The Great Wall

Now, for my favorite part of the entire trip, the Great Wall. I knew this was something I wanted to see because it is so famous, but I was completely blown away by the beauty and grandness of this structure. There are 4 parts of the wall that are open to tourists. The first two, Badaling and Mutianyu are close to the city, and therefore nicely restored and packed full of tourists. But for more of an adventure, we decided to go to the two farther parts, Simatai and Jinshanling, which are much less traveled, unrestored, and therefore, more historic. The bus ride was about 3 hours. I was pretty sure the bus driver got lost a few times, because he kept making U-turns, but we made it by 11am. From the parking lot up to the wall was an estimated hour walk, so Aiko and I decided to take the cable car up. The first glimpse of the wall just takes your breath away. How can it be so big, and it just seems to extend forever in each direction. I thought how it would feel to be an invading army long ago coming across such a magnificent structure. No way around and not easy to get over. Would they just give up and go home? Stepping onto the Wall, I felt special, and once again, so lucky to experience this.
These part of the Wall run through two provinces. The one in Beijing is restored, and you can really tell the difference walking on the two. The part on the surrounding province has not been restored, so it is crumbling, but it feels real and authentic. The weather could not have been better that day, sunny with a breeze. The Wall is quite steep in some places, so it was nice to rest in the shade of the turrets. Our guide told us some turrets were to send smoke signals when enemies were approaching, while others were used as General’s sleeping quarters. The section we walked was 10km, about 6 miles, but it was steep in many parts, plus with all the picture taking, it took us about 4 hours to complete. When you reach the end of the section, there are two ways to get back down. The boring way is to walk, and the exciting way is a ropeway where you are harnessed in, hold on, and glide over a river to the opposite side. Guess which one I chose! I was a bit scared, and almost didn’t do it, but I told myself there is really no reason to be scared, and just do it. Aiko chose to walk, so I gave her my camera, and she got a great picture as I whizzed by. She was disappointed that I didn’t scream. And I was surprised I didn’t either, but it wasn’t scary. I was actually really relaxed. It was a beautiful view, and a nice, smooth little ride.
Our reward at the end for finishing the hike was a great buffet lunch. As I said before, the food was absolutely delicious!
We arrived back at the hostel a little after 8pm, and we decided to walk around a bit in our area. We were very close to the Hou Hai Lake area, which is filled with restaurants, bars, and nightclubs. All the restaurants and bars were filled with people, and the dance floors too. At the entrance to this area, there was an outdoor dance party with dozens of couples tangoing. We noticed in Xian too many elderly people dancing outside in random parts of the city. Music would start up, and people got in lines to strut their stuff. It was great.
After doing a little shopping, we had dinner at an outdoor restaurant where we had our first taste of real Peking Duck. It was smoky, and quite good. We also had dumplings and a special fried rice. To drink, I had a Boba milk tea that was warm, and absolutely perfect because I was freezing without a jacket, and wrapping the tablecloth around my arms wasn’t doing much.
The menus in this area were quite entertaining. Since there are many tourists, they were translated into English. I am glad they were, because if they were only in Chinese, and I just pointed to something, I would have been very hungry after dinner. There were of course, beaks, feet, intestines, testicles, and pretty much anything found in or on the animals, but the funniest food we saw was “wikipedia.” I am so upset that it is blurry, but the menu says: “Stir-fried wikipedia,” “steamed eggs with wikipedia,” and “fried special wikipedia.” If anyone has any insights about what that could possible be I’d love to hear it!

Terracotta Warriors

The main reason I wanted to go to Xian, was to check out the Terracotta Warriors. These statues were built before 210 BC and buried with the Emperor of Quin. We saw a short movie of how he was the first Emperor to “unify” China. Obviously, not everyone was happy about that, and about 5 years after Emperor’s death, the tomb was raided, set afire, and looted. In 1974, some farmers digging a well discovered the Terracotta Army again. The statues were all in pieces, save one, and it was a great find.
The statues are quite amazing, not only the sheer number of them, but their uniqueness. Each statue is life-size and has unique facial features, uniforms, and hairstyles. No two statues are alike. They were originally painted with bright colors, but they have faded since being unearthed. One soldier still has a bit of yellow in his scarf, but that is all I could see. They also held real weapons, but those were all stolen in the raid.
I was quite amazed to see how well they were reconstructed. Tourists can only look at them from afar, but you can still appreciate the great detail and effort that went into making these figures. There are over 7,000 figures including soldiers of various ranks, horses, and chariots.
The mausoleum holding the First Quin Emperor and the Terracotta Army were buried and sealed in 210 BC, and were never meant to be found. I felt almost a little guilty walking around this place that was meant to stay buried. But at the same time, I was so pleased to be able to see in person what great things people can accomplish, and so long ago. The information at the museum talked many times of unification, but I imagine it was more like conquering rather than agreed upon joining of forces. I was thinking about the forced labor used to build this colossal tribute to this Emperor. I still want to see other monuments like the pyramids and the Taj Majal. The statues are amazing, and I feel fortunate to have been able to see them for myself.
The tour we went on also made two other stops. First we went to the Banpo Village. It is the first evidence of civilization that has been found in China. We saw the remnants of two kinds of huts, kilns, and graves. The place was small, but interesting.
The second stop was a fake mausoleum for the Emperor of Quin. If I had done the proper research beforehand, then I would have discovered that his tomb has not been opened. Our first clue that this place was bogus was the fake flowers wrapped around the tree branches. Inside looked like the Peter Pan ride at Disneyland, but without the cool flying ship. They even had fake concubines, men and women, lying in the stucco underground passageways. Oh well, live and learn.

