China Blog Part 2 Xian/Chongqing

Remember to open another window and view the pictures from my FB page as you read. I don't have the patience to add pictures here. sorry.

So we took a 2 hour flight to Xi’An (pop. 8 million or so). The city name means “Western Peace”. Our guide, David met us at the airport and took us to the Green Mosque. The Green Mosque area (it contained several buildings over a few acres) was not as crowded as many places we went in Beijing. There has been a mosque there since something like 742. Islam came to China from the trading on the Silk Road. Xian is the starting point for the Silk Road. David told us that Xian occasionally gets dust storms blowing in from the Gobi dessert.

After the Mosque, we went to the city wall. Xian’s city wall is really cool. It is about 40ft. high, and between 50 and 60ft. thick at the base. We got to the wall just in time to see a short show with some guys dressed up in Ming era costume. Some young people played drums and others did a little swordplay. One guy was very enthusiastic and when we swung his sword, the blade came out and went flying across the courtyard! I think it was thin and not sharp, but still! After the show, we went up to the top of the wall. It was such a beautiful day! The sky was crystal blue and the temperature was perfect. (Looking at some of the pictures, the sky looks grey. I’m not sure why that is. Most of the pictures show the beautiful sky. I remember it being gorgeous, and we certainly weren’t there long enough for clouds to blow in.) Such a break from the heat and humidity of Singapore! We decided to rent bikes. Everybody got a bike, except O shared a two-seater with me. These were some seriously old rental bikes. We tested the brakes and seats and off we went. O got his balance enough that he could take some pictures with my camera as we were moving. What fun! The kids were loving it. We don’t have a good place to ride bikes here like we did in Texas. The ‘old folks’ were enjoying the slow pace of just meandering around the city wall. The bricks themselves were quite bumpy on a bike. There were lots of small pot-holes, and I did my best to avoid them, but if you watch the video, you’ll see how it was.

After the City Wall, our guide took us to our ‘family visit’. We really didn’t know what to expect for this. Big family? Rich? Poor? Kids? Seafood? Weird food? So we were all a bit nervous I think – well, I was anyway. We arrived at what looked very much like a Singapore HDB. (Normal housing for 85%+ of Singaporeans) So, I felt a little relieved off the bat. Inside, the apartment was very nicely decorated. The wood floor was beautiful. We started to take our shoes off like we do at home and the hostess and guide both started in on us with “no need! No need!” I tried to explain that we do that at home and we didn’t want to mess up her floors (we’d already tracked in a bunch of foot prints from the city wall dirt). We were ineffective. So, after we left she had to re-clean her floors. From the conversation and translations with our guide, David, we learned that our hostess was married and had one son. Her husband and son were at a family wedding – on her side of the family!! I said, “We’ll eat quickly so you can go too.” She said basically, ‘nah, I’d rather be here – I see enough of them.’ She had originally rescheduled to Saturday from Sunday, so I didn’t feel too bad about it. (No idea what was more important than a wedding that she had on Sunday.) We asked David, and found out that this is like a part-time job for her. So that also made me feel better about the whole deal. She offered the kids some candy (not her first rodeo!) and drinks, and then showed us around the apartment. I don’t know if they are just neat-freaks, or if everything was crammed in closets, or if they just don’t have as much JUNK as we do, but everything was so neat and clean. But other than being twice as neat as my house, their house was what any of my friends and family would consider a normal middle class apartment. David said that it was considered a large apartment, and it was good-sized. He said that she had started doing the hostess job because her husband was laid off shortly after they signed the mortgage (lease?) and they were having trouble making ends meet.
Well, let me just tell you….. this woman could go get a job as a caterer anywhere in the world. All she’d have to do is offer the food she served us. Oh Boy!! We ate like starving people. She had Kung Pao chicken, sweet and sour pork, fried rice, green beans, corn, fish, and probably something else I’m forgetting. It was one of the best meals we had in China – and that’s saying something. I wish I’d taken pictures of some of the feasts we had while there – including at her house. During lunch, we said something about the food we missed from the States. David mentioned some of the fast food from America that they had in Xian, including “Papa John’s”. Well, that got everyone’s attention! The kids and Mom were instantly interested in learning more. David could tell that Erin thought this was ridiculous, so he said, “Well, in Xian, Papa John’s is a hamburger place.” The kids and Mom were disappointed.

