Shanghai, China

Shanghai was a stark contrast to Beijing and Xi'an. As we had heard it would be, Shanghai was a very large, modern city. But there were a couple of historical sites we enjoyed here as well. I don't know if we were just tired, or if it's just that Beijing and Xi'an were so impressive, but we were not quite as enthralled with Shanghai. Maybe because Shanghai is known for its shopping, and I was too exhausted with the shopping (bargaining) process.

Jade Buddha Temple

Our first stop in Shanghai was the Jade Buddha Temple. In 1882, an old temple was built to keep two jade Buddha statues, which had been brought from Burma by a monk named Huigen. The temple was destroyed during the revolution that overthrew the Qing Dynasty. Fortunately, the jade Buddha statues were saved and a new temple was built on the present site in 1928. It was named the Jade Buddha Temple. The photo shows a replica of one of the Buddhas. It is made of marble, while the real jade Buddha is made of white jade.

This was the only Buddhist temple we've ever vistited where photos were allowed in some places, so we snapped away. Here Brian took a photo and video of some Buddhist monks chanting and praying.



The Bund

The word "Bund" means an embankment or an embanked quay, and comes from the Urdu word "band," meaning an embankment, levee or dam. The term was brought to India (where it came to be pronounced as "bund") and then to Shanghai.

The Bund stretches one mile along the bank of the Huangpu River in Shanghai. It is a historically protected area, with many preserved old buildings. There was a fabulous view of modern downtown Shanghai as well. It could've been a tad clearer, but you get the idea.

Yuyuan Garden and Old Town

Yuyuan Garden is a famous classical garden located in Anren Jie, Shanghai. The garden was finished in 1577 by a government officer of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) named Pan Yunduan.

Yu in Chinese means "pleasing and satisfying," and this garden was specially built for Pan's parents as a place for them to enjoy a tranquil and happy time in their old age.

Acrobatics Show

We saw some renowned Chinese acrobats on our last night in China.

Here's a man jumping through hoops, literally.

And here are some women balancing multiple spinning plates on sticks.

Sydney slept through most of the show, but woke up near the end. Although she still looks catatonic, she's quite impressed. Here she's clapping and enjoying the music in particular. It was a nice finish to our trip!

Xi'an, China

We knew we were in another city the minute we stepped off the plane in Xi'an because of the air quality. Driving from the airport, our tour guide explained that the rural farming areas stirred

up dust for the city, although Brian had his suspicions it was a smidge of smog as well.

Another thing our tour guide pointed out immediately is that men in Xi'an have a bad habit (her judgment, not mine) of squatting rather than sitting to take a load off. We knew Sydney would fit right in, since she's been striking this pose most of her toddler life. Although the men in Xi'an don't seem to make the same hand gestures. (And no, she's not pooping.)

Before visiting Xi'an, I had thought Europeans were the only smart ones when it comes to break time, but it turns out people in Xi'an also have the right idea; they take 2-hour lunches, closing up shop to allow time for a catnap. Maybe the U.S. is too "developed." In any case, we only spent one day in Xi'an, but it was a highlight of our China trip as well.

Terra Cotta Warriors

In particular, the Terra Cotta Warriors in Xi'an were a close second to the Great Wall, our favorite sight in China. These life-size clay soldiers were only recently unearthed, in 1974 by mistake actually, when some farmers were digging a well. They are part of the tomb of Qin Shi Huang, the first Emperor of all of China, and were created between 211 and 206 B.C. (Incidentally, B.C. is "Before Century" per Chinese people, who don't believe in "Before Christ." Not sure what they interpret A.D to mean, but I venture to guess it doesn't involve the word "Domini"...)

The sheer number of these soldiers, along with their wooden carriages and clay horses, is awesome. Altogether over 7,000 pottery soldiers, horses, chariots, and even weapons have been unearthed from three separate pits. They were tagged according to their discovery. Pit 1 has the largest collection of figures (see photo to the left). Pit 2 is located 20 meters from Pit 1 and contains over 1,000 soldiers and 90 chariots of wood. Pit 3 is the smallest, but appears to be the command center of the military forces, with 68 soldiers, a war chariot and 4 horses (see photo to the right).

Most of the statues have been restored, as they were largely found in pieces. Interestingly, the mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang is located some 1.5 km away from any of these pits, which suggests these findings may be the "tip of the iceberg" and there may be many more artifacts closer to the actual tomb of the Emperor. They are still digging to find out.

