China

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China, land of tasty food and many people.

This is probably going to be one of those updates where pictures are better than words. I’ve seen and done quite a lot of things in the last four weeks here but here are the highlights:



National Holiday & Mid-Autumn Festival: Not something I did per say, more of an event that took place for the first half of the tour. Our guide likened it to Christmas for Chinese people. It’s a week of holidays in which people go home and visit family as well as going to see the tourist attractions around the country. It made everything much busier and more crowded.



Tiananmen Square/Forbidden City: Both places were quite full of other tourists, mostly Chinese, but a few western tour groups also. Both were also very large (something I’d come to realize is just the way things were built in Beijing) and had lots of open spaces. I passed Chairman Mao’s mausoleum but opted not to go inside. I started at the southern end of the Square and walked north, towards the Forbidden City. It was the third gate that was the entrance proper to the city itself but it still took a bit of walking to even get there. The Forbidden City is actually the old imperial palace. The palace itself was massive, I didn’t see all of it but must have walked for at least an hour and a half before getting to the other side. It was no wonder why they called it a ‘city’. Again, very packed with tourists.



Great Wall: There are several sections of the Great Wall that have been restored but the one we went to was further away from Beijing and so there were fewer tourists. Once we arrived I decided to walk up while some others took the cable car. It was a sweaty start to the day but everyone would get much sweatier by the end of it. It was about 20-30min of just stairs to get to the wall proper. The restores section of the wall is about 20 towers long. But there wasn’t an exact measurement of space between each tower, at least, not that I could find. Anyway, at the wall we went from the 8th to the 14th tower, lots of steps, nearly all uphill and I don’t know how people would even be able to walk on this wall when the stones were wet. Got some nice photos and the weather was great! Sunny, warm, blue skies! Only thing is that you got hot very quickly and we were all rather sweaty (my back was soaked) by the time we arrived at the 14th tower. Met some of our group who took the cable car at the 14th tower, turned around and went down to the 6th to take the toboggan/cart down. We ended up walking past the place we needed to go because there hadn’t been any signs to tell us where the toboggan was. And then the story for the rest of the trip was that we were the group who got lost on the Wall 😞. The toboggan/cart ride was just a cart that was in a metal tube and you had a brake to slow yourself. However, it became evident that slowing down would not be an issue. Now I am not making any statements on stereotype but perhaps it would have been wiser to let the young people go first and the old people could then follow at their turtle pace. :p



Camel Trek: I remember distinctly thinking at about 3am ‘Why did I do this again?’. I’d already gone on a camel trek in the desert (See: Morocco) and I’d already frozen while trying to sleep in the desert (See: Egypt and Jordan). And I wasn’t the only one to think this as we later discovered that everyone in the camp was awake, uncomfortable and cold at 4am. But the scenery was good, the sunrise was excellent and we all had a good time around the campfire at night. I won’t be doing that again soon, however.



Terra Cotta Warriors: The site has 5 main buildings. Three are ‘pits’ that had been dug up, one of which was a gift shop/theatre and the last which housed two bronze chariots. Pit 1 was the best, largest, and most reconstructed of all the pits. It was also the busiest. You had to wait and push to get a spot by the railing so you could take a picture without people’s heads in the way. We were given a half hour to walk around but that was only really enough time to walk down either the left or the right side of the excavation site, but not both. I chose the right and was able to get a few good shots in. Still, when everyone met at the end of the trip we all agreed that there were too many people (reason for this is because it was the middle of the Mid-Autumn Festival). Pit 2 is still mostly unexcavated because archaeologists do not yet possess the technology to properly preserve the warriors. When they were first excavated, they were painted but the colour faded quickly after they had been unearthed. So the second pit hasn’t been dug up until they can do it properly. But, the finest examples of warriors that have been unearthed were also located here. Pit 3, the smallest one, was supposed to be the military headquarters of the army. It was discovered that many of the warriors lack heads because the Emperor died before they were finished and the peasant uprising immediately followed so there was no time to make them. The bronze chariots were a bit of a letdown. Supposedly they had been re-created from 3000 pieces but they weren’t life-sized like the rest of the warriors and they just didn’t seem that amazing. Again, it could have been partially because all the people surrounding them made it difficult to appreciate or get a decent photo.



