Last of China
This blog was written by Lucas, with photos and captions added by Chris and Kim
Ok... so after Xi'an we took a day time bullet train to a small town called Pingyao. It's somewhere about halfway between Xi'an and Beijing. Along the way we saw caves built into the hillsides that people actually live in. The smog was pretty bad even away from the big cities.
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| From our comfortable seats on the bullet train travelling at up to 304 km/hr we saw many caves. Only later did we find out that some 35 million people in China still live in caves, mostly in this area where the earth is easy to excavate and keeps its strcuture. Even the late Chairman Mao spent part of his life living in a cave (I've edited the photo to remove much of the smog that blanketed the countryside- see next photo) |
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| Typical smog levels in the countryside! |
Pingyao was the smallest town we stayed in in China (about 1/2 million people). It only had about 20 skyscrapers. We went there to see the ancient part of the city and its ok sized wall around it.
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| A view of the city wall surrounding the old central part of Pingyao city. The original wall was made of tamped earth and built some 2,700 years ago. More recently though (since abut 700 years ago), during the Ming and Qing Dynasties, it was rebuilt using stone and brick. On the inside face of the wall, many sections reveal the tamped earth construction underlaying the bricks and stone. This wall and its enclosed city is considered by many to be the best preserved walled city in all of China. |
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A view of one of the six gates in the wall from the modern town on the outside. The wall is about 6 km long.
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Sentinels standing guard at one the wall's gate entrances.
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Watch tower and gate tower
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| Modern life outside ancient city with the wall looming in the background |
The wall on this city had nothing on the wall in Xi'an but it was pretty cool because it's the original wall not like the one in Xi'an that's been rebuilt.
We arrived by train as usual and took a bus to the old city wall. We then took a golf cart through the ancient town to our classy old hotel that used to be an ancient flour factory.
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| A view of the inner courtyard of where we stayed for two nights". Originally the house functioned as a flour factory. Now, after some extensive renovations, it is being used exclusively as a hotel. |
It was really neat to stay in an authentic Chinese home. We even slept in Chinese Kang beds!
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| One of our Kang beds, which are designed as long platforms on bricks and used not only for sleeping but also for general living, working, and entertaining. |
Next we went walking around the town and saw some amazing really old buildings and streets but there are so many tourists that lots of the buildings have been turned into cheap souvenir shops. We even saw a Virtual Reality ride in one of them.
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| A view from the top of the wall - one of the main city streets lined with buildings constructed using traditional architecture and materials. The central city tower looms large in the background . Cars are not allowed to access the core area of the town. |
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| Ancient town's central 'City Tower' |
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| Lanterns line most of the main streets - very colourful and pretty even during the day when they aren't yet lit. |
For breakfast the next day we had dumplings, as usual, then we went walking around the city some more. We bought tickets so that we could go in all the old buildings like old banks, schools, temples and martial arts centers.
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| We toured many buildings in the ancient city. This is the inner courtyard of one of the original family homes built during the Ming or Qing dynasties. It is a good example of some of the well-preserved traditional architecture from those dynasties. |
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| The inner courtyard of the Confucian Temple. We are all standing next to our own Chinese Zodiac figure. |
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| Lucas and Maya preparing to engage in combat using ancient Chinese weaponry. We toured a couple of sites that displayed martial art techniques and weapons that were used as places to train security forces in charge of protecting banking interests. The town was China's financial centre. |
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| Maya practicing her ancient martial arts technique on some training pedestals |
Signs to help tourists understand what they were looking at or what they were ordering at the restaurants were written in English but were really hard to understand because the translations were really bad. Mostly they just made us laugh.
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We figure that Google translate or whatever app they use in China take the
translations too literally and they end up making no sense. |
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| We just couldn't bring ourselves to eat any of these!!! |
A few more random photos from Pingyao...
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| A funeral procession through the streets of Piingyao |
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The ancient city wall as seen through one of its 3000 crenelations
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| A funeral procession and celebration of life |
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Woman sitting at the side of the road and paying her respects as the funeral passes by
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After Pingyao, we hopped on a train to the famous Beijing. The train ride was very interesting because there were some Chinese kids that were very interested in us and not at all shy, so we played paper airplanes and showed them magic tricks. When the planes got a little out of hand around the train carriage, I tried to hide them, but the kids pulled my hair and ripped my legs out straight to get back at them. In the end we had lots of fun with them.
