Thank God for the British.

Now that we're in Hong Kong, we can publish our blog freely, so here are some photos to catch you all up from our three weeks in China.


Firstly, to prove that you can get anything in China, here's an ad for the services available at a hotel in Xi'an. Note the bottom-right corner. If you're ever in Xi'an and need an enema, I know a good place.






Here is a photo of the lines to buy train tickets at the station in Xi'an.



Here are some photos of the Terra Cotta Warriors. Here I am posing as a Warrior and being a very stupid tourist.

Here are some photos of the Warriors themselves. Our guide said that there are as many as 750,000 statues buried, but that sounds like a bit of hyperbole. Each Warrior's face is unique. These soldiers are the infantry. After the Warriors we started our boat ride down the Yangtze river. Most of the ride was grey and misty, and here's a photo of one of the more scenic gorges we went through.

At the end of the boat trip, we got to go through the locks of the Three Gorges Dam, which is a pretty ridiculously large hydroelectric project. Three boats went through the locks at a time, passing so close to the concrete walls we could lean against them from the balcony in our room.
Here I am overlooking the dam itself.

One thing about Asia, but China in particular, is that everything is an opportunity to sell you ridiculous trinkets. This is the gauntlet you have to run to get to the "Ghost City" along the Yangtze. All 50 of these vendors yell at you that they are selling water or liquor or ridiculous souvenirs (all 50 stalls sell the same things).. you have to just ignore them. We long since gave up being polite.

We ended up back in Beijing, where we visited the Great Wall. We ended up with the only clear not to smoggy day. VERY hot!

Spent the next few days touring around Beijing. We visited the markets and wished for the first time since we have been on this trip that we could go directly home just so we could get some fun stuff. You can get ANYTHING you want at these markets and at very low prices. The sad part is that we can't carry it. So, alas we ended up with a few shirts to replace our very crappy, very worn shirts, a few knock off Coach bags ($6 USD each), and a silk table runner ($4USD). Could of gone crazy there. It was fun because we haven't been able to do any shopping because of our budget, sad to be restricted due to space! Oh well!

Went also to the Forbidden City. This was home to the Emperor for a lot of years (not sure how many). Construction began in 1406 though. There was so many people there that we really couldn't get any decent photos and frankly just got so annoyed with the pushing that we gave up and went home. The main issue with the tourism here is that it is summer break for a lot of the students so everyone is out tooling around. I would be interested to see if October is any different and easier to get around.

Spent our last day in Beijing at the Beijing.Zoo. The lonely planet called it death row for the animals. We were slightly surprised by this, considering that the travel guide puts such a great spin on everything they write about. We wanted to see the Pandas, so we went. It was SAD! The lonely planet wasn't that far off. The panda cages were very sad. There were just huge gaggles of people pounding on the glass and harassing the poor pandas for a better photo. They were confined behind the glass with no fresh air. We then decided to look around the zoo and quickly found out which were the most popular exhibits. The popular animals seemed to have worlds better environments. We walked by the white rhino. Which for those of you don't know is one of the rarest rhino's in the world. There are fewer than 50 Northern White Rhino's in the world today. There were 2 in the park. There was no trees for them.. no food and no vegetation in their pen. One of the rhino's was trying to eat a piece of grass that had grown between the cracks of the pavement. After, we wandered into the cafeteria and all of a sudden there was glass that the animals were on display while you were eating. The hippos and the rhino's never get a break from the tourists. Felt really bad for them. We ended up leaving there a bit depressed.

Traveled onto Hong Kong the next day and are finding it a bit easier to get around. The British influence is definitely present here. The British had a 100 year control over Hong Kong and in 1997 it was given back to China. To China's credit they have left Hong Kong to fend essentially for themselves and they are flourishing. They still maintain their democracy government and have their own currency. It is as if China and Britain merged to form a new nation, Hong Kong would be it. Here is the link if you want to read about it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong



We traveled today to the outlook overlooking Hong Kong.

This is a picture of the top of tallest mountain in Hong Kong overlooking the bay. Notice all the high rises, they line the whole bay . Hong Kong is home to 6,864,346 people. You can see the need for the high rises.

Planning on heading tomorrow to Hong Kong Disney and then over to Cape Town, SA., the next day. Sorry the posts have been so few and far between. Hopefully, we will be able to get back on track. Hope this finds everyone well and enjoying your summer.

