Xi'an - Terracotta Warriors, an (almost successful) trip to Mount Huashan and That Tandem Bicycle

This was such a fun week - I don't even know where to start. I will therefore start with a praise of all the little things that really made it a great week. Thinking about the week in Xi’an still brings a big smile on my face. This trip was a perfect break from the Chinese studies with lots of laughs, no stress and no worries about tomorrow.

To be honest, although Xi'an is one of the ancient capitals of China it isn't the most exciting of all places to visit. Xi’an is most famous for the nearby Terracotta warriors that a farmer digging a well in his lands found accidentally in the 1970s. Now thousands and thousands of travellers flock to the site yearly to stare at the hundreds of clay men standing in their pits. It wasn't the warriors or Xi'an itself that made this trip so great for me. The best trips are made of:

1. Fabulous buddies to plan the trip with. My travel buddies Jamie and Ashley are both easygoing and fun people and our rather large age difference didn't seem to bother any of us. The age difference was really rather big - If I had had children as young as my mother, Ashley would be two years younger than my oldest child. I thank the goddess of Wisdom for having giving enough wits to rather waste my life on travelling than raising children.

2. The unexpected company. Making new friends on the road is always nice. This time we stumbled upon a Belgian guy (in our hostel dorm) and a nice German guy (at the bus station on our way to see the Terracotta Warriors. We of course joined forces for sightseeing, eating out and general fooling around. I do have to confess (yes, this is in the series of the Old Woman's Uninteresting Confessions) that in particular the cute, nice and fun Belgian guy (who was also nearly 10 years younger than me) made it to my list of highlights of this trip. That's enough to make my day- or a few. Before any of you dirty-minded people even think about it: I behaved well!

3. A couple of interesting sightseeing days: Terracotta Warriors and Huashan were both good but I would also put pacing behind Ashley and Jamie’s skyblue tandem bicycle as a great tour of the city. Much better than taking a taxi.

4. Nice, cosy hostels. I've raved about hostels before but here it goes again: Hostels are the best places to meet people, chill out and swap travel stories. Do hang out at the public areas. I did not do even nearly enough of that during this trip, yet I did get some travel tips also this time. Value for money cosiness = Life is worth living.

5. Sufficient amount of good weather, a few good surprises and not much of any bad surprises (the only really bad surprise was that the infamous plank walk at Huashan Mountain was closed - booooooaaaa).

Getting to the trip itself, we took a "slow train" from Beijing to Xi'an. The journey took about 13 hours overnight. We had booked ourselves into a so called "hard sleeper" compartment and were very impressed by how comfortable Chinese train travel. A "hard" sleeper was not hard at all. We got mattresses, clean bedsheets, pillows and blankets. There were 6 people to each cabin. After a bit of negotiation we managed to swap our tickets and were in the end all in the same room (as it was Golden week we had only managed to get bunks in three different rooms). Asking Chinese people to change tickets with us was a great way of practising our Chinese right at the start of the trip. Between the 3 of us we knew just about enough Chinese to manage this communication – and still it was quite an operation.

Ashley and Jamie in our hard sleeper comprtament,
and arriving at the train station in rainy Xi'an.

 It was raining in Xi’an when we arrived, but we still decided to follow the hostel instructions to find Green Forest, push our way past the offered taxi rides at the train station and find the bus that took us nearer to our hostel. Unfortunately it rained all day so out planned tour of the city wall had to be postponed. All we managed was a short trip to a nearby restaurant, some snack food shopping (we already had bags full of snacks, heaven knows why we bought even more), buying a map of Xi’an. Once we had also equipped ourselves with two local newspaper we headed back to the hostel and instead of reading the paper stuffed it in our soaking wet trainers to dry them up, ready for next day’s adventures. Somewhere during the wait for the rain to end was when our new Belgian friend David walked in. Ashley started with offering him food (as we had piles of snacks and he had a long train journey behind him) and I invited him to join us for a tour of the muslim food street, both offers which he accepted. I immediately decided to like him. A man who eats food when offered can’t be a bad man J

Dorm at Green Forest hostel.

