Friday, 16 September - Beijing, China

Check out our Nelson Vacation on the way to China.

 The flight was less-bothersome than I had anticipated. Air Canada certainly took care of us. Clearing the Beijing Airport was fairly easy though long, and we had our first Chinese bathroom lesson - toilet paper is outside the stalls so you have to take it in with you. Otherwise - OH, OH! Our national escort, Michelle, met us after we cleared all the customs and immigration hurdles and led us to a bus for the long, long ride to the Beijing International Hotel.

It's a lovely hotel with comfortable rooms, near the train station, After about 45 minutes to freshen up, we were back on the bus for the trip to a restaurant for dinner. Everyone was almost too tired to eat and the food was strange, but we enjoyed it - Larry and I managed the whole thing with chopsticks, and those flat [ china ] soup spoons. That'll keep our consumption down.

 Photos 16 Sep Beijing

Saturday, 17 September - Beijing

This was the day of "Cathy Wilkes Long March" [ Mao ] established communist China with a long many-year march across China on with his followers on foot ] - we walked and walked! We also have one member of the group - Betsy - already on the disabled list. Breakfast at the hotel was great. Semi-western.

 Then into the bus and off to Tian'anmen Square. The first real lesson of the day was how great are the distances in Beijing. We took some time getting close to the Square, then had a long walk including an underpass to get to the Square itself.

Betsy tripped and fell badly in the underpass, hitting her head and injuring her hip. After some time, she bravely decided to continue, with a person supporting her on each side. By an hour or so later though, it was clear she couldn't continue, so our escort brought her back to the hotel [ we have 2 escorts, a national one, Michelle, and a local Beijing one, Vyvian,...the later took care of us then ].

Betsy has now been to hospital and back, and will have xrays on Monday. They suspect a broken hip. Meanwhile, we had been swarmed by street vendors and most of us bought hats, postcards, souvenir books, silk purses, kites, etc. -- at wildly divergent prices! It's clear that bargaining is very much in order. Never pay more than half the original asking price. One hat vendor actually lifted Dave Wilkes' baseball cap! Tian'anmen Square really is as huge as it seemed when we watched events unfold years ago. Mao's mausoleum attracts many domestic tourists, but we skipped that long lineup and just enjoyed the sun and warmth outside.

Preparations for Beijing 2008 Olympics are underway, with the countdown clock visible from the Square.

Preparation for China's National Day on Oct 1st are also going on - bleachers block a lot of the Square. From there we continued to 

 

the Forbidden City, which is just across the street. By then a couple more people had decided it was too much walking and had headed back to the taxi area, with plans to meet us afterward. The trek under the street and through a maze of turns lost us one more person. When we couldn't find her in the designated 20 minutes, we continued on. Cathy said "she's very resourceful, don't worry", but we all did. When we reached the exit, there she was, calmly waiting for us! Phew! We all have little cards in our name tag holders that give taxi instructions in Mandarin to our hotel, so we're not really able to become totally lost.

Photos 17 Sep Beijing

Sunday, 18 September - Beijing

What a great day! We attended a church service at a church with an untranslatable name, where we were made so very welcome! When we arrived we were given headphones for simultaneous translation of the service, English hymn books and Bibles. Then we were introduced and sang "Go now in peace" and I presented a Tansley Peace candle to the minister.  After the service we chatted with several bilingual parishioners. Last week Condelesa Rice attended a service there. It was very moving to be singing hymns in two languages, but in harmony. Just lovely. We all felt great afterwards.

Photos 18 Sep Beijing

We ate lunch in our room - Cup-A-Soup and peanut butter on crackers [ with D & M-E ]. Then in the afternoon we took a rickshaw tour through the Hutong area - what fun that was! [the Hutong is the 600 year old house area where people live in courtyard-connected bungalows]. Although at one point neither Larry nor I could stand the driver's struggle to get up a hill, so we jumped out and pushed. I hope he didn't loose face over that! We rode around a little lake and through tiny streets, then visited in a couple of the tiny houses.

The residents love their communal way of life, though the younger people prefer new condos. Now we're relaxing before heading out to try and find a "hot-pot" restaurant.

(...later) We found the place and what fun we had! I'd never choose "Hot-Pot" as what I'd want for food, but the process was a riot. There were 10 of us, so we got a private room.

We didn't know how much to order, so just went blindly. The uncooked food comes beatifully displayed on plates, and large cauldrons of boiling water are on the table [the core of the cauldron is a chimney stack of burning charcoal]

The waitress finally took over the cooking process and then soon the fishing out and serving. At the end, Lizzie said "We're from CANADA - CA-NA-DA - Oh Canada, our home ... We all joined in to the tremendous amusement of the giggling waitress. Would you recognize the Chinese national anthem if you heard it? On the way back to the hotel we passed a street musician and wildly encouraged his rendition of Blowin' in the Wind - bizarre lyrics and all.

