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Beijing

We were up bright and early Wednesday morning, caught the shuttle to the airport, checked our bags and then headed to the USO to wait for our flight. The flight was pretty routine, and after two meals and three movies we arrived in Tokyo. A couple of hours later we caught our connecting flight to Beijing.  We finally arrived at 8:30 PM, (about 4:30 am San Diego time), went to our hotel and crashed for  the night.
 
Yesterday morning we began our whirlwind tours.  First was the Temple of Heaven.  Not only is the temple itself impressive, the grounds of the park were crowded with people doing their daily exercises.  There were hundreds of people doing a variety of exercises with everything from swords to tennis racquets.  There were also musicians, dancers, people practicing calligraphy, and others (like us) just walking around.
 
Then on to Tian An Men Square.  There weren’t any tanks or demonstrations, just lots of souvenir hawkers, pickpockets, and a long, long line of people waiting to see Chairman Mao’s coffin. The pickpockets and souvenir hawkers were very organized.  While one group caught your attention with the postcards, books etc. that they were selling, the pickpockets drifted around the edge of the crowd looking for opportunities.  Fortunately our guide alerted us to this practice so we avoided any problem. Through the arch below Chairman Mao’s picture is the Forbidden City, palace of the emperors.  (This is the old Forbidden City.  The new one contains the PRC government buildings.)  There were crowds of tourists everywhere, but very few Americans or even Europeans.  However, we were a bit surprised to find signs in English everywhere.  This may be in anticipation of their hosting of the 2008 Olympics.
 
Someone in our group figured we walked about seven miles this first day.  On top of jet lag, we were ready for a good night's sleep.

The next day we headed for the Ming Tombs, stopping on the way for a bit of shopping.
 
We enjoyed a nice walk in the shade of the willow trees lining the Sacred Way, stopping from time to time to visit the animals, soldiers and advisors to the emperors that line the walk. 
 
The afternoon of our third day we devoted to the number one sight of Beijing, the Great Wall.  It was everything we had expected.  Simply magnificent!  We were a little surprised to see so many visitors, but in retrospect that wasn’t at all unusual.  There are just a lot of people here!  Again, plenty of signs in English, and quite a few people who could speak our language.  Certainly everyone who was trying to sell something to us spoke English.
We enjoyed two more wonderful days in Beijing, visiting more temples and the Beijing Zoo where we saw their seven pandas.  Our local guide, Frank Wang was quite proud of the country's conservation programs.
 
Easter Sunday evening we went out to dinner, then to a Chinese Opera performance.  The music was pretty weird, but the costumes were fantastic, as were the sword fighting and acrobatics. On the way back to the hotel we drove through Tian An Men Square again.  For us this was an interesting contrast to last Easter when we were in Rome and saw the Pope in St. Peter's square.
 
Monday we experienced one of the most interesting tours of our trip.  We visited the Hutong area, which is the older, more traditional type of housing area.  Our mode of transport through the narrow streets was by rickshaw (more accurately, bicycle cab).  We had a chance to walk around a bit in this old-style neighborhood. We visited a government-operated kindergarten/daycare center, and then visited one of the hutong residents in his home.  Mr. Wu is a 73-year old retired archeologist who has lived in the same home since he was a teen.  We spent almost an hour with him hearing about his experiences. We then went to another house for a home-cooked meal which was one of our best meals to date.  Incidentally, the food has been wonderful so far.
 

Xi’an

We arrived at Xi’an without incident Tuesday and checked in to a beautiful garden hotel.  Today we visited the province museum and a jade factory.  We then piled in our bus for the hour-long ride to the tomb complex of China's first emperor, Qin Shihuang.  This is the site of the terra-cotta discovered in 1974. 

The Chinese government has done a wonderful job of developing this site for tourism while preserving most of the area for the future.  This 2200-year old site contains 8 to 10 thousand life-sized figures, all different. 
 
It's tough to decide between the Terra-Cotta Army and the Great Wall as to which is the more impressive.
 
Thursday we flew to Shanghai where we will be until the 19th, then home.  Still having a wonderful time, taking lots of pictures, and spending RMB Yuan as if it weren't real money.
 
 
Shanghai
 
We arrived in Shanghai about 3 p.m. Thursday afternoon and decided to venture out on the subway. We had read about the Maglev train in the paper so we decided to give it a try. It runs from downtown to the airport, 30 plus miles in 7 minutes.  To get to the Maglev terminal we needed to take two subways.  We found this was no problem.  They are pretty much identical to the subways in Italy and Spain, including bilingual signage.  Pam and I enjoyed getting closer to the people.  During rush hour we got really, really close!  We arrived at the Maglev (Magnetic Levitation) in time for the last round trip of the day. We had a few minutes to wait, so Pam had a chance to meet one of the guards.
 
 
Here's what the train looks like (when stopped). The train doesn't carry many passengers yet, mostly tourists. It was sure worth the $10 round trip fare.  We reached a top speed of 430 km/hr. That's 258 mph.  The ride was amazingly smooth, though short. Then we rode the two subways back to our hotel. We found we were very comfortable out on our own.  This was true in every city we visited.
 
Today was tour Shanghai day.  We visited another Buddhist temple.  Pam got quite well acquainted with Buddha’s bodyguards. 

We visited a silk factory and learned all about the silk manufacturing process.  We were amazed to learn that the can unwind a 1200 meter silk filament from a single cocoon!  Then we visited the factory store and learned just how much damage silk can do to a little plastic card.  We decided we really needed a nice silk comforter.
Then we visited the Children's Palace, which is a school for the arts.  This is an after-school program for music, dance, art and calligraphy.  It was interesting to see the young students practicing, each with a parent to help.  What a concept -- parents involved in their children's education.
 
We went to a local restaurant for dinner.  Typical Chinese style, everyone orders a dish and then all share.  Dinner for two with shrimp, pork, chicken and vegetables, a large beer and tea, about $12.

The food has been excellent and plentiful.  The service superb, everyone friendly and signs in English everywhere.  Quite a change from my visit to Hong Kong in 1969.  This is the nicest hotel yet.  They have a nice little roof garden and the spring flowers are in bloom.
 
Today we took the bus to Suzhoy, a city about 60 km from Shanghai.  This city is on the Grand Canal, which has connected Shanghai and Beijing (1100 km) since 600 AD.  We visited another pagoda and temple, and of course had to climb the pagoda.  This thing that looks like a pot-bellied stove is really an incense burner.  We saw these in all the temples.  The incense smoke is used to carry your prayers to heaven.  They were usually gifts to the temples and the donors names were inscribed on the side along with members of their family as a memorial.

We then visited the "Embroidery Research Institute" which the government maintains to ensure the skills are kept alive.  We saw some incredible examples of paintings reproduced in silk.  Note the woman embroidering the lion has her CD player and cell phone handy. 
 
We really wanted one of these until we looked at the price tags.  $2000 and up. They take 3 months or more to complete.  Oh well, after we win the lottery.....
 
Sunday we have a free day so we plan to get on the subway again and explore the city some more.  We probably will do a little more shopping too.  Monday we fly from Shanghai to San Francisco, then to Los Angeles.