Richard's Travel Blog

Myung and I are taking it pretty easy in Beijing. We’re staying a half hour bus ride away from city center at one of China’s answers to Motel 6. It’s called 99 Inn because the standard, clean room with bathoom/shower, TV and hot water pot is 99 yuan, a good deal compared to in the city center near Tiananmen Square/The Forbidden City where rooms are at least double. The grub and everything is cheaper out here, too, not to mention it’s way less hectic during this May Day holiday weekend. She, especially, doesn’t need to gallivant around Beijing. She’s been here several times. I didn’t even know it till yesterday, but she spent a couple of years in nearby Tianjin. I’m up for doing the usual stuff tourists do in Beijing, and she’s accompanying me most of the time, whenever it doesn’t entail an admission.
I had to post the obligatory pictures of Tiananmen Square and the front of the first gate into the Forbidden City. I know, you’ve seen it. The last picture is taken back down the square. The poster is of Sun Yat Sen, who is much revered here. He is honored for establishing modern China. The big building to the right is Mao Zedong’s mausoleum. You can walk by rather briskly and view his preserved body. (Well, you can view his head. The rest is covered with a red hammer and sickle flag. I guess showing everything would be considered disrespectful.) You know how formaldehyde makes a body look red? Well, he’s a red red. Maybe it was the light. Anyway, his face sags like the bods in anatomy class. But I saw it.
A block over to the right from that last one is the Theater of the Performing Arts. I think it’s a really attractive building. It changes with the slightest change in light.

The Forbidden City is quite big. I walked around in there for about 3 hours, and could have spent more time but it closed at 5 PM. There are lots of people in there because of the holiday. Chinese workers get few days off, and hit the tourist places hard when they get a chance. You’ve also seen many pictures like these, I’m sure.

That marble slab going up to the hall is one piece. It was transported to Beijing by covering the road from where it was hewn to Beijing with water during the winter, letting the water freeze, then sliding it all the way. I don’t know how far.

There are lots of gargoyles and dragons, which were believed in the 15th century to protect the buldings and inhabitants. They must have been asleep on duty because right after the original Forbidden City was built during the heyday of the Ming dynasty in 1420, it burned down in 1422, I think. That was a momentous event, as after that, China closed itself off to the outside world and remained isolated until dragged out of it’s isolationism by the western imperialists. Until then, China had the highest level of advancement in the world.

The place goes on and on like in the pictures below.

Another good place is the Temple of Heaven, another Ming dynasty site.

Yesterday evening we went to the antiques area, looked around in an antique furniture “mall” and the antiques flea market. I wonder how much of this stuff is really valuable? I wonder if there are undercover police looking for items which really shouldn’t be sold. I was quite interesting. I had one of those days where I imagined having a house again so I could fill it with so many things I’ve seen over the years. There are also lots of new things there under the roof.

That brings us up to today. It’s Sunday, the last day of the long weekend tourist crush. Tomorrow should be mellower. I’m doing this and Myung is off walking around the University of Beijing area, which should be pretty deserted, and getting a haircut.
We may be nearly decided about our next move. Pakistan is just too dangerous, or at least that would be on our mids if we went. We went to the Iranian embassy here and got a somewhat different answer to our inquiry about how to obtain visas to Iran. Instead of dealing with all that, without known light at the end of the tunnel, we are strongly considering going to South Africa. With Pakistan and Iran off the table, we have to go somewhere. I brought up going to Africa, as I’ve wanted to go there for a long time. To my surprise, Myung has warmed up to the idea. She doesn’t like the difficulties we would face there but, if you ask me, she compared returning to Yangsan and watching it on TV with living it, and decided to live. She’s made it clear that she won’t stay or go on to other African countries if it’s no fun. Fair enough. I agree. One thing that helped us decide was that airfares are not too high to Johannesberg, only about $550 one way. It was $450 one way to Iran, if we had decided to fly over Pakistan. She still wants to go to Turkey and the Near East, so very tentatively, we may go up the east coast of Africa, figure a way through or around Sudan, and go through Jordan, Lebanon and Syria to Turkey. I’d love to go to Isreal, but I also want to go to countries which don’t want to see an Isreali visa stamp in my passport. If we go to South Africa, it will be this Saturday or next Tuesday. I’ll see the Summer Palace and the Great Wall between now and then, and probably something else. I’ll keep you posted. Until then, be well, all of you.
Speaking of Myung, I think she has such an expressive face.