After lunch, our guide and driver took us back to our hotel. It was about 3p.m. by the time we got there. The rest of the day we were on our own. We really didn’t know what we wanted to do. Part of me was so full and happy that a nap sounded great. But more of me was thinking, ‘this is the only time I’ll get to be here, it seems a waste to stay in the hotel the rest of the day.’ So we decided to go out and find the Wal-mart that we’d seen out the van window. “Let’s just walk down there and back, maybe we’ll see something for supper on the way. Let’s not stay out too long, but I don’t want to sit around here ‘till bed time either.” I had paid close attention, so I knew how to get there. But stupid me, I decided to ask at the front desk to make sure. The clerk said, “No, there’s not one there, but there is one down to the south-east.” Well, I took her word for it. We decided to get a taxi. But we quickly learned that no taxi would stop. Then we saw our guide, David, walking toward us. He was still waiting for a bus home. Three p.m. is rush hour, apparently. The bus would come, but it would be too full for more passengers, so he was waiting and waiting. He told us that we would have a terrible time trying to get a cab at this time of day, so he recommended we just walk. So we did and he said he’d go with us part of the way. We walked down to the middle of town – the Drum Tower, and then on past that to the South-east side of town (Our hotel was near the North-west corner.). They had told us that the Wal-mart was behind such and such mall. Well, we accidently walked past that mall. When we came to a major road that was labeled on our map, we knew we’d come too far. (-Almost to the other side of the walled part of town!) A very friendly man tried to convince us to take the bus back, but we were not brave enough to try that – not knowing where which bus went or what stop to get off, etc. So we started walking back. We were so tired! By this time, we’d been walking for more than 2 hours! (Plus the bicycling we’d done earlier….) Erin happened to look up and see a sign that said, “Wal-Mart” with a big arrow pointing down the side street. There was much rejoicing. Actually, there was some rejoicing, some whining to ‘just go back to the hotel’, and some whining for ‘ice cream for supper’. We gave in to the thoughts of sitting down to some ice cream. Ahhh – Baskin Robbins – familiar territory! Woo-hoo! Plus, the guy at Baskin Robbins spoke pretty good English, so we were able to ask him about the Wal-Mart and the Papa John’s. David is a very convincing liar when it comes to Papa John’s and hamburgers.


[Back story: We have a couple of Dunkin Donuts stores here in Singapore, but they are not located in places that we normally visit. There is one at the airport, however, and we have usually gotten a donut before getting on the plane to go somewhere. We didn’t get to do that this time, though because we were a little late getting to the airport. We told the kids that we’d get Dunkin Donuts when we got back to Singapore.]

So, coming out of Baskin Robbins feeling rejuvenated somewhat, we started walking toward where we thought Wal-Mart would be. Having just had wonderful American ice cream (possibly for supper if we didn’t find a pizza-selling Papa John’s), I said, “Now all we need is a Dunkin Donuts!” Everyone, especially Erin was like, Hmph! But I wasn’t even finished saying the word “Donuts” when I stepped around a corner and saw this sign:

I started laughing so loud! Erin and the kids couldn’t figure out why (I was walking in the front.). I just pointed at the sign. What timing! So of course, the boys wanted Donuts. We finally said, ‘you can either have them here or when we get back, but not both’. So they each got two, ate one, and saved the other.

It took us a couple of minutes to realize that the Wal-mart was downstairs from the Dunkin Donuts, so we were in the right place after all.

This was probably the smallest Wal-mart I’ve ever been in, but many things felt familiar. I loved their little baskets on wheels. We definitely need those in the U.S. We found some lime sherbet (or ice cream?) Oreos to buy. We were the only Westerners in there, so I felt a little awkward taking pictures, but here ya go….. It being Xian and all, there was a Terracotta Warrior guarding the exit.


From there, we wanted to find the Papa John’s. It was supposed to be on the way back to the hotel. That’s the only way we got the kids to go along with looking for it. We were all soooo tired of walking! We walked back and never found the Papa John’s. It must’ve been in the food court of one of the many malls we passed. We did, however, pass the newer Wal-mart that I’d seen out the van window. GRRRRRR! That would’ve made our 4 hour walk into a one hour walk.