It was profound to me that any one man could think so highly of himself to 1) declare himself the first Emperor of China, and 2) command that his people go to such great efforts to construct this excessive amount of fabulous clay sculpture only for it to be buried underground for no one to enjoy. And it is almost incredible that he (they) believed at that time that he needed to take his terra cotta warriors with him when he died, since we believe "you can't take it with you"!

In this photo, Brian makes Sydney "try on" the armor of a terra cotta warrior and--shocker--she's not too happy about it.

Banpo Neolithic Museum

If you think it is amazing to be standing at a site that is over 2000 years old, then you will also be impressed that we stood at the remains of a civilization over 6,000 years old. Also in Xi'an, we visited the Banpo Neolithic Village Museum, which is a museum literally built over the archeological findings of a village over 6,000 years old.

This was a typical Neolithic matriarchal community of the Yangshao culture, where women were the main laborers. The Banpo people used tools made of wood and stone and the women were responsible for pottery, spinning, and raising the family, while the men merely fished. Sounds like leisure activity to me. But then again, most men today thinking being a "stay-at-home mom" is leisure activity, and I know otherwise.

The museum's exhibition halls showcase many of the tools and pottery used during this time, including a clay steamer shown in this photo. The site hall is about 3,000 square meters and contains residential, pottery making and burial sections. The residential section is the main part of the site, including the huts, kilns and tombs of the primitive residents. The photo below shows the remains of one of the huts. Built a foot or so into the ground, there were posts in the holes and the outside was made of thatch covered with clay and shaped like a teepee (for lack of a better word to describe it).

There are many bodily remains displayed among the archeological findings, but perhaps the saddest thing you see are two pottery jars pot together to form the burial tomb of infants. You definitely get a sense of the hardships such primitive people had to endure while building a civilization. But it was very interesting to see the remnants of a hut and know that someone was living on this same piece of earth more than 6,000 years ago. You really have to go to China to be a part of such ancient history.

The Great Mosque

The Great Mosque at Hua Jue is the largest in Xi'an and it is one of the earliest mosques built on a relatively large scale. It is also one of the most well-preserved mosques in China. The mosque is said to have been built in the Tang Dynasty (618-907AD). However, the architectural style of the mosque suggests a possible building dating back to the Ming Dynasty (1386-1644AD), maybe because renovations were done then.

Unlike most mosques in Middle Eastern or Arab countries, the Great Mosque of Xi'an is completely Chinese in its construction and architectural style, except for some Arabic lettering and decorations, for the mosque has neither domes nor minarets. Muslims in China do, however, share very much the same customs with their fellow believers elsewhere in the world. They worship five times a day: at dawn, at noon, in the afternoon, at dusk, and at night. There is a clock on the temple wall showing the five times (relative to Mecca) a day to pray, which changes throughout the year.

Here, too, people stopped to admire Sydney and snap photos. Brian thought turnabout is fair play, so he literally turned around to snap a photo of these Muslims. The photographer's not quite sure why Brian is taking their picture, nor am I...but it was kind of funny anyway.

We're on to our third and final city next: Shanghai. And then I'll make some random comments, including Chinese arts and crafts and a final soliloquy with more general insight into travel in China. Sick of hearing about China yet???

Beijing Hutong Tour

In Beijing, hutongs are alleys formed by lines of siheyuan, traditional courtyard residences. In old China, many neighborhoods were traditionally formed by joining one siheyuan to another to form a hutong, and then joining one hutong to another. Many hutongs are between only 40 centimeters and 10 meters wide. Since the mid-20th century, the number of Beijing hutongs has dropped dramatically as they are demolished to make way for new roads and buildings. More recently, some hutongs have been designated as protected areas in an attempt to preserve this aspect of Chinese cultural history.

We were able to take a bicycle rickshaw tour of a Hutong area of Beijing. It was a glimpse into how "old China" is very much alive in current China. And of course these neighborhoods made us very aware of the economic divide among Chinese people. What really grabbed my attention is that 30 people in these neighborhoods share a public bathroom since there is often no toilet or running water in these homes.

Here Brian and Sydney are in the courtyard of one Hutong residence, which has been turned into an informal guest house for tourists, and was also open for tourists to enter for a look around. We're drinking tea and learning more about the Hutong way of life while Sydney attempts a get-away. (Actually I was afraid to drink it since we had learned the optimal tea brewing temperature is 80 degrees, which won't kill enough germs for my taste, literally.)

This particular residence seemed very nice and the courtyard was a great gathering place. There were four separate buildings forming the square courtyard. Each building housed a different room of the house. This photo shows the sitting room. It seemed the rooms were fairly small given the fact that extended families would live in these homes together.