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| the train entertainment |
When we got to Beijing we took the subway to our hotel where we sat down and relaxed. There was sooooo much space, it was easily the most space we have had in a hotel yet (except Justin's house in Bangkok were we had the whole house). We went out to an amazing Chinese restaurant where we tried an amazing salad, and the best Chinese dish I tasted in all of China, Kung Pow Chicken. Mmmmm, sweet, but salty, and at the same time sour!!!! What!👌
Anyways, the next day we went to Tianmen square if you want to read more about it, go here
Or here
It is famous because there was a huge student protest and about 250 people were killed by tanks and guns because they didn't stop protesting when the government said they should.
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| Here we are with a few new friends (we had lots of people jump in and get photos with us while in China) in Tiananmen Square with the Gate of Heavenly Peace (entrance to the Forbidden City) in the background. Security was pretty heavy there - the lightposts all had cameras watching in every direction. |
We then tried to enter the Forbidden city, but on Mondays, it closes for renovation every week. Instead we spent the afternoon researching the Great Wall for the next day. By the end of the night, we had a tour booked and we were pumped for the adventure.
The next day we headed out with a guide in a minivan to Jiankou. Jiankou is a section of the Great Wall where there has been no restoration whatsoever, so it is in its natural state with all original bricks! Some of this section is so crumbled that you can't walk on it, and there is some that you have to use your hands and knees to climb up. We were very impressed by how big this section was and how it actually looked in its natural state.
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| Well, our guide said it was fine for us to go.... |
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| We hiked up a trail through the woods and then the Great Wall was just there in front of us! There was a ladder to climb up and, just like that, we were on the Great Wall of China - kind of surreal! |
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Some of it was very steep and crumbling, some of it was fine for walking, it stretched out in either direction
as far as we could see. We climbed until we reached a section that was impassable and then turned back.
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The next section of the wall that we went to was called Mutianyu. This section of the wall is entirely restored so that it's like having a nice Sunday stroll down a hilly drive. In one of the watchtowers you could even go to the second level!!
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| it had to be done |
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| The fully restored Mutianyu section of the wall, very safe, sturdy, expansive. |
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| Chris near one of the watchtowers |
The best part about Jiankou was that until we were just leaving, we were the only ones in sight! (we saw a few other people just before we left). The best part about Mutianyu was that it was so easy and so organised. Jiankou was free and awesome, but Mutianyu was easy. For me, they were both incredible. As a way to TOP the whole day off, we got to ride down a huge and awesome toboggan slide to get to the bottom!
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| part of the toboggan track that we rode down at the end |
We drove back to our hotel and we were bag tired, but we were also very hungry. We decided it was just a hop skip and a jump to get to our favourite Chinese restaurant for more Kung Pow Chicken so that's where we went. After dinner we went strait to bed because we wanted to be fully rested for the Forbidden city the next day.
As I said, the next day we went to the Forbidden City. The Forbidden City is yet another ancient walled city in the very center of Beijing. We went there to learn about which 24 Emperors lived there and which buildings were used for what. We learned and saw a lot!
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| One of the courtyards of the Forbidden City - the scale of this place is incredible, with several such courtyards - the centre doorways and paths were only for the Emperor who would usually be carried from one area to another.. |
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There were many beautiful and symbolic pieces throughout the Forbidden City such as this jade turtle
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One of the Throne Rooms - there are apparently 9999 rooms in the Forbidden City, many of which had specific functions and were used only at a certain time of the year of for a certain ceremony. We didn't have enough time to see many of the rooms, but all of them were opulent!
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On our last night in China we had to try Beijing duck! It used to be called Peking Duck but our guide from the Great Wall told us that no one likes to call things Peking anymore.
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| The slicing of the duck |
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| Our waiter showing us how to put the sliced duck and fixings on the "pancake", the roll it up to enjoy. This dish is known for the crisp skin and the fat layer beneath, so it was a bit rich for some of us, but Maya loved it and we were all glad to have tried it. |
The next day was our departing China day. We were actually pretty excited because our flight had been canceled and we were being put on an earlier flight. At first we thought that was bad, but my Dad got the airline to hook us up in a Grand Hyatt hotel in South Korea for free! It was sooo nice there!
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| Maya happy with the Grand Hyatt bling |
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| Living the high life for 9 hours. Walking in our grubby travel clothes to an extravagant buffet breakfast |
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| The kids loved this part of the 'Grand' buffet breakfast |
Anyways, we said our farewells to China and got ready for Nepal.
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