This will be a quickie. I went to Pingyao while Myung went to Beijing. (She’s about had it with China. It’s not like she hasn’t spent years here already.) Pingyao is an old walled city which, unlike other cities in China, is almost entirely intact. There are few new buildings there, and they are “new-old” buildings which don’t stick out like sore thumbs. that said, it looks the same all over town. The wall is, if I am remembering correctly, 12 km around. The picture below has a bit of the all and a typical street scene. I put in the picture above to give you an idea of what a backpacker hostel looks like in the middle of a place like this. Actually, I stayed in a YHA hostel across the street from this one. I was having a beer at a table in front when I took this of the YHA place across the steet. About four of the streets look touristy like those. Otherwise, it’s a real town with real people with real, everyday lives.

Surprisingly, it wasn’t that crowded. I thought it would be like Lijiang, especially since it can be reached from Beijing in about 6 hours, but it isn’t. It’s not even jaded. The people are nice and it isn’s full of touts and “Come into my shop”. Even better, there is no admission to enter, though they sell an 80 yuan pass to some 20 buildings, museums and access to the top of the wall. I just moseyed around, spending one night, and took the traian the next night to Beijing. Here are the other pics I uploaded.

We’ve been in Beijing for a few days. We are basically hanging out and trying to come to an agreement on what to do next. I’ll write again probably very soon.
Be well, all of you.

We are in Kaifeng, Henan, now. This area is steeped in history, as most of China’s dynasties have called the cities of this region their capitals. The Henan capital, Zhengzhou, about 80 km wwest of here, was the capital of the Shang dynasty 3500 years ago. Xian, with it’s terracotta wariors from a couple thousand years ago, is west of Zhengzhou. If you include Beijing, about 300 km northeast of here, almost all China’s governments have been here. Kaifeng was the capital, off and on, for hundreds of years. Little remains of anything more than a few hundred years old in kaifeng because it has a history of flooding eveery few years, and much of the acncient ruins are under several meters of sediment. There are no highrises here because they know there are ruins deep underground and don’t want to drive skyscraper supports into them. The nicest thing in Kaifeng is this temple, built in the 1600’s. You’ve seen so many temple pictures, so here is just one shot of part of it.

The best thing in there is this thousand eyed and thousand handed Avelokateshvara, or Guan Yin. She is the goddess of compassion who sees the suffering of the world with a thousand eyes and lends a thousand hands to help.

An hour and a halaf west of Zhengzhou are the famous Longmen Caves. This place is one of those World Heritage Sites that deserves the billing. It’s no Ellora or Ajanta in India, but it is the third best rock carving site of this kind I’ve ever seen. The earliest of these were carved out of the mountain in the late third century AD, The latest was in the 11th century, just like at Ellora and Ajanta.

