Ain't No Mountain High Enough

September 12, 2009

For the second half of my China stay I visited the cities of Xi’an and Beijing. While Yunnan was all about experiencing natural beauty, these cities were about appreciating culture and the power of man.

Xi’an is China’s tourist mecca and is one of the country’s ancient cities. I was surprised to find that today’s Xi’an is a bustling, industrial city of 3.1 million with plenty of commercial influence. The city is a strange juxtaposition of some of China’s most treasured historical sights and an upscale westernized downtown area.

Xi’an is especially famous for the Terra Cotta Warriors, a massive army of life-sized soldiers who were built 2200 years ago by Emperor Qin. Apparently, the Emperor had some ego issues—he assigned 720,000 men to the forty year task of constructing him the largest tomb ever built. He had the Terra Cotta Army built to protect him, and he believed that the army would allow him to continue his rule in the afterlife. The army consisted of 6000 soldiers, archers, cavalrymen and generals. Each soldier is incredibly detailed: complete with his own unique facial expression, hairstyle and posture. The army was assembled in three underground pits and, over time, these pits were invaded and most of the army was destroyed. For almost 2200 years the army was forgotten, until some local farmers uncovered its ruins when drilling a well in 1975. The three pits were excavated and about 2000 of the soldiers were reassembled. Today, the Terra Cotta Army stands in formation, on display for tourists to enjoy.

I found the warriors very impressive; especially given their age and the details of their discovery. The only unfortunate thing was that you couldn’t get very close to the warriors to appreciate the intricate detail with which they were created.

In Xi’an I also visited the Big Wild Goose Pagoda and took a nice jog around the 14km of city walls that surround the “old” part of the city. From Xi’an, I embarked on my second hard-seat train experience—an overnight train to Beijing. Just like last time, the experience was unforgettable. I met a really nice family who was traveling from Tibet to Beijing, a 48 hour journey. They didn’t speak much English, but we still managed to talk for a few hours. They helped me with my Chinese pronunciation and taught me how to count to 999 in Chinese. The counting skills came in very handy, as it instantly increased my bartering proficiency. The family also insisted that I eat some of their chicken feet and I really had no choice but to oblige. Later, I met a student from Beijing and we talked the rest of the way to Beijing. The only downside was getting less than an hour of sleep!

Once I arrived in Beijing, I met with Haiguang, a good friend of my Dad’s. I had a great time in Beijing. The city is the political and cultural center of China and is rich with history. My first stop in Beijing was the Forbidden City, the former home of China’s royal family. The Forbidden City is a spectacular place and has an incredible number of grandiose, finely detailed buildings. The sheer size of the city is the most impressive part.

In Beijing, I also visited Olympic Park, where I toured the Water Cube and Bird’s Nest. It was really cool to see them in person. I was contemplating doing a victory lap around the track but decided it would be better to leave that to Usain Bolt. That day, I also toured the Temple of Heaven and Tian’amen Square. The Temple of Heaven was nice, but not spectacular. It was interesting being at Tian’amen and seeing the big portrait of Mao Zedong and thinking about the events that happened there in 1989. Later that evening, my Dad arrived in Beijing! He had a few days of business at first and then we had a day to visit the city together. Dad’s arrival was synonymous with copious amounts of free food and beer: a backpacker’s dream!

I spent another one of my days visiting the Summer Palace, which was the summer vacation spot for the royal family. The Summer Palace is a beautiful place. It is set in a gorgeous park filled with willow trees, a large lake and many nice bridges. In my opinion, it is even nicer than the Forbidden City. Also, because it is so large, you can find room to breathe at the Summer Palace, unlike the Forbidden City.

The highlight of my Beijing visit came on Dad’s day off when we took a trip to the Great Wall. We chose to visit Jinshanling, a more remote and less traveled portion of the wall. It is about a 3 hour drive from Beijing, but the extra drive was well worth it. On the wall we decided to travel a different route than most tourists. We managed to find a section that was completely unrestored and where we were the only hikers. It was incredible seeing the wall in such a pure and untouched form. The wall was overgrown with grass and there was only a thin beaten path for us to walk along. At times the hiking got pretty treacherous and we started to consider turning around. Luckily, we decided to keep going. Eventually we reached a point where we could not walk any further because it was a military restricted zone. We climbed up the guard tower and sat on the roof enjoying the view. It was an amazing feeling being alone with the wall. As far as the eye can see, the wall snakes through the green mountains. It is simultaneously a feat of engineering, a work of art and an architectural masterpiece.

