Travels in China: Beijing and Chengdu

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Beijing

Next stop on our trip was Beijing. We planned to visit Bob and Gabrielle, two teachers that Travis taught with in Japan, for a few days. Gabrielle and Bob are now teaching at Hwa Bae Dien Li Da Xue, the power University. We arrived at the beautiful new terminal of Beijing airport and hopped in a taxi. We were given instructions to ask a student to borrow a phone and call to notify our arrival. We weren't sure if it would work, but the students were so nice and helpful. We arrived smoothly and had a nice time catching up with Bob and Gabe. Their place is great and they were able to arrange a bed for us for three nights! So nice.

The next day we went for an early morning walk to tour their neighbourhood and campus, and ate at their cafeteria. It was fun and a reminder of how much we enjoyed the University campus lifestyle when we were in Japan. Later that day they had to go to class to teach so the two of us headed to the internet cafe to blog it up. We met up with them later for a street vendor dinner that was so good. One of the dishes was spicy flatbread from Xinjiang province which Michelle said was her favourite Chinese dish of all time! As we were leaving Gabe bent down to say hello to a baby and the baby's face lit up with a huge smile. Looking over Gabe's shoulder the baby noticed Bob, Travis, and Michelle and the baby's expression turned from pleasant to total shock! The baby's eyebrows could not have risen any higher. We all had a laugh and we wonder if we were the first white people that the baby has ever seen. It was hilarious!

The next day Bob and Gabe joined us for a visit to to Beijing's ring one (city centre) before they had to head back to teach some classes. The four of us visited the Drum and Bell Towers, and went for a nice stroll around Lake Hou-Hai. We stumbled upon an amazing Sichuan restaurant called Surprise. All four dishes we ordered were excellent. After Bob and Gabe returned to the University, the two of us walked to the hostel we booked for the following night to take care of some administration. Walking any distance in the city makes you realize Beijing is massive! Everything looks so close to walk on the map. Even taking a taxi across the city is time consuming. Arriving back at the University we walked the street vendors and got some more amazing food for dinner.

The next morning Bob and Gabe walked us to the bus stop and we bid them adieu. A student named "Rockie with ie - I picked name out myself because I like rock is cool" offered us assistance in finding directions to Beijing's ring one. Such a nice person and the help was very welcome. We made our way to the hostel - a very cool traditional courtyard style house and waited for the arrival of Michelle's father Mike and her brother Johnny. We had some time before they arrived, so we went to see the Lama Temple - Beijing's most magnificent Buddhist temple. We also walked down the beautiful tree-lined street of the Confucius Temple.

We waited back at the hostel for Mike (Dad) and Johnny to arrive. We were all ready to surprise them with the flying monkeys but a baby was there and took quite an interest in the monkey. I couldn't get it out of her hands in time to throw it, so we let her have it!!! It was great to see some family after so long.

We got settled and had a drink in the hostel's courtyard to catch up before heading out to dinner. We thought we were going somewhere pretty close, but after 45 minutes in the cab, we again realized how big this city is. At least the food made up for it. All of the dishes we tried were delicious. Mike and Johnny were obviously tired by the end of this, so we headed back to the hostel and back to bed!

With only two days in Beijing to see the major sights we had to get an early start. We started our day at the Forbidden City, one of Beijing's best-known sights. It's called the Forbidden City because it was off-limits for 500 years. It was home to two dynasties of emperors (Ming and Qing) and is the largest and best-preserved grouping of ancient buildings in China. We decided to hire a guide to get a little more out of the experience. We were approached by Ming (english name: Mike) and thought we'd give him a try. He was great and really knowledgeable. He offered to take us to the Great Wall the next day for a private tour. We were thinking of doing that anyway it was just a matter of coming up with a fair price. We had a bit of a struggle getting him to come down in price but eventually settled on something we thought was fair.

We left Ming and walked through Tiananmen Square and then continued on to find a restaurant to eat Peking Duck. Beijing was formally called Peking, so it's a specialty of the area. The meal was delicious. At lunch Michelle and Travis took off their jackets to show the t-shirts they were wearing. Johnny noticed first and we all started laughing pretty hard before Mike realized what was going on. We had gotten some t-shirts made before Mike and Johnny arrived: one with Johnny's face painted on it and one with Mike's. We thought it would be funny if we just wore them out without telling them. We had a pretty good laugh about it.

In the afternoon we visited the Temple of Heaven which was set in a nice park. After this Mike and Johnny were dying to try out the Chinese markets and do some shopping so we went to the Yashou Clothing Market. The trip was a success and collectively we bought a lot of things. Mike and Johnny couldn't believe the deals! We went back to the hostel to rest our legs for a bit and then went out for a nice dinner.

Great Wall and Summer Palace

There are many parts of the Great Wall that you can visit, some more touristy than others. We wanted to visit a part that wouldn't be too busy so we decided on the wall at Mutianyu. Luckily, we had one of the nicest days we had the whole time we were in China...beautiful blue skies and sunshine. It really makes you appreciate a nice day after having so many overcast/polluted days. The day was amazing! We all really enjoyed walking along the wall. We spent a few hours walking along the wall and up some stairs to a better viewpoint.

The great wall is actually a series of walls that were built between the 6th century and the 16th century to protect China from attack. In total they span more than 6,700 Km (>4,000 miles) and they are a pretty amazing architectural achievement.