By the time we were 30 min. from the hotel, O needed to be carried and to find a restroom, not necessarily in that order. We did find a public restroom and while Erin took him inside, the other 2 and I sat on a bench waiting. The bench turned out to be in front of the place where the street sweepers bring their garbage carts. There was a little dog hanging out around there and he came over, gave me a sniff, said, “ewwww! You smell funny!” sneezed, and went away. The garbage ladies and I had a chuckle about that. Then we had an actual conversation in Chinese! Yea me! They asked about the kids and where we were from. They stuck to the vocabulary I knew for a while, and then they lost me. Thinking about it later, I think she was asking why we were out walking at 8:30 in that part of town (not near anything tourist-y). Or maybe she was asking about my shoes. I’ll never know.

Anyway, we got back to the hotel exhausted and went to bed.

Sunday, October 16: Terracotta Warriors Day! Fortunately, we all got plenty of rest after our ‘long march’ in Xian. We ate breakfast at the hotel and met David in the lobby. Speaking of our hotel. We really liked the hotel in Xian. It was called the “Grand New World Hotel”. They were hosting a conference called “The 2nd International Symposium on Traditional Cultare [sic?] and Eco-Cvilization” and “First Seminar of Promotion on Economics and Culture Cooperation”. Many of the delegates were dressed in traditional garb. David wasn’t familiar with who/what they were. The hotel itself was beautifully decorated. There was a giant mural (25ft. tall?) behind the lobby, and lots of beautiful paintings around. Very very nice. Also, we had adjoining rooms! That’s never happened in our travels. Hotels in Europe and Asia tend to be for 2 people at a time. It is rare to find one where 3 people can fit without bringing in a roll-away bed. So generally, we’ve been paying for the roll-away bed for the boys room, and the girls share a room. But this time, we put all the kids in the 3-bed room and the parents got to share a room –yea!

So anyway, David and the driver picked us up and we headed for the Terracotta Warriors. On the way, we stopped at a shopping opportunity (gasp!). It was at a factory that uses the same clay and techniques as the actual Terracotta Warriors. We got to watch them making some smaller figures and see the kiln where they’re dried. They had an artist there who will ‘put your face on a life-sized Terracotta Warrior’. They had some of Barak Obama, David Beckham, etc. Frankly, Western faces on Terracotta Warriors is just wrong. Funny. But wrong. Nevertheless, there were several samples there of ordinary (rich) tourists who’d had it done.
We bought some of the smaller figurines and drooled over the furniture there with the lacquer finish. Oh my oh my oh my! I so loved that stuff!! It was sooo expensive, but absolutely drop dead, smack yo mama gorgeous. One of those tables would cost the same as our entire trip for 5 people to China. Sigh. I have pictures.
From the factory we went to see the real deal. There are actually 3 buildings there that contain Terracotta Warriors. The largest building is the one you’ve probably seen on t.v. It is the size of an aircraft hangar – or maybe 2 aircraft hangars. The building itself is a marvel because there are no support columns. So, a little background on the TCW: In about 210 BC, the first Emperor of China decided (with a little persuasion from his councilors) not to bury his soldiers and servants alive within his tomb. Instead he commissioned a life-sized terracotta replica of his army. THEN he had everyone involved killed so the secret would be safe. They believe that all the artists were executed as well as anyone who knew where the tomb was. There are over 8,000 soldiers, 670 horses, 130 chariots that they know of. Most are still buried. Each of the 8,000 soldiers has a distinct face, so they believe that they were modeled on real people. All of the soldiers, horses, chariots, etc. were painted in a very life-like way. There were a couple of photographs on display that showed the paint. They were so life like it was spooky – it looked like a person half buried in the dirt! But alas, the paint faded within a few hours of being exposed to oxygen. In less then 2 days you couldn’t even tell it had been there. So before they dig any more pieces out of the ground, they’re waiting for preservation techniques to improve to the point that the paint will last. The soldiers also had real weapons in their hands.
So, one thing I didn’t realize is that these pieces were not buried in the sense of ‘we placed them in a pit and shoveled dirt on them’. No. The workers dug tunnels leading toward the tomb and placed the pieces in the tunnels. They were not surrounded by dirt – just standing there waiting for their army to be called to life (death?). Of course tomb robbers broke in to steal the weapons and smashed some figures, set some fires etc. Over time the roofs of the tunnels collapsed and most of the figures were broken. In fact, they’ve only found 4 figures intact. The ones you see in the pictures, or on tours through museums around the world are figures that have been repaired. We saw several dozen in the back of ‘pit #1’ that were in process of being fit back together.