Panda Breeding Centre: The center had just opened so it wasn’t completely overrun with tourists when we went. We saw the adolescent pandas, then the babies, then the adults. I got a high five from one of the pandas through the glass. After that we went to see the red Pandas and then saw a film about the breeding centre and what they do there. Not really too much to say because the main attraction was the pandas and pictures are better than words for describing in this case.



Stone Forest: The stone forest is a large area with distinct karst rock formations. I hadn’t heard of it prior to arriving in Kunming but I’m glad that I went. First I was still stuck in the crowd as I made my way up the Peak Pavilion to get a full view of the park. It was nice from up there but far too crowded so I set out on my own. Almost immediately there were fewer people and it was obvious that most of the tourists here were in a group and that the tour leaders were on a fixed route and didn’t take them to where I headed. I’m not sure what route I took but as the hour passed, I saw fewer and fewer people. The thought occurred to me that if someone had an accident (a slip or fall, the stairs were quite steep and slippery at times) you may not be found for a while. The forest was well kept, the paths, while wet, were in good repair. I can’t say where I went exactly but it was like exploring my own personal labyrinth. Anyway, as time was growing short I went up one last set of stairs and found myself in the highest place in the park. It was even above the pavilion (in fact if you just looked around a rock you could see it). It was rather nice up there and seemed like it was just for me. I knew it wasn’t, of course, (mainly by the fact that the surrounding rock was work smooth my millions of hands) but it was still nice to imagine. After that I headed down and out of the park, back to the exit. It was a lot of fun running up and down all those stairs in a nearly empty place. I’m glad I didn’t come here in high season though, there still would have been too many people.



Tiger Leaping Gorge: The hike was one and a half days long and after we dropped off our main bags at a hostel, we set off with only a daypack that would last us until the end of our hike. The first part of the Gorge was along a road and we had to step aside for a few cars. After our first rest stop the trail became a path and I headed off ahead of the group. As I made my way to the lunch stop I noticed the air was heavy and smelled strongly of pine needles. It reminded me of being in a forest in Canada in the summer. After lunch we began the ascent of the 28 bends. It was challenging, but not really difficult. Some of the bends were really short. There were some really great views of the mountains from there and since there was no one to collect money from me at the top I was able to take photos without paying. The hike down from the 28 bends was through much more forest than the hike up had been. On the way up there were some trees (pines) but mostly it was just bushes. On the way down it was an actual forest. Anyway, I got to the end point in about 3 hours. After everyone made it to the guesthouse we all ordered dinner and then it became very apparent that there was nothing at all to do once it got dark out. So I had to pass some time teaching people Crazy 8’s. The next day of the hike was mainly on flat ground before going downhill. We said goodbye to the mountains and the view was mainly the gorge itself. There were a few small water falls we had to cross which made things interesting, if not a little more dangerous in one part. The downhill part was rather steep and pretty hard on the knees. It was also a little bit technical in places because you had to be careful of the rocks.



Food: Probably the best part of my trip to China was enjoying the food here. I was told to expect that the Chinese food here in China would be much different than the food that I’m used to back home. The biggest difference I’ve noticed is that many dishes do not contain great amounts of meat like we would have in the Chinese food in Canada. Also, one thing that was pointed out to me and that I haven’t been able to unnoticed ever since is that all the products we buy in the grocery stores are past their best by date. _All_ of them, even some of the bread in the bakeries. Which begs the question, where are the not expired products? Whatever, it hasn’t hurt anyone yet that their drinks are 4 months past the sell by date.



Trains: There were several times in the first half of the trip where the group took an overnight train to our next destination. The trains were not nearly as bad as we had anticipated and, in fact, we began to look forward to taking them because it was a good change to sit and talk amongst ourselves and interact with the locals. The pictures do a better job of describing what the sleeping conditions looked like. Sleeping wasn’t too bad as long as the people around you didn’t snore too loudly.



Meeting Family: While in Chengdu I was able to meet up with some of the extended Sun family. My Grandfather’s sisters and their family took me out to dinner at a local restaurant. Lots of delicious beef dishes! It was really cool to know that I’m connected to all these people all over the world. I had a great time and got to see some family photos that I had never seen before.

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Photos

Insane Beijing Traffic
Like sardines! Also, it was so warm in there that my camera was fogging up.

Desert Bandits!
Actually, we were just hiding from the mosquitos. Yes, mosquitos.