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It's come to my attention, that I never posted a travelogue of my full trip to China. So here it is, with lots of pics to admire and a lot of time spent rushing about.
Read Day 1
Day 2
We woke up early on our second day, beating most of the inhabitants of the hostel to breakfast which was some toast and tea for me. The hostel had a nice atmosphere with circular screens and airy furniture - it was a pity they couldn't handle money or reservations very well. (I became addicted to the 50 cents sweet iced tea they had in their fridge.) Since we had very little time for this trip (five days in total) I'd packed our schedule with visiting all the important places you have to see while in Beijing and Xi'an. Nish, for some crazy reason, mostly went along with this;) So, we had the morning and some of the afternoon to visit the Forbidden City, eat lunch, then catch a taxi to the airport to fly to Xi'an (our bags consisted of one backpack each).
We walked to the Forbidden City (henceforth shortened to FC) since it was only several city blocks away (yes, this is why no one goes on holidays with me). If I had understood how big the city was (ie, it's actually a city), I probably would have got us a taxi, though it also probably wouldn't have made a difference in the long run. If you've walked several miles, what's one or two more? Walking gave us the opportunity to see the culture anyway as we passed through the back alley where our hostel was into main shopping roads which sort of reminded me of a very spread out Japanese rural town. The city areas with the shopping malls and districts looked no different from any other city excepting the really wide streets. We finally hit the edge of the FC which was a very pretty man made lake we meandered along until we hit one of the red outer walls. Once we rounded that, we found soldiers marching, and opposite them, one of the outer gates to the FC. The key to that sentence is 'one of' since we had to pass through a few more to get to the heart of the city. So at first, you take lots of pictures of the architecture and decoration, and then you realize that pretty much everything is decorated this way, and that the sun is very hot and while the yellow roof tiles are pretty, they're also reflecting the heat back at you... The inner areas of these gates have various 'shrines' set up with imperial objects which I was mostly able to see by holding my camera over my head and taking a picture of their dark depths over people's heads since they were invariably packed to the gills anywhere in front of them. This is us after exhaustedly pushing through them.
Anyway, the famous thing to see here is the dragon screen (those dragons, always chasing after pearls *snerk*). Opposite it were lions guarding the entry into the FC's garden (there might have been a museum in between), which was as extensive as you'd expect it to be. My favourite wall in the city was here, but amusingly, it was the outside wall of the women's restrooms. I should mention that often the ceilings were gorgeous throughout the city, but very few people ever looked up. More than the scenery, the garden thrilled us because we found a bookshop. I was insanely excited to find a three book edition of Journey to the West for about twenty five dollars (usually, it's much more expensive). Shipping to the US was very cheap (even if you had to wait a few months) so I bought that and a guide to Chinese tombs while Nish bought her own things and had them shipped to Japan.
Our next few hours were long corridors punctuated by visits to various museum like displays on the eastern side of the city (we never made it to the west). There was a display of Shang/Zhou bronzes that I spent far too much time in, and an unfinished pleasure palace (that was going to have aquarium walls!). We found the famous 9 dragon screen, which was justifiably so, though my favourite bit was the part about how the only damaged part of the screen was removed and replaced with wood (see it?). In yet another museum area was an opera house, jades and costumes plus my favourite door of the trip.
Exhausted, foot sore and pressed for time, we dazedly made our way out of the FC, dodging the efforts of a Chinese student to get us to see an art gallery to emerge (after far too many gates) in Tiananman Square. The guards didn't notice me taking this pic. We wandered to the left, wanting to find somewhere to eat. We found pretty canals, walkways, art galleries, and eventually, a place to eat. I chose eggplant with sour brown sauce, and it was amazing. I wish I could have gotten a recipe. After our meal, we walked quite a ways before spotting a taxi who took us to the airport (here's the toll gate). Once there, we discovered we were about an hour early, so Nish, in one of her most brilliant moves, dragged me upstairs and booked us in for a half hour foot massage with oolong tea to sip while doing so. It was a life saver after all the walking we'd done. They heated up our legs with hot towels and washed them before giving a very nice massage. (Also very cheap at about twenty dollars for the whole thing.) It was good we were relaxed since our flight was delayed leaving the airport and delayed even more getting into Xi'an, so our 'we'll arrive in Xi'an around 8pm plan' became 'we'll arrive around 11pm'. It was a long ride from the airport into the city, though they have awesome multicoloured lights on the side of their highways. Finally, we hit our hotel which was a 4 star monstrosity (booked in Japan for $30 a night *L*), and collapsed, planning to wake up early enough to grab breakfast, showers and enjoy our next day in Xi'an.
