Chongqing photos

Here is a link to my Chongqing slideshow. Enjoy!

Chongqing

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Chongqing

Chongqing is a city built beside and over rivers. There were about thirty bridges that crisscrossed the city with another twenty in the development stages. We probably crossed ten of them in our day and a half there and then when we got on the cruise went under another couple. The hills were steep – a completely different landscape than the other cities we saw. There were very few bicycles because of the hills and traffic seemed to move more quickly as well.

It’s never a good sign when your tour guide takes you to a museum, tells you to wait for a minute while he gets the tickets and then returns, saying, “The museum appears to be closed today.” It only happened once during our trip and it happened when we were in Chongqing at the Three Gorges Museum. Our guide, Richard, was very apologetic and thinking on his feet, suggested that we go to the zoo and see the pandas instead.

The Chongqing Zoo was amazing and we managed to see all seven pandas in residence. We arrived at feeding time, so they were out and active. One of the younger pandas was climbing a tree. Richard told us that when they’re young (until about age four) pandas are more active but after that they get lazy and pretty much eat and sleep.
The next day we went to Dazu Grotto about a 2.5 hour drive outside the city. We were winding through the rice paddies and were much more “off the beaten path” than the rest of our journey. Some of the roads reminded me a little of India, in that we were bouncing around the back seat of the car and were definitely ready to get out at the end. The intricate Buddhist carvings have been preserved very well and we were able to visit two separate sites. Since the site was so far outside the city it managed to survive the destruction of the Red Guards and really maintains a sense of history. I wonder what it would have been like when the pilgrims walked for days to pray there and the air was full of incense.

After our trip outside the city we headed back before boarding the boat that would take us down the Yangtze River. Before dinner we walked through a flower and bird market and marveled at the huge ornamental stones and urns. The smells of the flowers and calm evening made it a great transition to the restaurant. While there we had another excellent meal including a rice cake that was then covered with a pork stew. It was an enticing blend of crispy rice and creamy pork which we hadn’t had before and was one of our favorites.

After dinner we headed to the docks and the boat which would be the last step of our journey together.
Question – Care to tell about any travel mishaps? Did you make it somewhere only to find out it was closed? How did you deal with it? Share!
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Reacclimating

Tonight I went to meet my friend Annette and one of her colleagues from the Chinese Mutual Aid Association. I volunteered there for almost 6 months before I came to China. We caught up over iced chai and coffee and stayed until the coffee shop closed. Annette has been a faithful reader (and commenter) on my blog and has recommended it to other people as I found out.

As I rode the El home I thought about the questions I’ve been asked over the last couple of weeks. What do you miss? What do you notice about Chicago when you’ve come back? What have you been eating? I thought I’d take a break from my travel blog (Chongqing and the Yangtze Cruise) and answer some of them here.

The first thing I noticed when I got out of the airport was the blue sky. I didn’t realize the true amount of pollution in Shanghai until I came back. The sky is blue here, the water is blue or green depending on its mood and puffy clouds float above.

I love being able to drink the water from the tap, to eat raw salads and fresh fruit without peeling it. Mexican food here is awesome – I’ve had guacamole three times already in the last 3 weeks and bread is so good. Sandwiches, cheese, pasta – are cravings that I haven’t had in a long time. Desserts are too sweet, I got used to eating fruit or nothing for dessert and now when I try to eat cake or cookies or muffins it is too much. Prices seem so high, I miss the lady on my street where I could buy lunch for 10 RMB ($1.50) with rice, meat, tons of veggies and all fresh and good.

I’ve enjoyed riding the bus over the last couple of weeks – buses always intimidated me in Shanghai. But, Shanghai’s subway is head and shoulders above the El here. Maybe when they finish the brown line/red line work it will improve. I hope. Driving is fun – the streets are so much more orderly than China. People follow traffic laws and wait for pedestrians. My little car is happy to see me and just passed its emission test this week, so it’s good to go for another two years.