So for nearly two thousand years no one knew these things were there. Fast Forward to 1974. A group of nine farmers were digging a well on their collective farm. They turn up a head from one of the warriors. One of the farmers decides to turn it in to the government –hoping to get a reward. He did – about $5. Then the govt. swooped in and took over the farm and started uncovering stuff. The farmers were largely forgotten. Nowadays, one of the farmers (80 something years old) sits in the gift shop and autographs books for the tourists. David said he’s normally gruff, but was in a good mood and smiled for our picture with him. He seemed to like the boys (aka car wrecks). So my kids got to meet the guy (well, one of the 9) who discovered the Terracotta Warriors. How cool is that?!?

We also went to see 2 other pits which you never see on t.v. They didn’t have the large number of figures like pit #1, but they were still very cool. You could see a chariot and horses. In those pits, the tunnels were more visible as well. You could see the tiles on the floor, and the support columns on the sides. There are a LOT more figures that they don’t want to uncover yet in the other two pits.
I don’t know if I’d call the Terracotta Warriors ‘the eighth wonder of the world’ as it was billed in our tour, but it was pretty cool. The boys both rated it right up there with the Great Wall.

For lunch we ate at the Aegean Sea (we think there are more words in the name, but can’t remember them) Restaurant. The food was very good. We ordered seconds on their beef dish. This was a good example of our guide, David, taking extra good care of us. He had been told by our travel company that we couldn’t have mushrooms and we preferred no seafood. So when the waitress brought out the fried rice, David stopped her and saw that it had shrimp in it. He told her to take it back. We said, “nah, it’s o.k. O. will eat the shrimp.” But he insisted and so she took it back. We had to wait a while to get some non-shrimp infested rice. In fact, by the time it came, we’d finished everything else and only ate some out of guilt.

After lunch, we went to the Shaanxi Ancient Civilizations Museum. This was a pretty good museum. We didn’t have as much time there as I’d like, but probably the kids had all they could take of it. ☺ (I keep saying that someday I’m going to do a tour of museums at my own pace – anyone want to come? I’m thinking 4 or 5 days for the Louvre, at least that much time for the British Museum. Same for the Smithsonian, etc.) So this museum is just full of pieces from before Christ, or before you know, Columbus. Actually, anything from the time of Columbus would probably be sneered at for being too recent. This always reminds me of how young America is.
Coming out of the museum, we saw a Papa John’s. So they do exist in China! This was nowhere near the one we were trying to find the night before.

The next stop on the tour was the ‘Big Wild Goose Pagoda’. This is a pretty neat stop, although the kids and Erin were all starting to say, “not another pagoda!”. As we went in, David handed us each a brochure that explained a little about the temple area and on the back there was some info. about the Chinese zodiac. It had a little place for a stamp. David said at the end of the tour, they would stamp your zodiac animal on there. To me, this was like ‘big whoop’. But the kids thought it was cool. There were several neat buildings in the temple complex. David asked if we wanted to go to the top, or go to the gift shop and get our papers stamped – we didn’t have time for both. At first only A. wanted to go up, and so Erin volunteered to go with him. I said I’d go and get their papers stamped. Well then, knowing that they could get their papers stamped AND see the view from the top, the other two wanted to go up as well. I have their photos from the top. David and I went and got their papers stamped, and I bought a chop of my name in English and Chinese. I watched the guy carve it by hand. I cannot even imagine trying to write Chinese Characters backwards!!! What?!? It gives me a headache to see them upside down! I really liked my chop, even if the whole paper stamping thing was just designed to get me to buy it. Maybe David gets a commission for that shop, because that was the only place he asked me if I’d like to buy one for each of the kids. Or maybe he’s just friendly like that. He was very friendly after all. ☺