Read Day 1
Day 2
We woke up early on our second day, beating most of the inhabitants of the hostel to breakfast which was some toast and tea for me. The hostel had a nice atmosphere with circular screens and airy furniture - it was a pity they couldn't handle money or reservations very well. (I became addicted to the 50 cents sweet iced tea they had in their fridge.) Since we had very little time for this trip (five days in total) I'd packed our schedule with visiting all the important places you have to see while in Beijing and Xi'an. Nish, for some crazy reason, mostly went along with this;) So, we had the morning and some of the afternoon to visit the Forbidden City, eat lunch, then catch a taxi to the airport to fly to Xi'an (our bags consisted of one backpack each).
We walked to the Forbidden City (henceforth shortened to FC) since it was only several city blocks away (yes, this is why no one goes on holidays with me). If I had understood how big the city was (ie, it's actually a city), I probably would have got us a taxi, though it also probably wouldn't have made a difference in the long run. If you've walked several miles, what's one or two more? Walking gave us the opportunity to see the culture anyway as we passed through the back alley where our hostel was into main shopping roads which sort of reminded me of a very spread out Japanese rural town. The city areas with the shopping malls and districts looked no different from any other city excepting the really wide streets. We finally hit the edge of the FC which was a very pretty man made lake we meandered along until we hit one of the red outer walls. Once we rounded that, we found soldiers marching, and opposite them, one of the outer gates to the FC. The key to that sentence is 'one of' since we had to pass through a few more to get to the heart of the city. So at first, you take lots of pictures of the architecture and decoration, and then you realize that pretty much everything is decorated this way, and that the sun is very hot and while the yellow roof tiles are pretty, they're also reflecting the heat back at you... The inner areas of these gates have various 'shrines' set up with imperial objects which I was mostly able to see by holding my camera over my head and taking a picture of their dark depths over people's heads since they were invariably packed to the gills anywhere in front of them. This is us after exhaustedly pushing through them.
Anyway, the famous thing to see here is the dragon screen (those dragons, always chasing after pearls *snerk*). Opposite it were lions guarding the entry into the FC's garden (there might have been a museum in between), which was as extensive as you'd expect it to be. My favourite wall in the city was here, but amusingly, it was the outside wall of the women's restrooms. I should mention that often the ceilings were gorgeous throughout the city, but very few people ever looked up. More than the scenery, the garden thrilled us because we found a bookshop. I was insanely excited to find a three book edition of Journey to the West for about twenty five dollars (usually, it's much more expensive). Shipping to the US was very cheap (even if you had to wait a few months) so I bought that and a guide to Chinese tombs while Nish bought her own things and had them shipped to Japan.
Our next few hours were long corridors punctuated by visits to various museum like displays on the eastern side of the city (we never made it to the west). There was a display of Shang/Zhou bronzes that I spent far too much time in, and an unfinished pleasure palace (that was going to have aquarium walls!). We found the famous 9 dragon screen, which was justifiably so, though my favourite bit was the part about how the only damaged part of the screen was removed and replaced with wood (see it?). In yet another museum area was an opera house, jades and costumes plus my favourite door of the trip.
Exhausted, foot sore and pressed for time, we dazedly made our way out of the FC, dodging the efforts of a Chinese student to get us to see an art gallery to emerge (after far too many gates) in Tiananman Square. The guards didn't notice me taking this pic. We wandered to the left, wanting to find somewhere to eat. We found pretty canals, walkways, art galleries, and eventually, a place to eat. I chose eggplant with sour brown sauce, and it was amazing. I wish I could have gotten a recipe. After our meal, we walked quite a ways before spotting a taxi who took us to the airport (here's the toll gate). Once there, we discovered we were about an hour early, so Nish, in one of her most brilliant moves, dragged me upstairs and booked us in for a half hour foot massage with oolong tea to sip while doing so. It was a life saver after all the walking we'd done. They heated up our legs with hot towels and washed them before giving a very nice massage. (Also very cheap at about twenty dollars for the whole thing.) It was good we were relaxed since our flight was delayed leaving the airport and delayed even more getting into Xi'an, so our 'we'll arrive in Xi'an around 8pm plan' became 'we'll arrive around 11pm'. It was a long ride from the airport into the city, though they have awesome multicoloured lights on the side of their highways. Finally, we hit our hotel which was a 4 star monstrosity (booked in Japan for $30 a night *L*), and collapsed, planning to wake up early enough to grab breakfast, showers and enjoy our next day in Xi'an.