We can feel the end of the China phase of our travels coming. Myung’s about had it with
China, and is looking forward to Pakistan and Iran. We haven’t heard back about our “reference numbers” for Iran yet, but we are hopeful. Right now, we are hanging around Kaifeng until our train leaves for Taiyuan, Shanxi, at 8-something tonight. We’ll go to the museum there, at least, tomorrow because it’s supposed to be the best provencial museum in China. Then I will go to Pingyao,, about an hour and a half southwest of there. It’s a famous old city. “Raise the Red Lantern” was filmed there, if you want to picture it. I’m sure it’s on my cctv link under “Shanxi”. Myung may not go because she’s been there and resents the admission costs. That’s understandable. Over time, these exorbitant fees take their toll. Other than that, China’s not too expensive. Then we will likely hang out in and around Beijing. Myung wants to bag Beijing and stay in Tianjin even though there is nothing in particular to see there. I haven’t decided. Then we’ll head out west, stopping at Xian.
I’m still debating whether to go to Pakistan. I think it’ll be alright, but how good is “I think…”? there’s a fatwa out against americans, but I don’t plan to go to any real hot areas. Mehenjo Daro and Harrapa are pretty close to Pashtun, so I may stick to those big tourist sites. Yeah, Swat Valley is out. Myung is particulary looking forward to taking the Karakoram Highway through the Hindu Kush from Xinjiang to Islamabad. That would be beautiful, and having just read “Three Cups of Tea”, well…. I think I will tentatively go and get the lay of the the land, then decide whether to stay. Maybe I won’t stay long. The other thing is that Pakistan is between China and Iran. If I can get into Iran, I hope not to have to fly there.
Nothing is easy.
That’s about it for now. Be well, all of you.

We went down to Hong Kong to get new visas and stayed there for two nights. Myung lived just across the water from there, in Shenzhen, for a long time, so she wasn’t too excited about staying. I think it could be interesting, but for the casual tourist, it’s mostly about shopping and looking at the fabulous glass and steel skyline. Well, there are a couple of pictures. One was taken during the nightly light and laser show you can watch from anywhere high up or from Kowloon, across Victoria Harbor where we were. The other is from the tram to Victoria Peak. The view from the peak is the other big touristy thing to do.
Compared to China, the shopping is great and the prices of quality things is less. I’ve heard and I think it may be true, Bangkok is better for bargains. Whatever, it’s not my thing.
It was nice to be in a developed “country” again. China’s coming up in the world, but it has a long way to go. You kind of get used to China which, in turn, is way more developed than India. But Hong Koing arrived a loong time ago. Stuff works well and the people are more modern. I wonder how it will be when it becomes completely Chinese in 40 more years. Will China ever catch up? Everybody is watching.
We got out visas this morning and came right over to Shenzhen. Tomorrow we are going to Henan Province to look at the heritage sites there. Click on my cctv link and then click on Henan for a preview. The pictures will be a lot better than mine, anyway.
Speaking of pictures, my friend, Renato, suggested a way to make my “vertical” pictures not pixilated. It means the picture will appear little on my website, but you can click on it and it becomes big and not pixilated. My other pictures get big if you click on them too.

The big news about our travels now is that we spoke to a woman at the Iranian consulate in Hong Kong. She said flatly that Americans do NOT need to be part of a tour to travel in Iran. What a difference that makes!. She said all tourists need a “reference number”, and told us how to get one for each of us. We’re working on that. So, if that is possible, we’ll go to Iran. That also means I’m reconsidering going to Pakistan which, for you geographically challenged persons, is between China and Iran. If it seems hairy, I’ll not stay long in Pakistan. The only thing I must see is Mohengodaro and Harappa. It was an Indus Valley civilization almost contemporary with civilizations of southern Iraq, 6000 years ago. The way things are going in Pakistan, I think it might be a good idea to go before Pakistan falls into civil war and visiting there becomes as difficult as visiting Iraq. I don’t want missing Iraq to happen to me again. Shoot, something bad could happen in Iran, too. Like, Nut-case Netanyahoo might nuke it.
That’s it for now. Talk to you later. Be well, all of you.

In the States, we’re used to businesses proudly stating they have been in business since 1949 or something. This pharmacy in Hangzhou has been in business at this location since 1647. It’s been modernized since then. You can get your wing of bat, eye of newt Chinese med, or Tylenol PM, as you like.

While I’m at it, I think this bronze water buffalo in the lake is cute.

It was raining yesteday, so we sat for quite a while in Starbuck’s.

We really are off to Hong Kong now. Talk to you later….

