We spent one day in Shanghai, then I had a 6 day/5 night trip to Beijing/Xi'an.

Xi'an, China

 

We caught a flight out of Shanghai, China on Wednesday morning (2/17). It took two hours to get to the Xi'an Airport and another hour on a bus to get to the hotel. We're staying at the Jianguo Hotel. According to the pamphlet provided by the hotel, it's "the place to be in Xi'an." They may or may not be biased, but the rooms are super nice. I'm sharing with a girl named Caitlin who goes to Bucknell. There are 98 of us on this particular trip, so we're divided into three groups (all traveling together) and I'm in group C.

 

The ride from the hotel was cool because we started seeing large mad-made hills, which are actually ancient tombs of emperors! The Chinese believed that after you died you lived another life underground, so every emperor is not only buried, but also has a big hill built over him. It's kinda like the Valley of the Kings in Egypt, but with hills instead of pyramids. All but two of the mausoleums have been robbed at one point or another (more on that later). 

 

The first afternoon they took us straight to a Tang Dynasty Art Museum where we saw/learned about a lot of paintings and then they let us try calligraphy. For the record, Chinese calligraphy is awesome! I was so proud when my characters started to look right. We learned to write "forever" first because the character incorporates all eight basic brush strokes and is supposed to be great for practicing. I thought it was hard, but I think I caught on pretty well by the end. Then we learned "I love you," which is three characters and looks beautiful when done correctly. As a gift the guides wrote each of our names (in the Chinese characters) on rice paper. My name looks much cooler in calligraphy. It's two characters and they're really pretty. I don't, however, understand what each character means. Is one the "m" and "o" and the second the "lly?" Not a clue.

 

After the museum we were jetted over to the hotel to check in and drop off our bags. Thirty minutes later we were back out the door and on our way to Da Fa Chang Dumpling Restaurant. The bus ride to the restaurant was gorgeous because every tree and building is decorated with twinkling lights (mostly blue and icy white) to celebrate the Chinese New Year. There are also fireworks everywhere! I love fireworks. The Chinese people can only legally buy fireworks seven days a year and we happened to be visiting in the middle of those seven days. There are sporadic burst of fireworks every few minutes… all night. They're pretty, but I have no interest in fireworks right outside the hotel window after 4am.

 

Anyways, back the dumpling dinner. Holy Amazing! There were a few small opening dishes waiting on the table that we all shared right away. I've been eating a lot of sliced and seasoned cucumbers, cold noodles, cabbage and assorted veggies. Also, the first beer was free. Then they brought out trays of steamed dumplings. The dumplings were small and there were only enough for everyone to have one from most of the trays. They brought them slowly at first, but then faster and faster. The waitress would drop off a tray, tell us what they were and then everyone would dive for the middle of the table with chopsticks. There were veggie, pork, chicken, mushroom, duck, spicy pork, etc. Dumplings and dumplings and dumplings and after a handful of trays, we were diving for the dumplings a little less frantically. It didn't seem like we were eating that much, but it added up and I was stuffed. I think they brought out about 10 different types of dumplings in all. Towards the end of the meal Zach brought a round of beers and we finished dinner on a wonderful note.

 

After dinner we had a couple of minutes to wander and appreciate the lights/haggle with street vendors. Everyone was selling small decorative kites that you can buy to keep or have them string up and float into the sky on a long string (100 or so kites tied at even intervals up the string). I didn't buy a kite, but a few people I was with bought them. I was too busy watching the lanterns. There are small red paper lantern/hot air balloons that people were lighting fires under and releasing. Each lanterns is supposed to represent a wish. They got really high up in the air and it looked like there were little red stars twinkling everywhere in the sky.

 

I was so exhausted that I showered and fell asleep right when we got back to the hotel. A lot of people chose to walk around, but I knew we'd be seeing the city the next morning (wake up call at 6:45…) so I didn't stuck around.

 

Thursday, 2/18/10

 

Our wake up call came at 6:45am and we grabbed breakfast at the hotel. They pour a thin yogurt over their cereal instead of milk, which ended up being pretty good.

