My initial edit to 220 balloned to 344 (12 pages of photos) once I added Alex's pictures and Mac's special requests. Have Fun!
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Just a sample of a few of the new images.
Lastly, I won't be updating this blog until we embark on the next voyage. In the mean time, read the Bug Blog. ]]>
5:30 am is suprisingly lively around here. Cole got of his shift at the restaraunt and home about then. So we chatted for a little bit. (Alex had be awake since 4 so he went off to catch a train to DC.) Firth was up by 6 am. By 7 am Mac and Hedy were up. By 7:20, Cole was back downstairs with Clair (2 years) to make breakfast. I'm hoping to squeeze in a run before we go out to breakfast.
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Provinces visited: 8 +Hong Kong (Guangdong, Guanxi, Yunnan, Sichuan, Shaanxi, Hebei, Jiangshu + Beijing & Shanghai cities, administered separately)
Airplanes taken: 8 (4 domestic, 4 international)
Intercity buses taken: 11 (including 1 overnight from Shenzhen to Yangshou)
Trains taken: 3 (including 1 overnight from Beijing to Shanghai)
Mountains Climbed: 2 )Emei Shan in Sichuan, Hua Shan in Shaanxi)
Veritcal meters ascended: 5260 (not including up & down the great wall)
Horizontal kilometers hiked on mountains/walls/trails: about 85 (Emei Shan, Hua Shan, Wolong Reserve, Great Wall
Horizontal kilometers walked in cities: untracked (We covered about 15km on our last day in Shanghai; most city days were similar.)
Books read: 7.5 (still half-way through both Collapse and Dictionary of Maqiao)
Photos taken: about 1700 (on 5 one gig memory cards)
Bottles of water consumed: between 90-180 (hard to say really)
Cups to tea drunk: ?
Pairs of pants lost: 1 (Mine)
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We're in Shanghai for one more day and then we leave China! Alex pointed out that we will have spent 8.5% of 2006 in China.Unfortunately, you will have to wait until we get back for more pictures of Shanghai, etc. It turns out to be too tough in Shanghai/Beijing to find a computer that can both connect to my camera (or a net cafe that allows that) and can resize the pictures (or will let me download a little program to do that). See you all soon!]]>
We were expecting Xi'an to be one of the hottest places we'd visited. We couldn't beleive our luck when we found it to be cold and rainy.
We all enjoyed Xi'an and found it to be a pleasent, attractive city.
Small Goose Pagoda Temple, Xi'an
*Ed. Note: Sorry, no more little pop-up windows for pictures. This hostel charges too much for internet and the upload is taking too long. The rest of the images in this entry will open a new window at full size.
We filed into an airplane hanger built over an archeological site to view the results of one megalomaniac's insanity - The Terracotta Army built to protect the tomb of Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of a united China.
The day after visiting the warriors (and the lovely vegetarian restaurant down by the Small Goose Pagoda for the second time), we boarded a bus for an overnight climb up Hua Shan – one of the most western of China's holy mountains named for the flower petal like peaks at the top.
Sunset from the guesthouse patio shortly before the power went
out due to thunderstorms that didn't actually rain on the mountain.
As we got off the bus on Monday, we were approached by an Australian college student who, like us, didn't understand more than two words of the very extensive instructions of the bus driver or, apparently, orientation guy at the restaurant. The Australian, Luke, quickly befriended a Chinese college student who called himself Chad. Chad had planned to take the cable car up to the top and walk down the following day but decided to join the, now, four of us walking up instead. So, five of us climbed the mountain.
It was a great climb, though extremely steep and the terrain uneven at times, and, although it was 1000 meters and shorter and quicker than Emei Shan, was more tiring than the other climb.
The views were just stunning. The signs warning "No walking while looking; no looking while walking." bore advice worth following.
Sunrise near the East Peak
Looking back on the East Peak just after dawn
Try watching it with the sound off or, as in our case on our last night in Xi'an, dubbed into Mandarin when we were expecting subtitles. It's surprisingly easy to follow. It's slightly harder to keep Mac from inventing his own dialog out loud.
We may have to get someone to explain the finer points of the plot, though.
We found that by the time we hit Beijing, we were a bit glazed by more Ming and Qing architecture and temple-like structures. A wildly overpriced frozen coffee from Starbucks (yes, you read that right) revived us a bit and we tackled some excellent exhibits within the palace museum including some absurdly complicated clocks made in England and France in the 1800's and given to China as gifts.
. .
The private quarters of the palace were fun though – lots of more intimately sized corridors and courtyards and a great garden in the back.
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It is truly lovely, even in a steady drizzle.
We hiked the 10 kilometers hiked from JinShanling to Simatai
It hasn't all held up equally well or been equally
restored.
Here, it's barely wide enough for me to walk on it. Mac went around.
Pretty cool, though.
Look, wildlife!
