china 4

i ended up in beijing again for a day after returning from pyongyang...kitty's boyfriend picked up the two of us from the airport, which was really nice...his name is bing (yes, like the new search engine microsoft is trying to promote) and he speaks fluent english...she speaks fluent putonghua, so their conversations go back and forth between the two languages...i loved listening...
we went to kitty's apartment so we could upload all of our photos to her computer and burn them onto dvds together...she had run out of memory on her camera, so she used one of my memory cards during the last day of the tour...she lives in an awesome apartment...it's in one of the diplomatic compounds, and is HUGE...a big living room, two large bedrooms, a nice big bathroom, an entry hallway, a kitchen, etc...NICE!!! we went to lunch, she ordered for all of us...yummy dumplings with various fillings, one even had soup in there!!! she and bing went for massages they had scheduled earlier, and i was able to play around on internet for a while...she's got some program that makes the computer people in china think she's in the states, so i was able to access blogs and sites like facebook that i wasn't normally able to get to in china...clearly, i wasted a couple of hours, but it felt good...when they got back from their massages, bing called a hostel he knew of in xi'an and booked me in for the next day...how great a guy is that??!!!
after hanging out and watching a couple episodes of arrested development (which i've never before seen but kitty enjoys and bing tolerates) we went to a grocery store so i could get some snacks for the train...by that point i had a massive headache from all the traveling during the day and whatnot, and i was incapable of making decisions...kitty found me in one of the aisles just staring at biscuits, not able to think or figure out what i wanted...lol...after the grocery store they drove me to the train station i needed...again, AWESOME PEOPLE!!!!!!!!!!
my night train arrived in xian earlier than expected, which was both good and bad...bing had arranged for the hostel people to come pick me up, but they werent there...and i didn't know the name of the hostel...so i called his mobile and he told me to hop in a taxi and have the driver call him, and he'd give the driver directions...which i did, he did, and everything was fantastic...the hostel was GREAT...i had a six bed dorm to myself the whole time...another water filter, more free internet...plus, at the end, when i needed to print out an address in chinese characters the printer wasn't working, but one of the hostel staff wrote it out for me (i pulled up the message from email) on a piece of paper...i love helpful people...
xi'an is another ancient capital of china...it was the seat of emperor qin shi huang, of the qing dynasty...i think...he was known as the great unifier...i guess before him china wasn't really one country, it was a whole bunch of kingdoms and the like that usually worked together a bit, but not always...anywho, his armies got everyone together...like it or not...he thought a lot of himself, and was rather tyrannical...according to some person or another, he even made most tyrants look good compared to him!!...(though chinese historians are trying to make him sound a bit nicer now)...his tomb is not too far from the city...his tomb isn't actually open to go into, as archeologists haven't gone into it themselves...they don't think they'll find much in there, they're pretty sure it was looted not too long after the guy was buried...some people pay to wander around the area anywho...(have i mentioned that nothing in china is free? even an unopened tomb?)...the guy thought so much of himself that he assumed he would continue to rule even after death...in preparation for that, he had two bronze chariots buried in his tomb...he also had the army of terracotta warriors created...it's one of the most famous sights in china...
absolutely STUNNING...around 7000 individual soldiers were created...the detail in which they were created is awesome...each one of them has a different face...all of their uniforms are accurate, and you can even see things like the treads on the bottoms of the shoes of the kneeling archers!!! the site has been excavated in three pits...pit 3 is where the command center would've been...it's filled with senior officers, and the nicer horses...pit 2 is the least excavated, but it's huge, and promises to have quite a few horses and soldiers in it...pit 1 is the most impressive...it's been mostly excavated, and archeologists are doing a great job of putting some of the soldiers back together properly and standing them all as they once stood...an incredible sight...well worth the 90 yuan ($1USD = 6.5 yuan) fee...the whole thing is brilliant...
because xi'an was an ancient city, that means they also had city walls...unlike just about everywhere but nanjing, the city walls are still intact...you can walk all the way around them, it takes about 4 hours at a leisurely pace...i did it in 3, walking quickly...the walls are wide, and the renovations have been done really well...all the original watchtowers and gates have been kept in decent condition as well...xi'an retains it's original drum tower and bell tower as well...i didn't reckon i'd see anything exceptional from inside either one, so i opted just to walk around outside, for free...they're in the middle of the area covered by the old city walls, and there is a large market area near the old drum tower...the market is mostly full of stalls selling kitchy knick knacks, but there are some good food stalls too...during this visit to china i've fallen in love with chinese street food...it's great!!
from xi'an i took a night train to shanghai...now it was my turn to have a standing room ticket...it was definitely a LOOOOOOONG night...especially as the train was over an hour late in arriving in shanghai...fortunately, my friend claire had given me her address written in chinese characters, as well as excellent written directions, so it was easy to get a taxi to the right intersection, then walk to her flat...
claire has a fantastic flat, i'm quite jealous!! she's really close to her university, and really close to any shopping she might need...and not too far from a subway station, though a new one is supposed to open up even closer to her flat in october (a 5 minute walk!)...claire is a friend of mine through rugby in korea, for those of you who don't know...she's canadian...which, as we pointed out to a taxi driver in seoul, long ago, is NOT the same as american...hee hee...
shanghai is under construction at the mo, well, the parts that tourists would want to see...the city is preparing to host the world expo next year...so i didn't get to walk along the bund as i wanted to, but oh well...shanghai is like no other part of china...it's the most modern city, it doesn't have the ancient traditions of xian or beijing...but it still has a personality...
one of the nights claire and i met up with some of the folks she's met for drinks and dinner...dinner for me, drinks for everyone else...lol...one of the funniest nights i've had in a long time...(claire, you'll remember orange jello and lemon jello?)...the following afternoon i attended touch rugby practice...lets just say that i'm a wee bit out of shape...but it felt good to be running around...whereva i end up next, i need to get involved in the local rugby crowd!
anywho, i thought i was flying out of shanghai...b/c the air asia web site lists shanghai...but when i looked closer at my itinerary, it was actually for hangzhou airport, which is a couple hours away...ooops...so i had to train it to hangzhou, then catch a bus to the airport...not difficult at all, except that the train was over an hour late in leaving shanghai, and finding the shuttle bus to the airport in hangzhou was only accomplished with the assistance of a chinese speaking british guy...thank goodness for strangers!!!
and that's the end of china...