 

The first thing we did in the morning was head to the Xi'an City Wall. It's obviously not a big as the Great Wall, but it's the best preserved defensive city wall in China. It was right next to the dumpling restaurant we'd eaten at the night before. There we got to see the bell tower, which they used to ring every morning at 6am. Close by there's a drum tower that was played at 6pm. I don't remember which dynasty the buildings are from, but they're beautiful.

 

Then we headed over to the Great Mosque of Xi'an. There's a large Muslim Quarter in Xi'an because back in the days of the Silk Road traders used to stop in the city and marry local girls. The architecture was ancient and really interesting, but we didn't get to spend the time we wanted to because it was so crowded. It's usually only crowded on Fridays, but it was overflowing with people (mostly men) getting ready to pray together because of the New Year. Outside of the mosque there's a big outdoor market and we had a little time to bargain with the vendors. I bought two knock off Coach wallets. I think I'm going to stock up on fake nice stuff in China and Vietnam. The gifts I'm bringing home for people are probably going to be haggled for in street markets. :-)

 

After the Great Mosque we took an hour-long bus ride (every single ride seemed to be about an hour) over to grab lunch, then go to the Terracotta Warrior Museum. They call it the 8^th Wonder of the World.

 

The Emperor who wanted the soldiers built came into power when he was only 13 years old and by the time he was 14 he'd already planned out and commissioned construction on his mausoleum. (Xi'an was the first capital of China). It took 38 years to complete! There are 8,000 Terracotta Soldiers and every single face is different. They're amazingly complex and you can tell the rank of each figure by their clothes and hair. They're still excavating the site and it's slow going because the Emperor wasn't popular. He was cruel and the people were terrified of him. Right after he died his son ascended to the throne, but was overthrown almost immediately. The dynasty only lasted about 50 years. After the dynasty was overthrown, the late emperor's competitors broke into the mausoleum and crushed/burned every single soldier, horse and chariot. The army that was supposed to defend the emperor in the afterlife is slowly being glued back together piece by piece. On a more positive note, the actual tomb of the emperor was NEVER touched. Apparently the army did its job because even though they were destroyed (and their bronze weapons stolen) the tomb they were defending was one of the TWO (in all of China) never once robbed. Two thousand years later, the Chinese still haven't gone into the actual tomb.

 

As we were on our way out of the museum a Chinese couple asked me (I've gotten quite good at reading hand gestures) to take a picture with their daughter. I think it was due to my hair color. She was adorable.

 

After the Terracotta Warriors we headed over to visit an orphanage Well, it's kinda an orphanage. It's a children's village that houses a few hundred kids (babies-16) who can't be adopted. They're in the orphanage because one or both of their parents are in jail and their relatives can't afford to take them in. There were only 30 or 40 kids there when we visited because although most of the relatives can't afford to raise the orphans, they do take them in for the holidays. The majority of the kids were out and about with family members for New Years. The kids had prepared a little dance skit for us. It was really cute. A few of them had a snowball fight with a few guys and one little dude took a liking to one girl's camera. He really got the hang of it and refused to give it up until we left. He must have taken 100 pictures. He was probably 4 or 5. Sooo cute!

 

After the orphanage we headed back to the hotel for an hour, then went out to a dinner show. The music and dances were from the Tang Dynasty and the meal was 6 courses of delicious. The show was wonderful and we shared a bottle of white wine as we watched. There was music throughout dinner, but as we were eating dessert they started the dances. There were 6 different dances and they all represented different things. The first was choreographed to show off the beautiful potential of the silk garments invented by the Chinese 1500 years ago. The second was full of acrobats dressed like animals with bells. The third was the dance of the celestial moon women. An emperor had a dream about celestial moon women and when he woke up his favorite concubine choreographed a dance based on his description of the dream. Then they had a dance of the warrior. Then there was a musical performance skit, and then the finale was a complex celebration of the spring. I kept the souvenir menu, so I'll be able to describe them better later.

 

After dinner we got a few beers and hung out in the hotel watching the Olympics on TV. We got to see the two-man luge, curling and speed skating.

 

Went to bed and had a 7am wake up call to eat breakfast, then catch out flight to Beijing.

I'm ending the post here. I'll write about yesterday and today asap.

Love!!