After that, we hurried over to the Tang Dynasty Music and Dance Performance. We were also supposed to have dinner there, though not during the show. The show was good. The dancing was elegant. Apparently, ancient kings liked the dancers to have really long sleeves (like several feet longer than their arms). This tradition carried for several hundred years. It was cool how they sort of flowed across the stage. They also had some interesting musical acts that we all enjoyed, including several drum ensembles that I liked. The dinner was dumplings. Here’s a quote from our itinerary:

(Tips: Dumplings are a traditional local food in northern China
and are made of wheat flour with various indigenous fillings.
This has long been a favourite food of the local people, so we
have arranged for you to have a taste of this speciality today.
You will also have an opportunity to learn more about the
diversified Chinese food culture. However, we suggest you do
not expect too much from this dinner, it is just a new and
different experience during your trip.)


So clearly, the writer is not a dumpling fan, or else other tourists are stupid. I already knew I liked dumplings, so I was really looking forward to this meal. Each of the dumplings was shaped like the meat inside it. So, the duck(!) dumplings were shaped like little ducks. I only took a few pictures, because I was too busy making sure no one stole my dumplings! We all enjoyed that meal, and it was one of everyone’s favorites – right up there with the Peking duck. Yum, yum, and more yum. I’ve tried to find good dumplings since we got back to Singapore. Let me just say that frozen dumplings are terrible. My Chinese teacher is promising to teach me how to make them. I don’t have high hopes for my ability to learn that, but I’ll let you know.

Monday, October 17: We got up and packed our bags for Chongqing. After breakfast at the hotel, we met David and the driver. After a photo op with the little car wrecks, we headed for the airport. On the way, we stopped at the ‘Hanyangling Museum’ aka the Mausoleum of Western Han Emperor Liu Qi (who died in 141 BC). I read somewhere that this is the most underrated attraction in China. I can believe it. We were almost the only ones there. You’ll have to look at the picture to understand that the tomb is like a pyramid shape with a flat top. They have found numerous tunnels leading up to the tomb. Each of the tunnels held statues of people or animals. These were not life-sized like the famous Terracotta Warriors, but they were very detailed and cool. The kids thought it was funny that we all had to put on shoe covers before we could go in. The museum was laid out in the most cool fashion. They had put glass (well, plexi glass or plastic or something) over the tunnels, so you could walk over the artifacts and look straight down into the pits. Uber cool. Unfortunately, the lighting in there was great for artifacts – which means it was terrible for photography. Flash bad. No flash also bad. Even worse, the gift shop didn’t have any pictures. You could buy a big ol heavy book for like $50, but I didn’t want to spend that much, and I was already lugging suitcases full of small, heavy books bought in other museums and sites. Sigh. I also think I could have a career improving museum gift shop books.

The next stop was the airport. We flew 2 hours or so to Chongqing (pop. 32million plus – yes, you read that right. There’s a city in China that you’ve probably never heard of where the population is more than 32 MILLION people). The flight was over some of the biggest mountains I’ve seen. It was fascinating. Erin and I were looking out the window and trying to figure out how a human could get to some of those places. There would be a beautiful, wide valley, but no roads or rivers. Yet there were little communities in there. Beautiful scenery.

We really weren’t expecting much from our stay in Chongqing. I’d heard that it was very polluted, and the only activity we were scheduled for was a trip to the General Stilwell Museum. Really? A museum dedicated to an American general in China? Hmmm. Our new guide, Johnny, told us we could go there, or we could switch to a different attraction. Now I can’t remember the other choice, but it sounded like ‘another pagoda’ to the rest of the crew. Then he mentioned that the Gen. Stilwell Museum was across the street from the “Flying Tigers Museum”. Well, A. was hooked then!

