China

Beijing

Beijing has a lot to offer – Forbidden Palace, Tiananmen Square, Temple of Heaven, Summer Palace and of course the famous Great Wall.

On the first day Derek took off and visited the surroundings of the Forbidden Palace, though was barred from visiting the Tiananmen Square as he didn’t bring his passport with him (there was a security check just outside the Square).

The following day we visited Forbidden Palace. To fully enjoy the place you need some powerful elbow muscles as you have to fight your way through the crowd surrounding certain parts of the palace. Later in the afternoon Derek took off again to visit the Temple of Heaven – where Emperors attended annual ceremonies of prayer to Heaven for good harvest.

On Saturday our hostel (9 Dragons House) organized a tour to the unrestored parts of the Great Wall and we decided to visit it along with several other people. On our way there we were treated to a real feast – more than 12 different REAL Chinese dishes served in a family restaurant in the mountains. The food was superb and we wished we could have stayed there longer.

Afterward we took a walk to the Wall – the entire hike to and from took about two hours and we saw some amazing views (see photos). And in the evening we relaxed in a spa – sauna plus 70 minutes of superb massage cost us 59 RMB per person (~ 9 USD). We had the non-happy ending massage in case someone was curious 🙂 .

On Sunday Derek went to see the Summer Palace with its famous Marble Boat – he spent several hours walking the gardens and taking photos, then came back to the hostel with a bit of sunburn and sore feet.

Monday took us by surprise with a bad weather – lots of rain and thunders. We stayed at the hostel most of the time aside from a short visit to the Pearl Market and an evening quest for Hooters (we found the place, but it was closed – wonder why …)

On Tuesday we took a bus to the restored part of the Great Wall in BaDaLing. Scenery out of the Discovery Channel, but crawling with tourists and vendors. Bottle of water, corn and ice cream at least three times as expensive as Beijing (4 corns at Beijing were 3 RMB, 1 corn at BaDaLing was 4 RMB). It was hot and tiring as the steps were VERY steep and people were slow (or perhaps it was us who were fast). After the trip back to Beijing we made a quick visit to the site of Olypmic Games (Bird’s Nest) but departed shortly afterwards as we were getting hungry and there weren’t any food vendors nearby – not even KFC with its DELICIOUS blueberry egg custard tarts ( now Derek’s favorite dessert 🙂 .

We are leaving China after a stopover in Shanghai. The trip to airport included a super-fast magnetically levitated train (MagLev) which reached an amazing 431 km/h (~ 268 mph).

Next stop – Philippines for some relaxation, diving, snorkeling and sunbathing as we await Sam’s (Kama’s brother) arrival in Japan 🙂 .

Short video from the Great Wall:

Xi’An

We arrived in Xi’An, the former capital of China – where the emperor resided, after a 27 tiring hours train ride.

Due to not thinking ahead, we ended up spending the first night in a hotel (we arrived late at night).  The next day, we booked our Hostel and started exploring.

The city’s main attractions were the Drum Tower, Bell Tower, Big Wild Goose Pagoda with its nightly fountain show and the Terracotta Warriors.

The night is full of life with vendors lining the streets with their goods and was in abundance of neon lights. Lots of ice creams sacrificed themselves in order to cool us down (they were pretty cheap and scrumptious after all).

The Terracotta Army was packed with tourists (almost all Chinese) and it was quite hard to fully enjoy the site (it seems to be the case with most of the popular spots around China). Shoving, pushing, cutting in lines and taking their sweet time must have been taught in grade school. Note to selves: bring Tasers – anyone want to send us one ?

On the last day we took a trip to the Panda Research Center outside of Xi’An. To our surprise and delight, not only did we see pandas, along with three other endangered species (Golden Monkey, Golden Takin, and Crested Ibis), but we were also playmates to a baby brown bear. It was like playing with a puppy – extremely curious and playful (and peeing all around the place 🙂

Next stop – the Great Wall in Beijing.

Guilin:

We arrived in Guilin after a 12-hour long train ride in a sleeper compartment where we occupied the top bunk (three bunks per side, 6 total).

The city itself is located on the Li River and surrounded by karst landscape (hills created by water erosion). Barely anyone spoke English (we’re getting used to it – maybe it’s time to learn some Chinese 🙂  as the city targets towards Chinese tourists.

There were only a few things to see – Elephant Hill, Reed Flute Cave and Pagodas. Kama did manage to find a restaurant with good Wes.., err, Chinese food that she enjoyed (and no, it wasn’t McDonald nor KFC).

We spent only a couple of days there and then we took a bus (after a victorious fight with the hawkers trying to scam us into buying tickets from them for a higher price) to Yangshuo.

Yangshuo:

This city is like paradise – with its gorgeous mountainous surroundings and rivers. We took a tour which started off with biking to the bamboo rafts. We left our bikes behind and headed down the Yulong River on the raft.

It was a relaxing ride aside from the roller-coaster-like mini waterfalls we’ve experienced on the way down.  We stopped for a short  snack of fish and beer (only 3.3% alcohol). The entire rafting trip took about an hour.

When we got onshore we discovered to our delight that our bikes (which we presumed were MIA) were waiting for us. We hoped on and biked our way to the Water Cave ticketing office. Our tour bus picked us up and took us on a hair-raising ride from Hell (video to be uploaded soon) – the road was extremely bumpy and the bus’ shock-absorbers were non-existent.

The Water Cave is accessible only by a boat and the ceiling is pretty low at the entrance. Once inside it was very dark but enormous. There was a lot of pools (Derek took a swim there), waterfalls, mud bath (Derek managed to dip one foot in and decided “naaah”)  and hot spring (still undecided on the source of the heat – either natural or boiler .. hmm). We spent half-an-hour relaxing in the hot spring then headed back out.

We are now leaving Yangshuo and heading to Xi’an – the former capitol of China  where we plan on seeing the Terracotta Warriors. The trip there will take 27 hours on the train and hopefully we won’t get mad by the end of it.