We spent far to little time on the only trail available to us. You see, the Valley of Hero's trail, which heads off in the other direction, is under construction. Enterprising developers are buidling a hotel at the trail head and paving the path. The workers wouldn't allow us through because "It's not beautiful, yet."
Experiencing nature "in the raw" doesn't seem to have really taken off in China. Paths must be paved; cable cars through stunning scenery must meet new age music from loud speakers; nature must be augmented.
The residents of the Wolong Valley are as entitled to benefit from increased tourism that accompanies China's hard earned affluence as anyone else. They clearly have more rooms than visitors right now but are widening the road and building more facilities in anticipation.
Hiking Yichang this morning was both exhilerating and sad.]]>
Dafo translates to great Buddha, but that really doesn't do him justice. He's enormous! "The Buddha is a mountain. The mountain is a Buddha," explains the brochures.
Unfortunately, the only exit was on the far site of Dafo and we had to race up the narrow stairs and down the mountain's far side to reach our bus to Emei Shan - which we missed. With a little broken Chinese, pointing at signs, and hand gestures, and a lot of luck, we ended up on a bus back to the long distance bus station and only the last bus of the day to Emei town, 7 km from the mountain.
The guesthouse we reserved near Baguo Si, at the base of Emei Shan, was overbooked. Andy, the nice, if distracted, proprietor of the Teddy Bear Guesthouse took us to his "sister's" hotel down the road, where, after a little discussion, we agreed to stay in one room with a gigantic bed. It had AC and a TV showing a newish Jackie Chan flick (no English, but you don't watch Jackie for plot anyway) and the bed slept three across quite easily. Back at Andy's for dinner, we had lovely chocolate & banana pancakes (crepes really) for dessert. Mac and Alex taught a local college kid who introduced himself as "Francis" to play gin-rummy - it's really a lot like Mah Jong - while I procured hiking tips from the staff.
Mt. Emei is amazing, though our first day was far from relaxing. The heat and the crowds between Wainnian Si and Qingyin Pavilion were oppressive. You might think you've experienced crowds, but until you've visited a major tourist site on a weekend during school holidays in China, you really haven't (doubtless there are some places in India that are similar). Of the two of us, Mac is more sensitive to heat but I am more sensitive to noise. I can take sweltering quiet for a a good long while, but add thousands of shouting tourists and vendors trying to sell them things, and my resolve simply fails.
We actually took a wrong turn and ended up heading down the mountain until and old man at a very quiet "snack counter" set us right. After selling us drinks, a map, a fan, some rice gruel and pickled cabbage, of course. The rest and food dis us some good and we plowed back into the crowds at Qingyin Pavilion where we got back on the southern route to the top. The next hour or so past streams of bathers and chaperoned monkeys wasn't bad and the crowds completely evaporated past the "ecological monkey habitat" as most tourists headed back down to catch a bus to the summit.
With the trail finally quiet enough to hear the birds and bugs and frogs and for butterflies (Emei has hundreds of varieties) to begin to make an appearance, we began to really enjoy ourselves. After 7 hours of hiking (though some of it in the wrong direction) we stopped at Hongchunping monastery for the night.
The second day was at once wonderful and grueling. The scenery is amazing and the temperature dropped some, but the whole climb involves well over 10,000 steps that seem endless.
We each had our own pace on the stairs. I found them rather meditative and can climb slowly and steadily for a long time when only thinking about one step at a time. At one point I passed Mac at a pavilion, "Can't stop now; I'm in a groove."
The demographic of the Emei Shan tourist had totally changed. Sunday's walk was dominated by middle class families with kids. Monday we saw a few families and groups of young people but far more older to elderly climbers, many wearing only hand woven rope sandals.
At one point, Mac said the climb felt a bit like Frodo and Sam. "Sure," I said, "If Moria had snack stands every couple of kilometers."
We actually climbed more on Monday than we planned. Xisheng Si (Elephant Bathing Temple) was our intended stopover for the night. However, we didn't realize it when we passed it - went through it actually - and kept on climbing until we hit the junction with the road the snakes up the other side of the mountain to the cable car to the summit.
After 9 hours of climbing, we were faced with a choice of going back to Xisheng (yeah, right), staying at the unappealing hotels near the road, slogging on for another couple of hours to the summit, or taking a 15 minute ski lift ride to the top. What do you think we did?
It's too bad we were so tuckered and didn't take photos of the summit when we arrived. The view is amazing, looking down on a sea of clouds with shadows of trees and lower peaks occasionally coming into view. The following morning, the summit was wrapped in a cloud. Alex and I dressed by flashlight at 4:55 am (as not to wake Mac who does not do sunrise) and watched the fog grow lighter and lighter for about an hour. We were a touch early for sunrise (apparently the hotels do a wake-up call at 5:25 for all guests and were on the Golden Summit Temple viewing platform in the dark by ourselves for a bit. Slowly we were joined by shadows of other mumbling tourists. At one point it started to drizzle and all the Chinese tourists vanished, leaving me, Alex, and some guy from Boston huddled under an overhang watching the fog grow brighter. 