Monday, 19 September - Great Wall & Mings Tomb

 We headed out early for another big day. First stop a cloisonné factory where we watched the process for creating these works of art with copper, wire and enamel paints, and of course did some shopping.

By combining our purchases with the McNaughts we earned a free gift.

Then on to the Great Wall, which of course swarms with tourists and persistent vendors. [ the Mongolian's have finally breached the Great Wall and set up shop selling every variety of Wall memorabilia ]. We chose to go the steeper but less-crowed route. I stopped at the first watchtower with several others while the rest of our group went on to the second watchtower.

Amazing how the wall meanders all over the hills in that area. As we drove back we kept spotting parts of it.

After lunch we visited the Ming Tombs.

 In the evening we enjoyed a Peking Duck dinner. They carved the ducks in front of us and put tiny slices on a plate. We then took a thin crepe-like item and wrapped duck, onion, cucumber and sauce in it ( like a soft taco ) - very good and fingers are easier that chopsticks!

I'm still laughing over the demo of "how to eat a Peking Duck" - our guide was instructing Sal, starting with "pick up the pancake"; not understanding her accent, Sal looked around saying " Panky - where do I find a pankey?" Michelle repeated the instruction, and Sal exclaimed " But what's a pankey?" There was a great deal of hilarity over dinner once again. What must their servers think of weird Canadian tourists?

Tonight is packing night, since we head to Xian tomorrow. Let's hope our luggage is not overweight!

Photos 19 Sep Beijing Great Wall

Tuesday, 20 September - to Xi'an

  We're a tired bunch tonight! We left the hotel [in Beijing] quite early after gathering together all our stuff and worrying about weight allowances and so on as we were to tour Beijing in the morning and fly to Xi'an in the afternoon - 2 hr flight.

First stop was the Summer Palace,  which is really a huge park with a fascinating history of intrigue and treachery. 

 

One feature is the Marble Boat which the Empress, Cixi, built with the money that should have paid for the Chinese navy.   [

 Hence their poor war record for many years.

We took a boat across the lake and walked back along a 3/4 km. covered boardwalk with amazing paintings all over the pillars and ceilings.

 From there we headed toward the airport, stopping for another great meal [ and saying goodbye to Vyvian, our Beijing guide ]. We're all becoming so adept with chopsticks that the weight loss thing isn't likely to happen. The flight to Xi'an involved the usual airport hassles and luggage dragging but was uneventful.

Once in Xi'an, we met our local guide, Lily, and went to a Western buffet for dinner, a 1-hour drive - french fries! Spaghetti! Dessert! [ normally our only dessert is slices of watermelon ]. Then on to the hotel to rest up for the next round tomorrow. Traffic is heavy and noisy, so we hope it calms down soon or sleep will be impossible. We left Betsy [ injured the first day ] behind in Beijing. Her test results will be in tomorrow and her son arrives Thursday to take her home. What shame that she had no pleasure out of this trip. 

Off to see the famous Terra Cotta Warriors

[Larry: I spent more than an hour sorting out the strange Chinese instruction on setting up the internet connection. The instructions were not only in Chinese but they were wrong (basically I had to set up a static ip address and use the dns servers for Cogeco in Burlington). Anyway it is on, it's fast and it seems to be free. So we may get farther in China on highspeed internet than I thought....later. I spoke too soon; the connection does everything but upload. I will have to upload by email ]

 Photos 20 Sep (Terra Cotta Warriors)

Wednesday, 21 September - Xi'an

   Lots of walking again today. We visited the Terra Cotta Warriors site, stopping on the way at a factory that makes reproduction warriors. They also sell locally-made lacquer- ware and that was very tempting, along with the beautiful silk rugs. At the site we were all amazed to see these thousands of figures in three excavated areas, all under protective roofs.  We learned a lot about the Qin dynasty and so on. As well as the warriors, there are two bronze chariots, about 1/2 life size, which were unearthed near the tomb of the emperor. 

We drove back to the hotel for a break, and we and the McNaughts headed out to explore the neighbourhood. Very interesting tiny stores, more like stalls, along all the streets.  Then we went off to a dinner theatre, with a truly spectacular show, based on Han dynasty music and dance. One guy did a duck imitation that had everyone roaring. Then some of us [ not me ] went for massage or reflexology sessions. I had foot reflexology and it was great. Now everyone is resting up for tomorrow. The massage experience was very different from anything any of us had had before. Sometimes quite painful and for Jane and Gray, very ticklish. There were lots of squeals and giggles. We were 2 to a booth in big recliners for the reflexology. First we soaked our feet in an herbal brew, then they were vigourously massaged, pulled, slapped and shaken, working up to our knees. Then we rolled on our stomachs and they did back shoulders and neck. There we sat in front of the masseuse and she did more work on our backs, ending by suspending us on her knees for 30 seconds or so. That was a bit painful, but felt like it was releasing tension. The people who had the full-body massage said the masseuses really did walk on their backs. It was very refreshing 70 minutes.