Gina& Bob

Well, at least the train was better than a root canal.

Hi All,

 

I have to say I am quite happy that I get to do this blog. That way I can describe the train ride to you all.

 

Our train was scheduled to depart from Xian at 10pm on 19th. Made our way over there after a small scare that Bob lost his ATM card. The train station was a mess. Thousands of people all clamoring away trying to get to their terminal to catch their train. All the lonely planets say that you get stared at in China, but the train station took on a whole new meaning for that one. We walked in with our very large backpacks and seeing that we are bigger then the average Chinese person and the fact that we have 50lbs backpacks on our back, they were loving us. Lots of points and laughs and close up stares. Made us feel really awkward and out of place. The average Westerner travels by plane and I don't think that they are used to Westerners traveling by train with them. The price was good only 109 Yuan for the ride (15 dollars).

 

Anyway, our train was called and we suddenly became apart of the world's largest cattle drive. Millions of people pushing and shoving (a Chinese pastime) in fear that the train would depart without them. We, finally, made it to our "hard sleeper." This entails just as it sounds a hard thin mattress with a towel for a blanket and a pillow that I was frankly too frighten to actually sleep on. We had the top bunk of a three tiered bunk in great 'ol train car 9. Initially, we settled in and pulled out our Uno cards to play on a small table. This was the cause of great interest and we quickly had a big group of people surrounding us watching us play. We attempted to include them, but they got quickly frustrated and left to do more entertaining things with their evening. The lights went out at midnight and we got into bed. I am sad to say that my initial reaction that this train wasn't so bad quickly went away. There was this repugnant smell of urine floating in the air. Now, spitting is a major problem here and there was a great bit of hawking up a loogy right on the cabin floor, as well. We were so high on the top bunk that you could almost kiss the ceiling and I think that the bad foot smell, the urine and the cigarette smoke traveled up so we ended up with the brunt of the aromas in the stagnant air.  We arose early the next morning, after  basically no sleep to find everyone up and alive at the early hour of 6am. After, 17hours (suppose to be 14hr) the train ride was over! Thank God. That concludes our train riding experiences for awhile.

 

We made it to Chongqing and boarded a boat on the Yangtze river. We boarded a great 5 star cruise liner. Just what we needed after a dirty train ride. Spend the first night in port and was startlingly awoken to an over head classical music selection. We thought our alarm had gone off so we are whacking every button we could think to hit. Till we realized it was our wake up call informing us that breakfast was coming soon. We decided that we would skip breakfast and sleep in and catch up on our sleep we missed from the night before. Yeah no! We promptly got a phone call at 8:15am letting us know that we needed to go to breakfast that we were missing it. Big Brother seems to be watching us!

 

In a way, it was kinda nice to be told when to eat, when to sleep and when you needed to go to your activities. It was effortless. Just do what big brother told you and everything would be fine.

 

The Three Gorges dam, for those of you who don't already know, is one of the world's largest hydroelectric dams, on the Yangtze river. The opening of the dam will displace 1.3 million people and wildlife. The Yangtze river that exists now will not exists by 2009. They have already lost a species of dolphin and most of the fish due to the project. The water levels will rise 175 meters by the time the project is over. Obviously, very controversial. The water is also extremely polluted. There were dead pigs just floating down the river along with trash and various styles of styles of shoes and sandals.

 

We really enjoyed the cruise. The gorges were beautiful. There is this beautiful mist that covers all of the mountains because it can't escape due to the steepness .  Just spent a lazy 3 days cruising along the Yangtze, meeting different people and learning all about the dam project.  We got to do some neat excursions, such as a Buddhist temple/tourist trap, and ride in a boat on a tributary, pulled by boatmen from the shore.  (These guys traditionally play their trade buck naked, but apparently they wear clothes for the tourists' benefit.  Phew.)

 

We landed in Yichang and disembarked. We are currently here and are leaving on the next flight out tonight to Beijing. We are the only westerners here (really, the ONLY ones) although it boasts itself as a tourist city.

 

Every day has been an adventure and the reason we started this project to begin with. We have come to appreciate all we have in life and have just been rolling with the punches as they seem to fly at us. Most of the time they are funny and have given us a good chuckle.

