The Great Tour of China – China

The Great Tour of China
Shanghai, China

November 21
I took care of my plane ticket from Shanghai to Seoul at the upscale hotel next to my hostel. I tried to get my train tickets organized but couldn’t book more than four days in advance. Then down to the Forbidden City for about four hours. There is a clock museum and jewelry museum as well as big meeting halls. Much of the city has been rebuilt because robbers burnt the buildings after they stole goods to cover up what they had done. There also has been looting from the Japanese and lantern fires but there is considerable wealth remaining in the palace.

A couple hundred meters east of the city I stopped at a food market, everything on a stick. I recognized some food like chicken and beef but other things I did not recognize such as something that looked like cockroaches and squid. Then I headed south along Wolfgang Avenue, which was a pedestrian walkway. The city is more modern than I expected with several large, modern buildings capped off by the traditional Chinese roof.

November 22

The very steep “Wacky Wall” portion of the Great Wall

The Great Wall of China tour I took was through my hostel. We were the only people on this part of the wall. The traditional tour starts close to Beijing and has a lot of tourists. This tour was farther from Beijing, but it was all for us. It is also a much more difficult walk than the one close to Beijing. A lot of people were laughing at me because I was wearing shorts, because it was cold in the early morning, but by afternoon it was comfortable.

The actual walk was difficult as it is much more steep than the traditional tour. It’s also made more difficult by the fact Mao and his Cultural Revolution chipped away at some of the wall as a way to destroy the old, and promote his new version of the world. So some steps were missing or broken and we slid down or jumped up depending on the case. Also, a couple people were scared of heights, which is unfortunate, but our guide was helpful. He could hop around the wall, he must be used to it. We rested at the lookout towers. Some people in the summer bring sleeping bags and sleep here during the summer. I’d enjoy that but it is too cold to do that now.

November 23
A large part of the day was spent at the Summer Palace, designed for the emperor. I didn’t quite make it around the whole palace but what I saw was nice. Kunming Lake takes up three-quarters of the park so it is difficult to get to all of the palace area. What I saw was not a bad place to hang out for the summer. The highlight was a 700-meter corridor that connected buildings and had very intricate mythical paintings and designs. Several of the large halls and gardens were worth visiting.

I am traveling with the group from the Great Wall and one of the girls is from Malaysia and she speaks Mandarin, which makes it easier for all of us. We were able to get around quite easily, including to the Lama Temple, which has a 60-foot high statue of Buddha made out of one tree trunk.

The group then went out for Peking Duck. This is one of the better meals I have had since I started the trip. They actually waste a lot of the meat and mostly just serve the skin with a little bit of meat. The meat, along with onions, is then rolled into a thin bread like a pancake and then dipped into a sauce. We also had some vegetable and rice while sitting in the VIP room.

November 24

Some of the artwork located within the Great Wall

I slept in today but we did go to The Temple of Heaven Park. The buildings in the park are designed to be an intermediate area between gods and humans. This temple is a working lamasery and there are Tibetan Buddhist monks (and many tourists) in the temple area.

Other activities today include booking everything for Japan. I also had some more good food today. I especially like the dumplings here and there is a choice of basil, chicken and meat. What is good is that I can eat a lot and it is very cheap. It’s interesting to see that cheap fast food places like McDonald’s is more of a place for middle class people because they charge American prices. For a special occasion, one would go to McDonald’s.

November 25
This is my last day in Beijing and I wanted to see a couple of things before I left. One was Mao who is embalmed at the Mao Mausoleum. He didn’t look as good as Lenin, though. There was a long line but the guards move people through quickly. I also hung out at Tiananmen Square for a while. It’s getting a little cold so I didn’t stay too long. This was home of the government crackdown in ‘89, but now people just congregate and fly kites.

There are several museums in the areas as well. The Great Hall of the People is where many foreign leaders have conferences with the Chinese. There are also Chinese history and Chinese revolution museums as well as the front gate that has a large picture of Mao.

It’s funny because I’m the odd-locking foreigner here. When I was at Tiananmen, I saw out of the corner of my eye, a little girl and she wanted to take a picture of me. But when I looked at her she would quick look down and put her camera away. Finally, I motioned that she could.

There are other people that wanted to take a picture of me but they are artists. They are usually college students who speak English and want me to come to their school. In actuality they are salespeople first, college students second. They’re also a bit pushy. They do have nice artwork but a lot of it is delicate and doesn’t fit into a backpack well.

November 26

The army of the Terracotta Warriors is a series of statues that are designed to protect the emperor’s grave

The train to Xian was pretty nice. It was a night train and I slept well and had good company for a local guy that spoke decent English. A couple people who were selling day trips to the Terracotta Warriors met me. I took them up on the tour, it’s a four in one-day tour that includes a spa, a couple museums and then ends with the Terracotta Warriors exhibit. The second museum was fun as there are replicas of the Terracotta Warriors located outside in a field. We jumped on a couple with some young Chinese soldiers and took pictures. However, the finale is definitely the best part of the tour.

The army of the Terracotta Warriors is a series of statues that are designed to protect the emperor’s grave. This emperor had conquered six other regions in China and thus unified it. It is amazing to see as each soldier has a different look and all the squadrons are perfectly in line. Unfortunately some of the heads are chopped off because the subsequent leader was the son of one the conquered leaders and as payback had destroyed some statues. Also, the statues have lost their color but they are working with a German company to keep the color on a newly found group of soldiers. All in all, a good tour.