After going to Jungdezhen and before coming to Hangzhou, we visited a couple of old towns. “Old town” in China is as likely as not to be one of the few remaining places where buildings more than a hundred years old remain. Usually they are a small part of a large new town. Sometimes they are by themselves. Often there is a charge to enter. Often there is a charge, but you can walk around the entrance and go in some other way. This was the case in Likeng, Xidi and Hongcun in Anhui. They are famous in China because they are so well preserved. Here are a few pictures. Likeng is the place with all the canals. The white walls and dark tile are typical traditional Huizhou architecture of the area.

And this city is Shexian. It is a mixture of old and “new old”, as well as new.

When we went to Anhui, we went up to the capital, Hebei, and met up with a couple we met along with Pipi and Xie Xie in Lijiang. For my sake, they are all going by their nicknames. Here are Xuan Xuan and Wie Wie. They are cute newlyweds who were honeymooning in Lijiang. The older guy is Shuan Shuan’s dad. They took us out to a spectacular dinner in Hebei. Ah, Chinese food is so exotic. China is a gastronomic thrill seeker’s paradise. You gotta love the pink and peach decor in their apartment.

That’s probably it for now. See you in Hong Kong. Be well, all of you.

To make a log story short, Jimgdezhen, Jiangxi, has been the center of Chinese ceramics for over 700 years, and a major place for ceramics manufacture for hundreds of years before that. This is because of the unique clay which is found there. All of the good Ming dynasty vases and other royal ceramics were made there. Above is a Ming vase, made in the 15th century. I know, I’ll ever get a job as a National Geographic photographer. This was a place my photos will do no justice to, but I loved going aound and lookig at the old and new stuff. It is so beautiful.

This hosting site’s photo plug in still pixilates photos if I rotate them, but this sideways shot gives you some idea of the delicacy some of these pieces have. This one was made in the Qing dynasty, about 150 or so years ago. The picture above is the top part of the picture below, with the woman raesing a plate of flowers.

We are in Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang, now. Basically, we are just hanging out till Tuesday when we will take the night train to Shenzhen. Our visas expire this weekend, so we’ll go over the bridge from Shenzhen to Hong Kong for fresh ones. We were going to go to a couple of places in Fujian, but the times for the trains were very inconvenient. Hangzhou seems alright for a big Chinese city. It’s mostly a export center, so there is a lot of activity. There are hills to break up the monotony and a big lake in the middle of town. The hostel we are staying in is in a park right on the lake. Sweet. I have a new hat, too. Spring is in full bloom, the sun is out, and it’s warming up.

I’ve uploaded several pictures of a couple of old towns in Anhui. I’m going to post this blog now and another if and when I can, maybe even today. In the meantime, I’ll leave you with a a common sight. I’ve said how China has a long way to go until they’ve built out their infrastructure. One thing they are sell on the way to completing is the “unterstae” highway system. What they don’t have yet is the personal wealth to fell the roads they’ve built. Sometimes there are stretches of six lane highway with no or only a few cars. We had the front seat on a bus that day when I took this.
Be well, all of you.

I’ve added a new link, “Chinese television in English, including good travelogues”. This is 95% of what I watch, unless you include programming in Chinese that Myung watches and I ask her what is going on. Often the travelogues have all the pictures and commentary I don’t have on my blog. IThat site is easy to navigate. So if you have an interest in more about Chongqing, you can watch a show on that. You can click on a province and a list of programs about places in that province will appear for you to click on. Then it’s like watching YouTube. All you need is earphones. I like Neew Frontiers. There is much history in those shjows. A word of warning, the material on Tibet may make you wince. Just whistle through your teeth and spit. Even that is MOST interesting.
Just a note: I can’t watch YouTube. It’s blocked in China because the current protests by Tibetans about the 50th anniversary of their “immancipation” are being posted there. Chinese are told Tibetans are happy with Chinese rule, when the truth is the Tibetans are quite mixed on the subject. It is very true that China has increased the standard of living there enormously, but the official line that China “peacefully liberated Tibet from serfdom under the Dalai Lama clique” will likely not not be accepted, at least until living memory no longer recalls the takeover and Cultural Revolution that immediately followed. My opinion is that it was like our takeover of North America from the backward and defenseless native people there. The difference is our people knows what we did and we’ve moved on. The Chinese leadership has been unable to publicly discuss the failings of their early leaders, despite how much better the current leader are now. “That was then, this is now” is uncomfortable for them still. One day, maybe….