After our personal path ended, we went back and hiked down the more traveled path, which was also incredibly beautiful, but lacked the unpredictability of the other section. We hiked for a few more hours, taking in the spectacular scenery. I find it absolutely amazing that the Chinese were able to build such a wall 400 years ago. They built the wall without the use of any machines, and they built it so well that it has withstood 400 years of weathering. The construction would have required them to transport stone and building materials up the side of the mountain and then assemble the wall in some of the most treacherous conditions imaginable. One slip and a man could easily fall to his death. I remember that this also amazed me the first time I saw the Great Wall.

I love Beijing! Despite the fact that it has become more westernized in recent years, it is an incredible city to visit and should be added to your “must-see” list. Next, Dad and I fly to Hiroshima, for two weeks of sushi, baseball and temples in Japan.

The Wild, Wild West

September 5, 2009

I entered the People’s Republic on August 24th and was immediately greeted by a whole new level of culture shock. China is a truly foreign country. I love it here.

I arrived in Guangzhou by train and had planned to immediately catch a train to Kunming, which is the largest city in the Yunnan province. In Guangzhou I was greeted by a train station where written English was non-existent and spoken English was rare at best. After quite an interesting exchange, I found that the train I had hoped to take was fully booked and that I would have to catch a later one. This ended up being a blessing in disguise, as it gave me a day to explore Guangzhou. As I was walking out of the train station, I met a girl named Vivian who spoke excellent English and offered to tour me around the city for the day. We had a lot of fun checking out some of Guangzhou’s best, such as the Sun-Yat Sen Memorial Hall and the beautiful Yuexiu Park. At dinner, I had an unfortunate “cultural” experience. I ordered a dish off the menu, which I thought was noodles, and Vivian giggled but didn’t say anything. When it came out Vivian eagerly explained that the dish I had chosen was not noodles, but pig intestine! To be polite, I ate the dish and it turned out to be much tastier than it sounded. I resolved to be more careful with my photo-based ordering in the future.

From Guangzhou, I boarded the 26 hour train to Kunming. To save some money, I decided to travel in hard seat, which is the cheapest class available. It seems strange to call 26 hours in a train seat a “great experience”, but I can describe the train ride in no other way. Basically, as a foreigner in hard seat, I spent 26 hours as a celebrity, as all the locals were fascinated to learn about where I came from and what I was doing in China. Naturally, this is difficult without English. Fortunately, I met a man who spoke fairly good English. We talked for a long time and he also acted as “the interpreter” so I could converse with the other people on the train. It was fascinating learning about the local people’s jobs, education, aspirations, and way of life. I had a chance to tell them a lot about life in Canada, and they found the comparison between the two countries very interesting. We also shared a lot of laughs and before I knew it we had arrived in Kunming. I need to thank my cousin Trevor for recommending the hard seat experience. I think it will be one of my best memories of my trip in China.

In Kunming, I met up with the one and only Jeffrey Wong! On our first day we rented some shotty bikes (the pedals kept falling off) and ventured out of town and up a mountain to visit the Bamboo Temple. The temple is an active monastery, and was quite nice, but the definitive highlight of the day was the breakneck speed bike ride back down the mountain. That night, we took a “sleeper” bus to Lijiang. Unfortunately, for anybody taller than 5’4”, sleeping is more of a hope than a reality.

Lijiang is a really nice old-style town with narrow and winding cobblestone streets that are lined with shops selling local crafts, scarves and food. Also, Lijiang marked the first time I had encountered cool air since leaving Canada, which was a refreshing change. We explored the Mu family mansion, which is Lijiang’s version of the Forbidden City. We also went to the Black Dragon Pool Park, where we climbed Elephant Hill and enjoyed a spectacular view of Lijiang and the surrounding mountainous area. From Lijiang we took a trip to the Tiger Leaping Gorge, which, without a doubt, was my favourite part of Yunnan.

Tiger Leaping Gorge is the world’s (disputably) deepest and narrowest gorge. It was formed from the erosion of the Yangtze River, as it snaked through the mountains of Northern Yunnan. Jeff and I spent two days hiking along the gorge and the experience was absolutely unforgettable. The hiking trail at TLG is right along the mountainside, meaning that for the entire hike we had spectacular views looking down into the gorge and at the surrounding mountains. The hiking is pretty strenuous, but your heart also gets a workout from the fact that at any given point you are only a few feet from a 500 meter fall into the gorge. The mountains we stunning and were easily the largest that I have ever seen. We spent a night at a guesthouse along the trail, which had a great view of the mountains. In the picture below, we are eating dinner with a group of friends we made and enjoying the surreal view. We also had this view from our room!