We had a wander around the food street. It was good fun – but I did come back smelling as awesome as if I had been on the menu myself. Oh well, who cares of a smell of frying oil and barbeque smoke when you’ve had a good meal. We also tried the local noodle specialty, biang biang mian. It is also famous because the locals created a special Chinese Character for this dish – it is the most complicated character in the Chinese language. Created for food. Tells something about the priorities in the lives of the Chinese, haha.

Ashley and Jamie eating biang biang mian in a
tiny restaurant at the food street.

Xi'an food street at night.

The next day we found our way to the public bus that took us to Terracotta warriors for the price of 7 kuai (under 1 euro) and bumped into Marcus, the German dude, while looking for the bus.  Once we arrived at the visitor centre, there again were a lot of willing people to be our guides, yet we decided to first get our tickets and then look for a guide. Marcus and David went straight for the student ticket queue and it seems at terracotta warriors the staff did not know much English as they managed to successfully buy them. The uptight Finnish woman (me) first decided to disapprove of such cheating yet in the end barely managed to gather her wits enough to follow the lead and buy a ticket that was 50% cheaper than the genuine one. Although technically, after all, I am a student (not employed and studying mandarin) a part of me still didn’t like the idea that I’m buying a student ticket just because I can. Can’t believe I’m that uptight, but oh yes, let’s just face it, I am. Where is the villain in me?

We hired a guide at the terracotta warriors and I do think it added a lot of value to our visit. I quite enjoyed listening to her explaining to us the background and the history of the warriors. Hearing that the emperor had started planning for his afterlife at the age of 13 and building an army to fight for him also once he has crossed to the other side was both rather amazing and a little disturbing. Only an emperor can afford to think of their life after death at the age of 13.

 

The warriors in their pits

The next day  (Tuesday) we ditched David and headed over to Huashan with Marcus (actually he ditched us – he wanted to go to Huashan on Thursday afternoon and overnight on the mountain – an exercise we would have loved to join but had no equipment whatsoever for overnighting on a mountain under a sun and we weren’t really tempted to stay at the mountain top hostels during Golden Week when everything is more expensive than usual). To get to Huashan we took the fast train at 7.30 in the morning and returned from Huashan North station at 7.30 in the evening – which was pretty much just right for a cable car ride up, walking around all the peaks and a quick hike down the mountain. On top of Huashan it was blistering cold and Ashley was wearing the tiniest shorts any mountain climber has ever worn in this world – luckily she doesn’t get cold easily. I was cool enough in my long sleeve cross country skiing / hiking jacket and long trousers. Not cold – but had it been any colder it would have not been pleasant. It wasn’t that cold of a day otherwise but we were unlucky enough to have a strong breeze blowing over the mountain tops that cooled down the air a good few degrees.  Our biggest disappointment however was that the plank path was closed and we could not complete the famous death defying  Huashan walk. (The path re-opened two days later when David arrived on Huashan and he was able to complete the walk. We hate him!) Huashan was beautiful, the scenery is breathtaking and whether you decide to hike up the mountain or take the cable car up, both are ways to see Huashan and the nearby mountains.

The long cable car ride to the West peak.

Jamie wasn't fond of the strong wind we had on the
cable car ride.

Locks with wishes on top of Huashan.

View towards one of the other peaks.

Our group pictured in a mirror ball.

This is as close to the plank walk as we got.
(Probably to Jamie's relief).

 For the rest of the trip we didn’t do much of anything else worth mentioning except for we did the recommended Xi’an City Wall cycling (a fun ride but after Huashan the scenery felt somewhat boring), and changed hostels. 7 Sages Hostel was another great find! They claim to be “one of the world’s most spectacular 10 hostels” and whilst this may be a slightly exaggerated claim, they were definitely one of the best hostels I’ve been in. The dorm rooms and common showers were not as nice as at green Forest but the 3-person room we had was a bargain and in good condition for the price we paid for it. Wat mad the place great was that the hostel had an amazing deco -  a great combination of old and new (built in old military barracks), a cosy restaurant and lounge area, a courtyard area, ping pong tables, pool table, a well equipped bar/fridge, laundry facilities (that we used at the end of the week) and bicycle rental services. We also made friends with Niu-Niu, the hostel dog (Well, Ashley and Jamie did, I’m not so much into dogs) and a man we believe was the owner of the hostel (we didn’t ask whether he was the owner or the manager).