Lonely Planet says Chongqing is where you spend the night and arrange your trip down the Three Rivers Gorge. Well, we decided not to spend the money on that trip, but Chongqing has been a really nice experience. Both of us have seen so many scenic wonders that we are a little jaded sometimes. One can’t see everything in the world, so since we have only about 20-30 more years to live, probably, and have to conserve money, we are seeing the cheap stuff for now. The best experiences are the personal ones, of course. Here in Chongqing we met up with a couple we met in Lijiang, Yunnan, and have had a lovely time with them, their family and friends. Besides that, Chongqing is really not such a bad tourist destination. There is much history, ancient and recent, around here. It was the World War 2 capital of unoccupied China, and over the centuries has been the scene of important historical events. Shoot, I like it here, though I do think most of the reason I’m having such a good time is because of the people we met.

They are Pipi and Xie Xie. I’m definitely not sure about the spelling of her name. That’s close. In pinyon, “x” is “sh”. Oh, if you are wondering about Chongqing, “ch” is like the English “ch” with the tongue rolled back and “q” is like the English “ch”. In the west, we call this place Chungking, like the brand of canned Chinese food. Pipi is a captain in the army and Xie Xie is an ICU nurse in the big state hospital here. He speaks a little English. We met their family and friends, went out to eat several times ( I am gaining weight to the extent that I better start watching it.), and toured around. Here is a picture of them, Myung and his best friend and his best friend’s fiance. We were at a restaurant in the countryside near his hometown of Hechuan, an hour’s drive north of here. By the way, it is very typical in China for a rural restaurant to grow their own vegetables and raise their own meat. Cluck, cluck, cluck our chicken lunch was carried out back for slaughter and the veggies were picked just before they were cooked.

I’ll spare you photos of Pipi’s parents, uncles and aunts, and their families. The following photos were taken when we were walking around a fortress area where in Chinesae history, the Southern Song dynasty held off the Mongols for 32 years before falling and ushering in the short-lived Mongol Yuan dynasty. It really is an heroic, epic story. I’ll spare you that, too. Now the place is a nice walk in the park.

Chongqing has an old part of town which is mostly tourist shops, though if you venture away from the center, it’s pleasant.

This is an artsy effort of a roof in a Buddhist temple in the heart of Chongqing, and one of the devotees.

At night, this big city of 4 1/2 million is lit up like a Christmas tree. I’m impressed by how the planners have made an effort to make it as liveable as possible. And they do have plans. I went to the urban planning museum. That in itself was amazing. You’d think urban planning would be as boring a subject as possible, but this was a great museum. It made me interested in the subject and it was a good museum to walk around in. Lonely Planet said it was “fabulous”, and they are right. Who’d a thunk it? Anyway, here are some of the lights.

Myung is off trying to buy train tickets for Wuhan. If she is successful, we plan to go this afternoon on the 16 hour ride to there, then north to some traditional towns. If she is unsuccessful, we’ll stay here till there are tickets. At any rate, that’s it for now. Be well, all of you. I’ll leave you with my new way of keeping Myung in line. It hasn’t been easy, but my mates and I have a plan.

I wrote before that we lost pictures of the giant 71 meter Buddha statue in Leshan. Turns out that that was recoverable, so here are a couple of pictures of it and a couple of pictures of Buddhists at a temple in nearby Mt. Emei.