The Stilwell Museum, is in the General’s former house. There is a lot of memorabilia there about his involvement in helping the Chinese fight off the Japanese in WWII. There were pictures of him with Chiang Kai-Shek, Madam Chiang, and also Chairman Mao. I preferred the ancient artifacts type museum, but if you like WWII and military stuff like the boys do, I think this was a breath of fresh air after ‘all those pagodas’. ☺
So then we went across the street to the “Flying Tigers Museum”. O.k. there actually were two rooms with Flying Tiger Memorabilia. (FYI: The Flying Tigers were a group of American volunteers who flew fighter planes against the Japanese in defense of China before America was officially involved in the war.) A. enjoyed looking at all that and telling us what kinds of planes were in the photos. Even the museum guide was impressed with his knowledge. (I have to mention that the American Ambassador’s son is in A.’s Boy Scout troop. He was receiving his Eagle rank in a ceremony on the USS George Washington aircraft carrier while we were in China. The entire troop was invited. A. was SOOO disappointed that he couldn’t go! He thought it would be worth skipping China to go on a real aircraft carrier. I’ve got to make it up to him someday!) So at least we got to see the Flying Tigers stuff.
But the main point of the “Flying Tigers Museum” was not the Flying Tigers. It was the artist group that worked there. Clearly, you’re to be lured in with the history (anyone interested in the material in the Stilwell Museum across the street is going to see the “Flying Tigers Museum Entrance” and want to check it out). So we were suckered in again. But we can’t complain. We ended up buying several things there that look excellent on my walls. ☺ And the prices were great. We watched the man paint. He could paint a beautiful painting in like five minutes. Crazy. We bought one of his paintings and two leaf paintings. (Paintings on an actual banyan leaf. Very very cool – even our Singaporean friends were impressed.) I also bought a carved purple and white jade bracelet that I really like.
Next our guide offered to take us on to the cruise ship, or to supper. We weren’t terribly hungry, but we thought we’d eat anyway because we didn’t think they’d be serving a meal on the boat that night. (We were right.) So, Johnny took us to a ‘hot pot’ restaurant. Apparently, he took us to the very best one for us. I’d heard rumors that some of the hot pot places lace their broth with opium so you’ll be a return customer. I’ve also heard that it can be so spicy that it will make you sick for days. I don’t know about all that, because we didn’t have any ill effects from the meal. A. is certain that it was his favorite meal in China. We did ask them to make it a little less hot than normal. Frankly, I think that was a mistake. Anyway…… the concept is that in the middle of the table is a burner with a pot of broth on it. Our pot was divided down the middle with a spicy broth on one side, and a not spicy chicken soup type broth on the other. Surrounding the pot on all sides were small dishes containing various kinds of raw meat. You turn your pot on and get it simmering and then put in whatever kind of meat you want. It’s all you can eat, so you can order more sausage or chicken or whatever. Johnny warned us about the ‘prickly ash’, but he didn’t show us what it looked like, and we didn’t know. He said it would make your tongue go numb. Hmmm. So we started out by putting in all the things we like, with only a little in the spicy half of the pot. Then you have to sterilize your chopsticks in the simmering liquid after touching the raw meat with them. Like I said, I didn’t think the spicy side was too hot. Others thought it was just right on the spicy. The waitress also brought out some other things like fried zucchini. I put some on my plate and later took a bite. Hmmm. That zucchini has a lemon taste to… wait a minute! My tongue is going numb! Like, been at the dentist for a filling numb! Whoa! That zucchini must have that prickly ash spice on it. So Erin and H. tried it but neither of them got anything but zucchini. I thought I was going crazy, because my tongue was uncomfortably numb several minutes later. They were making fun of me. But eventually Erin got a prickly ash seed in his mouth. Ha ha – sweet revenge. We finally figured out what they looked like.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sichuan_pepper
(See the picture under ‘culinary uses’ – it’s the pile on the left.)

So there must’ve been one stuck to the bottom of my zucchini piece. H. was the only person brave enough to try one on purpose after our descriptions of the uncomfortable yet not quite painful numbness.

After supper we walked up to the The People’s Square. It was so beautiful lit up at night. There were older couples there dancing. It was just a nice place to go in the evening to socialize.

So we really enjoyed our few hours in Chongqing. It was a welcome break from the ‘ancient-ness’ of Beijing and Xian. Our guide and driver took us down to the quay to board our ship for the cruise down the Yangtze River. I’ll hopefully finish up the China blog in the next segment about the cruise and Shanghai.