On the second day, we hiked down into the gorge, and went out to a rock in the middle of the river. The rock is called Tiger Leaping Stone, and it is where the gorge gets its name. As legend has it, a tiger once leapt across the gorge from this stone. It’s a nice story, but I must say that the physics just isn’t there. Standing on that stone was an incredible feeling. The river was roaring so loudly that you had to shout to be heard and all around us were giant cliff faces, one of which had a waterfall running down it. I really got an appreciation for how miniscule man is in comparison to nature.

After a great two days of trekking, we went to visit the town of Shangri-la. Shangri-la, at an elevation of 3280m, was the highest altitude that I had ever experienced. I was slightly disappointed when I did not have any physical difficulties with the altitude. Jeff and I spent a day biking around the town and the surrounding area. Once you get North of the town, the biking gets quite interesting, as you are just as likely to encounter a pig, chicken or cow on the road as a car. Shangri-la was a really nice, laid back town.

Our final stop in Yunnan was the city of Dali. Like Lijiang, Dali is an ancient Chinese city and is a hotspot for tourists. We biked through some of the agricultural areas surrounding the city, which was really interesting. Jeff and I also visited the Erhai Hu Lake, where I ended up taking an impromptu swim with some local kids.

On our next day in Dali, we went up the Zhonghe Mountain and walked the 11km path along the mountaintop. To make our hike more interesting we decided to walk along the rocks in the stream, rather than along the path beside. After we each took a sobering spill into the stream, we decided to put our pride away and walk the rest of the day on the path. At least we provided entertainment for some Chinese tourists!

After Dali, we headed back to Kunming, where Jeff headed back to Hong Kong and I will carry on to Xi’an. Western China was full of adventures and I can only hope that the rest of China is this exciting!

-M

A Western Interlude

August 25, 2009

Sorry about the recent blog hiatus. Any complaints can be directed towards the Chinese government and their website blocking policies.

Kevin and I arrived in Hong Kong on August 20th and were immediately greeted with many of the comforts of home. Nearly everyone in Hong Kong speaks English and many of the shops and the restaurants are the same chains as back home. This would have been annoying six weeks ago, but by this point it was a welcome change. The only unfortunate part was that the prices also went from being Asian to being Western! The “Seven-Eleven Bar” proved to be the only establishment worthy of our budget.

I was really impressed with Hong Kong. The city has an incredible energy and has a skyline that rivals Manhattan’s. Walking through the downtown you are greeted by huge groups of people and large and modern buildings. Everything in Hong Kong is vertical. This is the Hong Kong that I expected. What I was pleasantly surprised by was the amount of undeveloped park space on Hong Kong Island. It is a mixing of two jungles: the natural and the concrete varieties.



In HK, we met up with our friend Eamon, who is currently modeling in the city. Eamon gave me a taste of cramped Hong Kong living, as I stayed in his apartment and slept on his loveseat for three nights, after Kevin left. Eamon and his friend Jovie gave Kevin a one day city tour, which included a hot, sweaty hike up to The Peak, a mountain in the middle of Hong Kong Island. From The Peak, we had a great view of the skyline, the harbor and Hong Kong’s other islands. The view was spectacular. The dichotomy of urbanized city next to rolling mountains and ocean was especially impressive. The only downside to the peak was the huge shopping mall below it. In Hong Kong it is difficult to escape consumerism.



After seeing Kevin off from the airport, I moved into the Eamon chateu. The next day, Eamon, Jovie and I spent a fun day at Big Wave Beach, which is a nice beach on the east side of Hong Kong Island. After the beach, I decided to jog up to the peak, which proved to be quite the test. The next day, we also roamed around Hong Kong’s wild shopping district and I quickly realized that it does not mesh well with a backpacker’s budget.

Here is Eamon showing Bruce Lee his best stuff. I hear Gucci calling!

On my last night in HK, Jeff arrived from Toronto and I was treated to a very nice dinner by the Wong family. Jeff and I will be spending the next 11 days together traveling through Yunnan, China. We are both very excited for what China may bring!

-Mitch