In the afternoon, we visited the Summer Palace which ended up being one of our favourite Beijing attractions (again the beautiful day helped a bit). On the way back to the hostel, we drove by the "Bird's Nest" - the new Olympic stadium building. It looks pretty impressive. No doubt the Olympics are going to be spectacular this year.

Chengdu

We arrived in Chengdu (a 1.5 hour flight from Beijing) and checked into our hostel which was very cool. The four of us were sharing a room with bunk beds. Our plan was to visit the Panda Sanctuary the following day, followed by a 3 day horse back riding trek to Songpan (Ice Mountain) and a 2 day visit to Jiuzhaigo national park. We made the panda visit the next morning, but the big earthquake that hit that afternoon changed the rest of our plans.

We are still feeling pretty emotional about writing about the earthquake. We decided not to post any pictures from the earthquake as we're sure everyone has seen a lot by now.

We've been asked by several people what happened, and what it felt like, so here is what we experienced: Mike was in a store down the street, Johnny was on the third floor, and Michelle and Travis were about 15 metres inside the hostel when the shaking started. Michelle and Travis had experienced many small tremors of about 5 seconds duration when they were living in Tokyo, and assumed that it would stop in a few seconds. On the contrary, the tremors started getting a lot stronger, and the sounds of buildings shaking and the approaching tremors sounded like a plane flying overhead along with a rock-slide.

Mike ran out into the street and Johnny joined Michelle and Travis on the main floor. No one was really sure what to do as Chengdu hasn't had an earthquake since the 1970's. There were about 20 people - hostel staff and guests - who along with the three of us (Johnny, Michelle, and Travis), ran into the courtyard on the side of the hostel. Suddenly in addition to the already major tremors, a "wave" (can't think of another way to describe it) moved right through the ground of the courtyard which displaced a large quantity of water from the stone basin in the center. We quickly realized it wasn't safe in the courtyard. Somebody yelled "there's glass windows out here" and a few of the hostel staff were crying. The three of us started to make our way down the narrow alley from the courtyard to the street when we saw Mike standing in the middle of the street ahead. The tremors still seemed to be getting stronger. We must have been in a daze, still unsure what exactly to do since when he saw us he shouted "get out of there!" and we started running towards him. Not five seconds later a large slab of bricks fell from the fifth floor onto the ground where we had been walking in a huge cloud of dust. Unfortunately, it grazed one of the hostel workers, injuring her head and shoulder (we heard later that she would make a full recovery).

We huddled into the center of the street along with the hundreds of locals pouring out of their homes and businesses. The tremors continued and continued. It seemed like they would never stop. Finally the tremors stopped. No one wanted to go back indoors, and many locals brought furniture outside and even camped outside for the night. We walked around to see how much damage the city sustained and saw lots of interrupted people. One woman ran outside with a facial mask on. One man ran outside in his underwear. A woman ran by with a bleeding dog. Several doctors, nurses, and patients poured out of the nearby hospital. Eventually we returned to the hostel but it wasn't too long before we felt a major aftershock and everyone spilled out into the street again. There were many aftershocks over the next 24 hours, and sometimes a nearby dog would start barking and whining right before one hit.

At first we had no idea how much damage had occurred, and we didn't know that anyone had died. We actually tried to continue planning our horse trek with the hostel thinking that things were back to normal. Later in the day as the news arrived, we started to realize how devastating the damage was. A few of the hostel workers found out that their homes had collapsed. The poor hostel staff were trying desperately to reach their family for/with news of their safety. In the meantime they did such an amazing job of keeping the hostel running. Many of the workers slept over and pulled double or triple shifts to allow their colleagues time off to be with family. We don't normally mention the names of the hostels we stay at but we felt that the staff at ours did such an incredible job under such duress that we should mention this one. It's called "The Loft" and we would definitely recommend a stay there on a visit to Chengdu.

With our horse trek being canceled, and the aftershocks continuing, we decided that we should get out of Chengdu. We heard that all transportation out of Chengdu would be severely delayed, so we stayed one extra day to let things cool off. Even with an extra day when we arrived at the Chengdu airport it was total chaos. After a lot of hard work, luck, and a taxi to an ATM we managed to get a flight from Chengdu to Beijing that night at 8:00 pm. The flight actually ended up leaving after midnight, but we got to Beijing which was our goal. We slept in the Beijing airport and flew to Tokyo later that day.

Like we said, we feel a bit strange writing about the earthquake in light of how much damage was done. Although a terrifying experience for us, we have the luxury of being able to get in an airplane and leave it all behind. We can't imagine what the victims of the earthquake must be going through.

Our next blog will be about our final week in Asia (this time!) and our Japan visit.

Thanks for reading,

Love, Michelle and Travis

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Photos

Beijing - Drum and Bell Tower
Hutongs and traditional houses

Beijing - Hou Hai Lake
Surprise! We ate at this incredible Sichuan restaurant for lunch.

Beijing - Drum and Bell Tower
Sour Apples and Dumptruck-String Chewer

Beijing - Donghuamen Night Market
Fancy a deep fried scorpion-on-a-stick? How about a Seahorse?

Chengdu - Panda Sanctuary
Somehow these guys remind us of an all-guys weekend at the cottage.

Chengdu - Nkie
Gotta love those original Nkie sandals!

Chengdu
A man sells meat from his baby stroller?!

Beijing Airport
We had to sleep at a coffee shop in the airport one night after the earthquake.

Beijing - Hou Hai Lake
The narrow alleys (hutongs) of old Beijing.

Comments

[laetitiaaroundtheworld]

Got some really cool shoots here!well done :-)