(Emei's Golden Summit before and after sunrise)
After a nap, we checked the fog at the summit one more time and took the cable car and then the bus back to the base of the mountain for more chocolate pancake and a bus back to Chengdu.
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18:30 - Leave guest house; assure Alex that we have plenty of time; go get a snack; attempt to buy Tylenol or equivalent; attempt to withdrawal cash from several ATMs (4th time's the charm); walk to airport bus.
20:20 - Arrive at airport bus stop; discuss; ask directions; return to the bus with the picture of an airplane.
20:40 - Bus departs for airport.
21:10 - Arrive at airport too early for check-in; hang around until line opens for our flight.
21:30 - Sitting by the gate, check-in/security completed.
22:27 - Announcement that Flight 8694 to Chengdu is Delayed; instructions unclear; other passengers all head for airport entrance.
22:28 - Alex determines that we should follow.
22:32 - Nice lady explains that it will be a long delay and we are being taken to a hotel to rest.
22:46 - Board bus for hotel.
23:02 - Arrive at hotel; wait in line to be assigned a room; find room; determine phone doesn't work; check Alex's room.
23:12 - Get front desk staff to help call Chengdu guest house; fuss over number; eventually figure out to dial "0".
23:30 - Go back to room; brush teeth, wash up.
23:35 - Lie down for nap.
00:01 - Wake up call.
00:07 - Bus departs for airport, again.
00:23 - Back at airport.
00:35 - Through security, again.
00:40 - As directed, line up for complementary snacks; determine that there are no vegetarian noodle soups and be given an excessive number of muffins to compensate.
00:45 - Eat a muffin.
00:48 - Reconsider 4 packages of muffins (of 4 muffins each); return 2 packages.
00:55 - Board airplane.
01:07 - Plane takes off.
While boarding, I asked Alex, "If this is what they do for a bit more than a 2 hour delay, what happens if they loose your luggage?" Alex didn't think it was a funny question.]]>
The virus that knocked out Alex incapacitated each of us in turn over our three days in Lijiang. By Tuesday, Alex was beginning to recover but Mac was down with a fever. I napped a bunch that day, hoping to stave off the worst. I seem to have skirted the fever, but all of us got the congestion, cough, and exhaustion. We spent our three days in Lijiang mostly alternating between napping and sitting in cafes. Luckily, we were staying in a lovely guest house not too far from food.
Unfortunately, we didn't see much of Lijiang. The Old Town is full of shops selling tourist trinkets and bland food but the countryside is supposed to be lovely. Mac and Alex got to Black Water Pool park on my worst day (no picture obviously as I was asleep) and we all went to the reconstructed palace on the final day. By Thursday night, we were all on the road to recovery and off to Chengdu.]]>
Alex is down with a cold and Mac may have eaten to many lechee nuts and didn't want to venture far from the bathroom. This is a rare opportunity to be alone with my thoughts, even among thousands of tourists crowding Lijiang's alleys and streets.]]>
Shilin's Sani and Lijiang's Naxi people wear colorful traditional costumes. In Shilin, it's clearly for the tourists; in Lijiang, perhaps not. The amazing karst strewn landscapes of Yangshuo, Shilin, and mountains of Lijiang contrast the dense and dirty cities. There is an shocking haze in Kunming where the geography and prevailing winds are not unlike Denver or Los Angeles, creating a basin to hold the smog from its ever growing fleet of cars. The smog limits the view and the soot stains the buildings. The combination prompts some residents to wear masks when cycling to work. Still, there are bright patches. The colorful Yuantong temple provides an oasis of calm among Kunming's frenetic streets.
In a nation with 2 billion people mostly packed into eastern China, you are never far from another person. Sounds around natural and man made:
The roar
The song 
While not unheard of, the directive "look but don't touch" is not the predominant one in China. Everyone touches. The bronze tributes to communist iconography in the city parks all have shinning coppery spots from countless fingers. The marble lions at the temples all have shiny heads from the petting of millions. The rocks in Shilin, too, are shinny from admiring hands. The freedom to touch is liberating; the tactile experience - satisfiying.
The senses take it all in as we've barely begun to explore all the places that make up China. ]]>
Mahjong Players in the East Pagoda Garden
Kids Playing in the Fountain in Front of the East & West Pagodas
Tourist Snapshot in Front of The East Pagoda
Alex Under "Overhanging Rock"
Shilin's Karst Formations
Lush Greens Offset the Grey Rock
Mac Climbing Up One of the Lesser-Used Paths
Finally At The Top
Jen At The Top, Too
Black Pool
Mac Writing It All Down