Here is an old entrance to a typical Hutong residence. From the doorway, you can tell the "class" of the inhabitants. In this case, a common military person lived here, we were told. And I thought we were common military folks...makes us glad times have changed and that we live in a developed country.

Beijing Part 3:

Temple of Heaven

The Temple of Heaven is a Taoist sacrificial "altar of heaven" constructed in 1420. All emporers of the Ming and Qing dynasties visited the altar. There are three main parts to the temple:

1. The Earthly Mount is the altar proper. It is an empty platform on three levels of marble stones, where the Emperor prayed for favourable weather;



2. The House of Heavenly Lord, a single-gabled circular building, built on a single level of marble stone base, where the altars were housed when not in use;



3. The Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests, a magnificent triple-gabled circular building, built on three levels of marble stone base, where the Emperor prayed for good harvests. It is 32 meters in diameter and 38 metres tall. It has four inner, twelve middle and twelve outer pillars, representing the four seasons, twelve months and twelve traditional Chinese hours respectively. Amazingly, the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests was built without a single nail. Here is our favorite little tour guide Sydney in front of the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests.
   

Many Chinese people were gathered around the Temple of Heaven grounds singing together or playing music. We took two short videos when a man was playing a Chinese instrument while Sydney danced. At first, it was just a little toe tapping. Then, once she gets going, she really gets her groove on.

We were also very interested in the Chinese calligraphy that this man was "painting" on the walkway with water. He was practicing his calligraphy by painting a Chinese poem for all (except us, of course) to read. Sorry, no translation is available.

Imperial Summer Palace

The Summer Palace in Beijing was first built in 1750 but then was largely destroyed in the war of 1860. It was restored on its original foundations in 1886 and 1902 and is a masterpiece of Chinese landscape garden design. The natural landscape of hills and open water is combined with artificial features such as pavilions, halls, palaces, temples and bridges.

As you may know, unlike Japan, China does not still have an Emporer. So, the beautiful palace grounds serve as a public park as well as a historical site. There are some famous features within the Summer Palace, including the following:

Kunming lake occupies three-fourths of the park's land and across the lake spans the famous Seventeen-arch Bridge. The bridge was designed so that from the center arch, one can count 9 arches in either direction, which is a lucky number.

We took the (above pictured) dragon boat to get to the longest covered corridor in the world, which is 728 meters long and painted with more than 14,000 paintings. It was built in 1750 so the Emperor's mother could walk in the gardens protected from the elements.

There is a famous "marble" boat at the Summer Palace. It was originally constructed in 1755 and is made of wood, but is painted to look like marble.

We also saw many Chinese people, mostly ladies, doing their morning exercises on the Summer Palace grounds, and of course we captured a snippet of this on video for your viewing pleasure.

Lama Temple

Yonghe Temple, or the "Lama Temple" is a temple and monastery of the Geluk School of Tibetan Buddhism located in the northeastern part of Beijing, China. It is one of the largest and most important Tibetan Buddhist monasteries in the world. The building and the artworks of the temple combine Han Chinese and Tibetan styles.

Construction on the Lama Temple started in 1694 during the Qing Dynasty. It originally served as an official residence for court eunuchs. It was then converted into the court of the Prince Yong, a son of the Kangxi Emperor and himself the future Yongzheng Emperor. After Yongzheng's ascension to the throne in 1722, half of the building was converted into a lamasery, a monastery for monks of Tibetan Buddhism. The other half remained an imperial palace.

After Yongzheng's death in 1735, his coffin was placed in the temple. The Qianlong Emperor, Yongzheng's successor, gave the temple imperial status signified by having its turquoise tiles replaced with yellow tiles which were reserved for the emperor. Subsequently, the monastery became a residence for large numbers of Tibetan Buddhist monks from Mongolia and Tibet, and so the Yonghe Lamasery became the national centre of Lama administration.

Along the central axis of the Temple grounds, there are five main halls which are separated by courtyards: the Hall of the Heavenly Kings, the Hall of Harmony and Peace, the Hall of Everlasting Protection, the Hall of the Wheel of the Law, and the Pavilion of Ten Thousand Happinesses.

It is said that one has "read" Buddhist scriptures one time through for every spin of this metal "scroll." I would have thought that Brian would be more into this sort of osmotic and efficient "Bible study," although here you see he only half-heartedly engages the scroll at my urging...what a good sport!

My sister's been visiting, so we've been busy. But stay tuned for more on China and our recent sightseeing in Japan, including our first-time trip to Hakone to see the elusive Mt. Fuji.