My condo seems so luxurious. I have so much stuff! I’ve been sorting and recycling and tossing things while the mood holds. My brother was a great caretaker. Cooking and cleaning and being domestic have taken up a lot of my time since I’ve come back from DC. Hearing Spanish all over and being able to understand it and having conversations with everyone here in English is so much fun. I am talking everyone’s ears off – my doormen, the garage guys, my dry cleaners, the guy who sells me newspapers in the morning….

Above are a couple of pictures of my apartment here so you can make the comparison yourself.

Question – What do you notice about your place when you come back from a trip?

Cheers!

Xi'an photos

Xi'an

Above is the link to my Xi'an photos. My favorites in this batch include dad and I posing with the fake warriors, mom and Anne dancing in their booties and dumplings (and dumplings and dumplings....)

Enjoy!

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Xi’an - Booties, Buddhas and Dumplings and Walls and Warriors

Xi’an was a nice contrast to the bustle and politics of Beijing. After getting off the plane we were met by our guide Sally and headed straight to our first destination, a Han Dynasty Mausoleum with wonderful views of small warriors, clay pots and other artifacts. The statues were naked (and anatomically correct) and Sally explained that in the time of the emperor they would have been clothed in silk and armor and put into place. This is different than the famous Terra Cotta warriors that we would see on the second day where the armor and clothing were made of clay. The museum was very well done with glass floors so you could walk directly over the pits under excavation, but the most amusing thing – by far – was the bright blue booties we had to wear to protect those glass floors.

The next destination was the Wild Swan Pagoda, a working Buddhist temple in a park closer to downtown. Most everything has been recently renovated, but it was pretty to look at and get reminded of the Buddhism I learned in India. Unfortunately the tower was closed because it had been damaged by the earthquake which occurred in May.

For dinner, at the suggestion of our guide we went to a dumpling banquet and Tang Dynasty show. We were served 14 different kinds of dumplings over the course of about an hour – everything from pork dumplings shaped like little pigs, fish dumplings with tails, fig dumplings, fried dumplings – dumpling soup, the courses just kept coming. After getting stuffed, we watched a great show with singing, traditional musical instruments and beautiful dancing and fell into bed exhausted and full.

Day 2 Xi’an - Walls and Warriors
Our second day in Xi’an was damp. It never rained hard, but it rained steadily pretty much the entire day. We started at the city wall. It is one of the few in China that is still complete, delineating the borders of the old city. If the weather were better we could have bicycled on the top, but instead we just took the opportunity for a couple of pictures. Since my sister never did learn how to ride a bicycle, she was very relieved that it was raining.

Before visiting the actual warriors we visited a factory where they make reproductions of them. It was interesting to learn how the process worked. For example, the heads are made separately and then inserted into the necks because if they were made in one piece they would explode in the kiln. Mom succumbed to the “garden size” statues and bought a couple. Then we visited the actual warriors. My grandparents had the opportunity to visit Xi’an in 1984 when there was little more than a tent covering the warriors. Now there are three main pits with enclosures and museums. The number of figures is overwhelming – close to 6,000 between the pits. It was special to be there and think of Grandma and Grandpa covering the same ground. As long as someone remembers you – whether you leave a huge tomb full of warriors, or just memories with people who love you, you continue.
Our final tourist stop was to visit the mosque in the old part of the city. It was a mosque but entirely Chinese architecture which was unique. Anne finally got to do some shopping in the bazaar and we all ate this dried peanut paste – kind of like the inside of a Butterfinger candy bar as we walked through the streets.

That was Xi’an. I’d like to go back and ride a bicycle on the wall and maybe eat some more dumplings. I’ll post links to photos in the next day or two.

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Beijing photos 2 and 3

The following links are to two more albums containing the rest of our Beijing pictures. Album 2 has various locations - Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, the Cloisonne Factory, Drum and Bell Tower and Hutong Tour. Album 3 is exclusively photos from the Great Wall. There are some things that inspire you to take photos and the Great Wall is one of those for me. I tried to put captions on to give you a little more detail and insider info. I know there are a lot of photos, so browse as you wish.

Beijing - 2

Beijing - 3

This past Friday I finally received my FSA at the Fellowship Admissions Course in Washington, DC. It was the cumulation of over seven years of exams and really a truly great event. This next week since I'm back in Chicago I hope to post the rest of our family trip including Xian, Chongqing and our Yangzte River Cruise.