 

Hope everyone is continuing to have a restful summer!

 

---Gina

I'm Lovin' It

Hi from China, thanks to Sean D. for helping me find a way to write blog posts via e-mail, but I did it wrong at first, so this post is a bit old.  In China, Blogspot.com is blocked for various reasons. 

 

We are now in Xi'an, the ancient capitol city of China.  Several dynasties were based here, and it's now famous for the army of terracotta warriors.  Basically, one of China's more powerful emperors about 2,000 years ago, in preparation for his death, had an army of warriors built out of terracotta for him to be placed in his tomb.  Apparently the reason he built them was because he wanted to be able to defend himself and his empire in the afterlife.  He thought they'd come alive.  The statues average 1.9 meters tall, and are all are unique.  Google it for pictures - we will post our own when we can.  There are 6,000 statues on display and they think that amounts to about 1% of the total number.  It took 70,000 people 37 years to build.  There is apparently also a vault somewhere containing a miniature copy of the kingdom, with the emperor's coffin floating on a river of mercury.  This has yet to be excavated, apparently.

 

And get this - the only reason the army was built out of terracotta was because someone talked the emperor out of burying his real army alive.

 

Also, the original plan was to have all 70,000 workers buried alive with the tomb as well, so no one would know where the entrance is and rob it.  But the workers caught wind of this and revolted, burning down the roof of the vault, crushing all the warriors.  So the ones we see today have been restored.

 

The tomb was pretty fantastic and I recommend that anyone who can, come to see it.  But come on a package tour.  Traveling in China independently has proven to be exceedingly difficult.  For starters, finding someone who speaks English is next to impossible.  This is a particular problem in restaurants, where you have no idea what you are ordering.  You have to find a place with a picture menu, which is in itself a chore.  It's funny, whenever we go out to eat, it attracts about four dozen employees, so by the time we are done ordering we have a whole entourage around us trying to figure out what we want.  Even words you think might be universal, such as "Coca-Cola" or "Internet", are different in Chinese.  God bless our Mandarin phrasebook.

 

Thus the title of this blog.  I have never been so happy to see McDonald's in my life.  Usually, we go out for one meal per day that's adventurous, then go somewhere safe for the other meal.  Yesterday we managed to have a good lunch (Peking duck, yum) and a double cheeseburger with fries for dinner.  I feel bad doing this, because the food in China is supposed to be great, but honestly we are having trouble dealing with it.  Dumplings are somewhat reliable, and you can usually get some kind of stir fry with rice.

 

Traveling in China is also exceedingly hard.  We wanted to take a train from Beijing to here, and we found out all the trains were booked for the following week.  So we had to fly.  But we couldn't book online.  You have to go through a travel agent and have your tickets delivered physically - even for e-tickets.  Which is pretty ridiculous if you ask me.  Booking our travel to Xi'an took about an hour with our English speaking concierge in Beijing.  It would have been utterly impossible without his help. Thankfully, hotel bookings are a bit easier, we have found Expedia to be invaluable. 

 

Once we got here to Xi'an, no one at the hotel spoke English so we were on our own to find our onward ticket.  So we went to the train station.  After weaving our way through the throngs of people outside, and waiting in the wrong line twice, we finally found the ticket hall.  It had 25 windows open, with about 50 people in each line.  It was a madhouse.  People in China don't understand the concept of waiting in line.  Once up front, we realized why it took a half hour to get there - people were shoving their way to the front and blatantly cutting.  Luckily we had our desired train written down, and we were able to purchase a ticket, albeit not in the class we wanted and a day later than we wanted.

 

Xi'an is a nice town, it still has city walls and there are three dozen universities or colleges here.  Tonight, we are taking an overnight sleeper train south to a city called Chongqing (capital of Szechuan province).  They say the food there is great, but we're not staying, as we are getting off the train and onto a boat on the Yangtze river.  Besides, even if we did stay, I am not sure I'd be able to order food anyway.

 

The boat lets us off in a town called Yichang, then we'll have a week to make it back to Beijing.  We leave China on August 1.  This means that we will be completely offline for at least the next four days while we are the boat.

 

China's proving hard, but we are coping OK and managing to keep our bellies full.  We are taking precautions against pickpockets and such, and we're staying totally safe here.