Beijing Part 2:

The Great Wall of China

Visiting the Great Wall of China was indeed the highlight of our trip. This brick, stone and earthen wall is a magnificent structure, which spans over 4,000 miles from Shanhai Pass in the east to Lop Nur in the west, along a winding arc that roughly outlines the southern edge of Inner Mongolia. It is also the largest human-made structure ever built in terms of surface area and mass. It was built, rebuilt and maintained between the 5th century BC and the 16th century to protect the northern borders of the Chinese Empire during the rule of successive dynasties.

Several walls, referred to as the Great Wall of China, were built since the 5th century BC, the most famous being the one built between 220 BC and 200 BC by the first Emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang. That wall was much further north than the current wall, built during the Ming Dynasty, and little of it remains today.

We visited the Mutiyanu section of the Great Wall, about 1 hour North of Beijing. As we walked the Wall, there are some very steep sections and steep steps.

The picture to the right shows us with our tour guide Martin. For those inquiring minds, he is standing on the highest point of the wall we were standing on.....but he is still much taller than both of us. So the answer to your question is, No....the Norwoods are not giants in China either! Martin told us he loved military movies and he was always dressed in some sort of military clothes with his dog tags. He also is a fan of Desperate Housewives...go figure!

It's hard to imagine the Mongolian armies scaling these mountains to pillage China alone, but it is even harder to imagine them scaling the Great Wall with all of its full-time guards. But I guess during times of scarcity in the cold north, hunger can be a pretty big incentive. The picture to the left shows the small holes used by the guards to fire arrows at the oncoming Mongolians.

The picture on the right shows one of the holes where carrier pigeons were kept. These pigeons were used to send messages to the Chinese army. The guards also used warning fires and actually used feces of different animals to send messages coded by the particular smell. Martin told us that the entire army in Beijing could be ready to defend Beijing within 2 hours of receiving word of an oncoming attack.

You can also go up on the roof of some of the guard stations for the best views.

You take a gondola to reach the Great Wall. (On the way down, even Sydney noticed the scenery from the gondola and began pointing and saying, "Wow.")

The Great Wall of China was every bit the awe-inspiring, man-made, historical creation that we expected it to be. And the beautiful blue sky was the perfect natural backdrop.

The Ming Tombs (including The Sacred Way)

The Ming Tombs were listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in August 2003. They are the mausoleums of 13 emperors of the Ming Dynasty (1368 - 1644) and are located about 50 km north of Beijing. The site was chosen by the third Ming Dynasty emperor Yongle (1402 - 1424), who moved the capital of China from Nanjing to Beijing. He is credited with envisioning the layout of the ancient city of Beijing. After the construction of the Imperial Palace (the Forbidden City) in 1420, the Yongle Emperor selected his burial site and created his own mausoleum.

From the Yongle Emperor onwards, 13 of 16 Ming Dynasty Emperors were buried in this area. The tombs of the first two Ming Emperors are located near Nanjing (the capital city during their reigns). Emperor Jingtai was also not buried here as the Emperor Tianshun had denied Jingtai an imperial burial but was instead buried west of Beijing.

The site of the Ming Dynasty Imperial Tombs was carefully chosen according to Feng Shui(geomancy) principles. According to these, bad spirits and evil winds descending from the North must be deflected; therefore, an arc-shaped area at the foot of the Jundu Mountains north of Beijing was selected. This 40 square kilometer area - enclosed by the mountains in a pristine, quiet valley full of dark earth, tranquil water and other necessities as per Feng Shui - became the necropolis of the Ming Dynasty.

In front of the Ming Tombs, there is a walk called the "Sacred Way," leading the way to Heaven. The Emperor, known as the Son of the Heaven, who came from Heaven to his country through the Sacred Way, also would return to Heaven through this road. The road is lined with stone statues. At the end of the road, is a large statue of a turtle (symbol of longevity) holding a tablet with Chinese inscription. It is said if you touch the head and tail end of the turtle, you will have good luck. We figured it was worth a try.

The statues are 12 human figures (including the general, civil officials and meritorious officials) and 24 animals which are lion, camel, elephant, xiezhi (a mythological unicorn), qilin (one of the four "divine animals, the other three are dragon, phoenix and tortoise), and horse. There are 4 of each of these animals: two standing and two squatting with different meanings. It is said that these animals change guard at midnight...

No time on this tour to stick around and find out...we were on to the next stop!

We're Back from China!