Cheers!

Beijing pictures - part 1

Beijing - 1

This slide show links to pictures at the Summer Palace, view of the Olympic venues, the Temple of Heaven and from inside the silk store where mom purchased her quilts. More pictures to come, but thought I would post a few to get started.

Question - Which is your favorite picture? I have several - I like dad and the dragon, I like the family picture in front of the Temple of Heaven and many more, but what is yours? Why? What did it make you think about or notice?

Cheers!

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Beijing: Do you need to go to the happy house?

June 17 – 20
We collected our luggage at the Beijing airport and met our guide, May. The question above was the first thing she asked us. I’ve never heard the bathroom referred to in quite such a way. She continued to use that phrase the rest of the day. I know four different words in Chinese for bathroom, but I think “Happy House” is my favorite.
It was a busy first day. We visited the Summer Palace where we marveled at the Long Corridor, enjoyed the lake and saw a short musical performance.

On the way back we drove by the Olympic Village and saw the Bird’s Nest Stadium for the Olympics. It’s impressive on TV but even more impressive in real life – modern lines but an ancient shape. There are 88,888 seats and the opening ceremony will start at 8pm on August 8, 2008. Eight is a lucky number here. People pay big money for telephone numbers and license plates that include 8s. The Olympic organizers aren’t leaving anything to chance.

The second day we got to sleep in until 9 o’clock and then headed out to explore the Temple of Heaven and the Forbidden City. The Temple of Heaven includes a huge park where in the mornings people come to dance, exercise, practice instruments, play cards. The weather was beautiful and we would have been happy staying there all day, but when you have a guide, things keep moving. We had a little time before lunch, so we went to a silk factory. They showed us the stages of a silk worm and we got to attempt to spread out a layer of silk that would be used inside a comforter. I don’t think we’ll get hired anytime soon because our layer developed a hole. Mom was very impressed with the silk quilts and bought three and Anne and I bought some silk tops.

After a huge lunch, we headed to Tiananmen Square. We saw soldiers and tourists and the big portrait of Mao hanging there. May told us that it’s replaced once every year. Crossing the square, we then entered into the Forbidden City. I have seen Versailles, visited the Vatican, explored castles in Spain but the immense scale of the Forbidden City took my breath away. The emperor had complete power and the palace was built to instill that symbolism into the hearts and minds of his subjects. Five toed imperial dragons are everywhere. I tried to close my eyes and imagine how everything looked when it was furnished – full of luxury and courtiers and concubines. We spent several hours there and ended in the gardens before exiting to the street and our waiting coach.

Day three was the Great Wall at Mutianyu about two hours outside of the city. On the way we received a demonstration of how to make cloisonné. After the demonstration, we made it to the wall. May suggested that we take a cable car up and back, but Chris and Matt had told me that there was a toboggan run, so we all took the cable car up (posed for the required pictures) and then mom and dad went back down and Anne and I hiked several towers to the toboggan and zipped down the side. The day was slightly cloudy, but you could still see the wall continue to the horizon line. One of the great wonders of the world and I was there!

The final day in Beijing was a little more low-key. We actually spent over an hour at the post office because mom decided that the three quilts she bought were too heavy to pack in her luggage. My mom also found some great holographic Olympic postcards that they agreed to mail on the day of the opening ceremonies. We wrote 福禄寿 (Happiness, Prosperity and Longevity) on the cards to be sent next month. Other activities included lunch in the home of a woman in the Hutong district, a bicycle rickshaw ride, the obligatory tea ceremony and visiting the large drum tower that used to be used to signal the time of day for the city. That night Anne and I went exploring down one of the pedestrian streets and bought too much in the Olympic store.

Beijing was a success. It is full of history and government – a mix of new and old. My Chinese allowed us to find a laundry outside the hotel and order dinners and navigate the subway system. After four days there, we were ready for the next city – Xian.

I will post more pictures later when my parents and sister get back from Hong Kong. I have some, but want to share all of them with you.

I’m back in the States now, so hope to see you all soon!

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