Hua Mountain

The next full day in Xian, we headed up to Hua Mountian. It is about a 3-hour bus ride, that I slept most of the way through. I was a bit worried about this hike because of the online descriptions as “dangerous” and the pictures of people gripping the heavy metal chains as they make their way around the cliff edges that we saw on the internet. Plus the only tour was in Chinese. But then I guess we wouldn’t hear all the warnings and such to fuel the fire for my growing anxiety. The drive, lunch, and a short stop at some voodoo “medical” clinic took up the morning, and after switching buses a few times, we arrived at the base of the mountain. We were super lucky because although it rained the previous evening, the weather was now clear and beautiful.
There are two ways to get to the starting point of the hike: 1. Walk up the Soldier’s Path, which consists of about a bazillion steps straight up the mountain, or 2. Take the cable car. We opted for #2. As I went through my pictures, I was surprised to find myself a little dizzy looking at some of them. At the time, I was interested in looking around, but wow, we were really high up!
The mountain was very beautiful, and had an amazing view. The higher up we went to the different peaks, we saw snow on the ground. Along with the cherry blossom trees, it was quite picturesque. The hike was a bit difficult because it is all stairs. Very steep stairs. There were some points where we needed to use the chains to pull ourselves up, but I didn’t feel in danger at all. We went to the North Peak, Dragon's Trail, Fish Ridge, and finally the Peak in the Clouds.
The views were amazing, the weather was perfect, and everything was absolutely beautiful. I had heard of this place, but it was Aiko’s idea to go there. It was a great idea and I’m glad we got to see this beautiful part of China.

Xian

After my cousin’s visit, I headed to China for the rest of my spring holiday. After a short flight, I met up with my friend, Aiko, in Beijing. Aiko lives here in Japan and is in the JET Program. Coincidentally, she is also from California, went to UCSD, is a teacher, and is half Japanese. Small world huh?
We met up at the train station to catch an overnight train to Xian. We had a few obstacles in buying the train tickets, so the only seats left we the “hard seats” for the 12 hour journey. I guess the seats wouldn’t have been so bad if they reclined, weren’t facing a stupid girl who put her luggage at our feet blocking any leg room, people weren’t hitting their tables during a rowdy card game, playing music, watching movies on their computer, and generally shouting. But we survived with a few hours sleep. And I can’t even explain how disgusting the train station bathrooms were because the stench eminating from them hit me as we walked nearby, and my bladder went into hibernation for the following 20 hours. Horray for teacher bladders!
The hostel we stayed in was absolutely beautiful, and after cleaning up a bit, and using the bathroom (yay!), we headed into the city. The hostel is in an excellent location, next to the South Wall. It is a short walk to the Bell Tower, Drum Tower, Muslim Street, and lots of shopping. First, we went to the Bell Tower. It is beautiful structure in the center of the inner wall. We had good timing and watched a bell performance. The group played a variety of instruments which sounded absolutely beautiful, and a girl danced wearing a dress with super long sleeves that she would throw into the air, twirl and catch. It was a very nice performance.
Then we walked past the Drum Tower on our way to Muslim Street. Now, Muslim street was probably my favorite part of the city. There is a side street with souvenirs that you bargain for, small shops, and the best street food! There are various carts and small restaurants that line the streets and alleys with food. Some were a little sketchy, like the ones with roasted duck beaks, but many had a variety of baked, grilled, and fried breads that were out of this world! I wish I taken a picture of my favorites, but they were so hot and tasty that they immediately disappeared into my tummy. I also had some great peanut and sesame candies and cookies.
We also went to see the mosque in the same area. It is tucked away right in the middle of the bustling city, and has very beautiful and peaceful grounds to explore. I noticed the flowering trees were so different in China and amazingly beautiful.
We finished off our day by trying to walk to the Big Wild Goose Pagoda, but it after an hour, we decided it was too far, and the water show we wanted to see had already started, so we headed back. We stopped at a great little restaurant that, like almost all the ones we ate at, had neither English menus nor any English speaking staff. But this place had a few pictures on the walls, so we pointed at those, which worked well. So we had another wonderful meal that I wish I could eat again right now!
We noticed that many people immediately shut down when we tried to speak to them. They would put their hand up, and wave us away, or simply turn around. A few were a bit rude about it, like the idiot guy in the bus, but overall they just seemed shy. As in Japan, the young girls are usually the most willing to play “food” charades with us and put up with our inability to communicate in their native language.
To top off day one, we got a wonderful in-room foot massage to prepare us for our hike the next day to Hua Mountain. I was lucky and got the more gentle of the two masseuses. I felt pretty relaxed, while Aiko’s kept asking questions and almost ripped her legs off. As we started to relax, he would say random things like, “Do you know Amway?” What? Why are you asking this during the massage?! Anyways, it was good, and necessary after our horrendous train trip and long day of sightseeing.