We left the land of the rising sun a little over a week ago to travel to Japan's roots in the much more ancient land of China. We decided to embark on this journey now since:

1. It's only a few hours from Japan.

2. We could not even imagine undertaking this adventure with 2 small children.

We had an amazing, enlightening, and completely exhausting experience traveling to 3 major cities in China within 6 days. We have been struggling with how to share our experience because of the sheer number of sights we visited and with how to incorporate some of the 600+ pictures we took. We decided to just dive right in and start one-by-one (through the sights, not the photos, don't worry!)

As an introduction we should tell you that in each city we had our own private tour guide and driver. Unlike in the US and many other countries, in China being a tour guide is a very competive and highly respected profession. All of our tour guides had been to university to study English and majored in tourism. They were all very professional and full of information. Without them China would have been a very difficult (to say the least) country to travel in. We especially liked our first 2 tour guides in Beijing and Xi'an. Our tour guide in Shanghai was much more business like and we did not connect with him in the same way (and he is the only one that didn't get our blog address...not that he would have been interested since he was always so busy doing other things like checking his stocks on his cell phone...but more on that later).


Beijing: Part I: Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City

Our first stop was Tiananmen Square. As our tour guide (whose Chinese name was too difficult for us to remember and asked for us to call him Martin) pointed out, Tiananmen Square is the center of Beijing and the heart of China. It is the main plaza in Beijing and is directly in front of the Forbidden City where Emperors in China reigned for over 500 years. Tiananmen refers to the northern gate in the distance in the first picture which separates the square from the Forbidden City and literally means "gate of heavenly peace." The square encompasses a total area of 440,000 square meters, which makes it the largest open-urban square in the world. The square is also the site of several key events in Chinese history. Most people outside of China remember Tiananmen Square as the site of the 1989 uprising. The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 were a series of demonstrations led by students and intellectuals between April 15th and June 5th, 1989. The protests started because of criticism of the Communist Party. The protests eventually resulted in a military crackdown that left many civilians dead or injured. The death toll ranges from 200 to several thousand people depending on the source.


Our time in Tianenmen Square was mostly spent running from place to place to talk with our tour guide as we tried to escape crowds of Chinese people wanting to touch, hug, and take pictures with Sydney. Who new that taking a cute blond-haired petite toddler to a country that only allows one child per couple (with some exceptions) could attract so much attention? After experiencing this throughout our travels in China we were both quite sure that we could never be celebrities and we had a new found understanding of celebrities contempt for the papparazzi. Our tour guides became instrumental in telling people that they could not take any more pictures and in retreiving our daughter from the crowds...somehow I doubt they learned how to do this at their Universities. We will soon post some of the pictures of Sydney and her fans in the gallery!


The Forbidden City is a complex consisting of 800 buildings with just under 10,000 "rooms" and covers 720,000 square metres. A "room" is the space between 4 pillars. Forbidden refers to the fact that no-one could enter or leave the palace without the emperor's permission. Construction began in 1406 and lasted for 14 years and used an estimated 200,000 workers. The Forbidden City was declared a World Heritage Site in 1987 and is the largest collection of preserved ancient wooden structures in the world. Of course, just like in Japan, almost all of these structures have been struck by lightning, burned down, and then rebuilt at least several times. They all now have wire outlines that serve as lightning rods.





You may recognize parts of the Forbidden city as it was used for the movie The Last Emperor.


















One interesting thing that we discerned is that the Emperors were all paranoid, and apparently history proved several times that they were right to be so. The picture to the left is of the original brick floor in the Forbidden City. It is composed of 15 layers of bricks in criss-cross fashion and was designed so that no one could dig a tunnel under the Forbidden City and gain access to the Emperor. One other striking feature that the only trees or plants in the Forbidden City were in a small garden section at the far end of the complex. The emperors ordered that no trees would be in the main complex because they feared their enemies would hide in the trees. They also wanted nothing to exceed the height of the Hall of Supreme Harmony, where the Emporer gave his orders. The Chinese symbol for tree also is closely related to the symbol for trouble. We also learned that this general paranoia lasted well after the Emperor's deaths as even their tombs were designed for protection (but more on that later).


Can you guess what is contained within the Forbidden City building on the right? It is the only restaurant in the Forbidden City. Well, of course it's Starbucks! We were amazed that not only was there McDonald's, KFC, and Pizza Hut everywhere in China, but that these were all outnumbered by the amount of Starbucks there were! This Starbucks shop used to have a large sign, but this was removed and now the Starbucks in the Forbidden City is even more famous.

That's enough for one entry...stay tuned for a lot more about our trip!