the wall for an hour or so, got some great pics and were taken back in time, even met
some Mongolians on the wall, who knows maybe they are descendants of Genghis Khan one of the only men to ever break through the wall. Did I mention that during our time in Beijing we treated ourselves to two Peking Duck dinners, even Mao has eaten duck from the place we went. What better place than Peking to try Peking Duck for the first time.
You'd think with these great experiences above, one would be the highlight of our time in Beijing, but they're not. The highlight of Beijing to me was Guo, my new Chinese friend I met in Hanoi and spoke to for about ten minutes, who then gave me her email when she heard I was going to be in Beijing. Guo treated us to a feast of Local Beijing cuisine at a local spot, there must have been eight differnent dishes on the table, it was a great meal and happened to be the same day we got ripped off by the "tea house girls". She wouldn't take a penny for the meal, but the fun doesn't stop there. The night before we were leaving Beijing for Bangkok, Guo was having friends over to her
Look at the Detail...
I know I keep saying this, but I was amazed by the details! apartment to make "Jiaozi" (Dumplings) and she invited Brian and I over. Brian was sick so I headed off to the suburbs of Beijing alone and had one of the best nights of the entire year. Hung out with Guo, and about eight of her friends, we made dumplings from scratch, I tried rolling the dough, not my best skill but I was pretty good at filling and folding the dumplings, my chop stick skills are better than ever so I had no problem participating in the prep work. By the way this was a feast of Dumplings, must have made over a hundred dumplings. There were two kinds, one filled with a spicy vegetable, egg and shrimp and a second type filled with a green vegetable that tasted like black licorice and pork. Not only were the dumplings homemade and delicious it was the second time in the last month that I got to hang-out with local people in a foreign country. I can't begin to tell you what that experience was like. So once again a special thanks to Guo and her friends for welcoming me into their home. And another thanks to Hasegawa, Guo's friend for all
Modern Art Exihibit - HK
I went to check out the art museum in Hong Kong, it had this crazy exihibit showing art made with human hair. It was quite bizzare, I even cut a piece of my hair and glued it on a post card, might have been the only curly hair there. Plus they had this sculpture made with shoes from humand hair. the pictures from that evening. My time in China reminded me how much I love getting a feel local cultures, from all the wonderful meals that we got treated to, to the people we met, to the things we saw, China is a place that reminded me how lucky I am. And just one last thing...Chinese food is hands down the best food in Asia!
About to set off on a three week trek of the Himalayas, wish me luck, I'm gonna need it. And if anybody is looking for a destination to travel too, I'll be in China before January, to finish off a country that deserves two months not two weeks of time...
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AUNT ELLEN
non-member comment
ABSOLUTELY AWESOME... LOVED THOSE PICTURES.. CAN'T BELIEVE YOU WERE AT THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA.! IF WE DON'T HEAR FROM YOU AGAIN SOON.. HAPPY BIRTHDAY FROM ALL OF US TO YOU.