On the third day we went to the Great Wall. It was very impressive,
Especially when you think it was built so long ago and it is such a useless
construction!
On the next day we took a plane to Chongqing in the Sichuan province
(just east of Tibet) Chongqing is a very ugly and dirty city of about 6
million inhabitants. It is the only city in China where there aren't any
bicycles, because it is located on hills. The only interesting thing about
Chongqing is that it is a port to the Yangtze river, one of the most
important rivers in China. We arrived in Chongqing in the middle of the day
and we visit the market. There was so much stuff! There were lots of
delicious looking fresh vegetables, but the most interesting was the
meats: There's no refrigeration or ice anywhere, and the meat comes from
animals that were just killed. If you want to buy fish, you pick it from the
ones swimming and it will be killed for you. At night we got on a boat,
where we spent the night and on the next day we left Chongqing. We were
on the boat 2 days and saw the famous gorges as well as many beautiful
places. We left the boat in Yichang in Hubei province, about 1000 km west
of Shanghai.
Our next stop was Zhien Jia Jie in the Hunan Provence (south of Hubei).
It took us two days and one night to get there. We first took a 7 hr bus
trip, then we traveled all night on a train, then another train and at the
end, another bus. In the city where we took the first train there wasn't
very much tourism and the people there stared at us like we were strange
animals. At one point we were surrounded by about 30 staring at us! Zhien
Jia Jie is a beautiful place! The most beautiful place we visited in China.
It is a small town on the foot of some beautiful hills. Three's a lot of fog
and when we went up the mountains it was like walking in the clouds. All
the mountains have stairs to go up (or down). I had never climbed so many
stairs! You can tell they are doing a lot of work in this place to attract
tourism. Right now there are not many people who know about it and it
isn't in any tourist guidebook, therefore there aren't many people here and
we could enjoy it. We spent two nights in Zhien Jia Jie. We hired a guide
for both days who took us around the mountains. At the end of the second
day he took us on the bus back to the train station. Since it was still early
for our train, we visited a buddhist temple in the city. This temple was
recently renovated and it was very pretty.
Two trains, a bus, a night and a day later we arrived at Yang Chuo in the
Guangxi province (our southern-most point) This province borders with
Vietnam. Here you find the most typically chinese mountains. We spent 4
days here, a well deserved break, especially after climbing all those
steps! We bought a lot of stuff. On our last day we went to Guilin (the
closest city to Yang Chuo) and while looking for a place to eat, we found a
street where the restaurant had live animals outside.Here the customer
picks what he wants to eat. They had from turkey to rodents to different
kind of fish and even a cobra! We did not eat there.
Our next destination was Louyang in the Henan province (north of Hubei)
Unfortunately Louyang and Yang Chuo are tourist locations and we couldn't
find a flight, so we had to take a train. After 30 Hrs on the train we
arrived in Louyang at three in the morning. The train ride wasn't that bad,
we bought a game of Chinese checkers and we played a lot on the train.
When we arrived at Louyang we looked for a hotel. We looked in several
hotels, but they were all full. It turned out, there was a Flower festival
and all the hotels in the city were full. With out another choice, we went
back to the train station and took the 7:30 a.m. train to Xian.
Xian is one
of the most important cities in China and used to be the capital. Here is
where the Terracotta Solders are found. We took a whole day tour and
visited the solders and the tomb of the first emperor of China. We also
visited some thermal baths and the ruins of a prehistorical settlement. On
the second day there we visited a mosque and went shopping.
From Xian we went to Jinan in the Shandong province, on the coast. Jinan
is a small town with about 2 million inhabitants (it must have at least 4
to be considered a city) .
After a day in Jinan we went to Qufu (The birth
place of Confucius) . We stayed in a fancy hotel that had CNN and for the
first time since our arrival in China, we heard what was happening in the
world. Among other things we heard about the riots in LA and we also
heard that the largest McDonald's in the world had just open in Beijing. In
our sightseeing we visited Confucius residence, Confucius temple and
Confucius tomb. There's also a university for philosophy, but we didn't go
there. Confucius residence was beautiful, similar to the palace in Beijing.
We also found the cemetery very interesting. This is the oldest still
functioning cemetery in the world (people are still being buried there).
When we left the cemetery we noticed some food stands and in one of
them, there was a roasted dog. We could clearly recognize the head and in
partucilar the teeth!
After that we went back to Jinan and the following day, which was a
Sunday, we visited the sunday market. They sell every thing from food
paintings and antiques. There's an area where animals are sold and they
had all kings of birds, bird cages and little porcelain bowls for the water.
While looking at this Claudia saw someone with two large bowls with
about 30 scorpions each. Theo's sister, who is fluent in Chinese asked why
would people buy scorpions. The answer was: to eat of course. With that
we were convinced, the Chinese eat everything!
The next day we took a plane back to Beijing and we went shopping. We
went to the silk market, but the prices were very high. The day after we
went to the summer palace. It was built in 1700, but it got burned and the
grandmother of the last emperor had it rebuilt. It is very beautiful and
very well preserved. Among other interesting things, there's a steam ship
made of marble. There's also a little street with little stores, that are
just like in the old days. They have things like shoes and cloths and hats.
One of the nicest things in the summer palace, was that everyone was
wearing traditional chinese clothing, even the cleaning personnel. After
that we had to visit the largest McDonald's in the world which had just
opened. It didn't seem to me to be that big, just two store and had lots of
people working.
On our last day we visited a buddhist temple, which was also very
beautiful. But to some point I think we were already too tired to enjoy it.