Photos 21 Sep

Thursday, 22 September: Xi'an - Chongqing

  Phew! They really keep us moving - of course it's the only way to see everything we want to.  First on today's program was visit to a jade factory where we had a short lesson in the qualities of jade and saw people working on carvings, then had lots of time to shop.  Some people got terrific stuff but our money stayed in our wallets.  From there we went on to the Shaanxi History Museum which has relics and treasure from several dynasties that had an important presence in this province.  Really interesting, and gives a very good sense of how far ahead Chinese culture was a millennium ago. 

Next was the Big Wild Goose Pagoda and Temple, where Larry and several others made it to the top of the pagoda [ not as high as the CN Tower but maybe half ] while many of us lounged in a garden pavilion.  It's a Buddhist shrine, so there were candles, incense and statues, but the peace and stillness of the gardens were most welcome after our hectic touring.  

We moved along to another part of the same complex, making our way through construction debris and had a tour and lesson about the fashions and art of the Han dynasty and  a demonstration of calligraphy, followed of course by a shopping op.  Again, we bought none of the beautiful paintings available however but McNaughts did. 

 We ended our day with a visit to the ancient wall.   

It is high and wide and continuous around the central part of the city.  We walked little way, and enjoyed the view of all the construction underway.  

 

 

They're restoring many old buildings along the wall. It was explained to us that in China when your buy an apartment it's just a shell - no doors, windows, maybe no interior walls, no plumbing fixtures.  So people had obviously moved into one of these apartments before any of that was done.  My goodness!!   

 

The McNaughts and several others went cycling and did the whole circuit ( about 9 miles).  They said it was a rough ride.  Of course that wasn't the end of one day. 

We said goodbye to our local guide, Lily, at the airport and flew to Chongqing (pronouced Chong Ching) , getting into our hotel around 11:15 and receiving our luggage about midnight.  A tired bunch!!  Today's good news is that Betsy has no broken bones, but some serious soft tissue injuries.  By now her son should be with her to return her home.

Photos 22 Sep Xi'an - Chongqing

Friday, September 23: Chongqing and Dazu

  It was a long trek in the rain, but well worthwhile.  We drove two hours or a bit more to Dazu to see the stone wall carvings. 

Chongqing is in a very hilly area and apparently it rains about 110 days a year.  It's damp, misty and foggy ( or smoggy ) most of the time.  With a population in the large "regional municipality" greater than Canada's, it's pretty dense and busy.  The outskirts are agricultural and we saw rice paddies, fields of lotus and corn, and artificial ponds where fish are raised.  People working in the fields have large flat straw hats and simple tools.  We saw a man ploughing a field on foot (barefoot) with his pant legs rolled up walking behind a water buffalo.  Every yard has chickens, ducks, geese, and dogs.  The wealthy farmers have 2-storey houses and the poorer ones single-storey.  Their fields are terraced.  There are orange groves, pear , pomegranate and apple orchards and vineyards. We were stared at by residents, kids waved and so on -- especially when we stopped to photograph one farm area.      

At Dazu  

We took trams to the entrance to a grotto, then gradually descended to the bottom, admiring 1000-year old Buddhist carvings on the walls of the valley and in little caves.  Originally they were coloured and covered with gold, but much of that has worn away.  The last few are unfinished because either a war or an argument broke out and the sculptors fled for their lives.               

Also the foundation there was a bit shaky.  It was wet and slippery and there were few handholds but everyone in our group made it through ok.  Several people have "touristitis" today, and a few others are just recovering. Thank goodness for Imodium!  The trip to and from Dazu includes a couple of long tunnels.  Since traffic is very chaotic in China, those were a bit of a relief because for 2 to 4 minutes at a time most vehicles stayed more or less in their own lanes.  

As usual we saw a great deal of constructions and lots of buildings being torn down.  Thousands of unoccupied apartments in new-looking high-rises.  We hear much about the 'one family 1 child' rules and we see evidence of both dismaying poverty and tremendous economic growth.  People seem to be happy with their life style even though we can't imagine living as they do.  We also learned today that we're in the general area of a Panda bear reserve.  We'd have loved to go there, but it's a 12-hour drive, so out the question.  Tonight many of us have skipped the group dinner in favour of the hotel bar fare.  It's western and we're ready for that.  Every lunch and dinner seems similar, (though much better than North American Chinese food) so it was an easy choice to make.

Bar food and drink made us quite the lively group in the bar with much chatter and laughter.  The live music started, so we were up dancing before our food even arrived, and carried on 'til we wore out the band [ and me ].  We were joined in our frolic by some Aussies, and even some locals.  What a riot, and what a good way to spend an evening!!

Photos 23 Sep Chongqing  Dazu