Cycling on the Xi'an city wall.

We were impressed by the pretty coffee cups at the Seven
Sages hostel.

The courtyard at the Seven Sages hostel.

The restaurant and breakfast room at Seven Sages.

In the evening we also saw the umbrellas that people had left
in support of the pro democracy demonstrations that were
taking place in Hong Kong when we were in Xi'an.

 On our second last day we rented bicycles. Whilst I was happy with one of the hostels extremely old bikes, Ashley and Jamie conquered  Xi’an on a blue tandem bike. We did a good long run over to the great Goose Pagoda, further down and around the park area and back to our hostel again. If you can put up with Chinese traffic, it is a real fun experience. Get out there on a bike – cycling is something that must be tried out in China J

The Giant Goose Pagoda. We did not go inside the park
(there was an entrance fee).

This shopping mall had a funny screen in the roof with sealife.
It was like a ceiling movie screen.

Some signs in the parks did not make sense to us.

We returned to Beijing on a fast train  on Saturday(cheap tickets on sleeper trains were sold out), all very pleased with our trip. Looking forward to new adventures with this crew – hoping to also cross paths with Marcus and David again one day.

Sending all of you peace and love from a very polluted Beijing – at the time of writing this the PM2.5 reading is closer to 500 and rising…

Wrapping up in Beijing - and moving to Chengde

I have now been in Beijing for over two months and am getting ready to wrap up my studies here. It’s not all over yet, though – I’m going to study another two weeks in Chengde starting from 12^th October and then I still have another two weeks to travel in China. Most likely I’ll be heading hiking in Yunnan.

Those two months have been long enough to have learned basic conversational Chinese, having seen the most important sights in Beijing,and even visited some of the areas outside of Beijing.  Since I last wrote a blog post, I’ve been to Shanghai, the National Art Museum, experienced the Beijing Oktoberfest (as boozy as anywhere!) , seen the world’s first ever Formula E qualifying race at Beijing Olympic park and made myself a brief Chinese-English dictionary for the Clash of Clans game.

My "Clash of Clans" mini-dictionary, page 1. Still work in progress but it will be awesome ;)

SHANGHAI

I took the fast train from Beijing to Shanghai. A return ticket is around RMB 1,100 on second class – around 220 Singapore dollars for a comfortable five-hour journey. Not bad at all. Chinese trains have been a very positive surprise for me  - they run on time, they are comfortable and you can even make friends along the journey.

Shanghai itself was beautiful (although I do admit it could be a little boring or along visit). The days I was there the air was much cleaner than in Beijing. Shanghai seems well organized, clean and modern compared to what is the general image of China. There are lots of restaurants and trendy little shops, fancy cocktail bars. There are much fewer sights than in Beijing, however. For living and working in the long run Shanghai would probably be nicer  for us foreigners than Beijing (also because the air is cleaner) but for someone who comes for the first time to China Beijing has been a more interesting location to be based in.

I hate to admit it but I walked into a Chinese tea scam in Shanghai. Although I suspected it from the begining, I for some reason decided to play along (my curiosity is really going to get me in trouble one day). the part I don't quite understand is that although by the end of it I was absolutely certain it was a scam, I still gave the money. What on earth made me do that! I am so stupid Oh well, I did have a lot of fun getting scammed and even learned a few new words of Chinese along the way. In any case, if you see this lady when you go to Shanghai, slap her on my behalf, she is part of the tea scam. If she is with two friendly men, slap them too, they are most likely the same two scammers. Friendly or not, they deserve a  little"nudge" :)

Apart from getting scammed, one thing I did in Shanghai that I particularly enjoyed was having dinner at Mr and Mrs Bund. This French restaurant at The Bund is extremely expensive on Chinese standards (no on western standards though) but completely worth it – the set menu and half a bottle of wine was over 800RMB per person but that included 6 absolutely delightful courses. I’m not much of a foodie but I can say I loved Mr and Mrs Bund and thought it was worth paying that little bit extra for.

I also liked walking around Jing’an temple and Yuyuan gardens. Although Jing’an is slightly further west it's easy to get to by subway. It's also relatively small and can be covered in about an hour. Yuyuan takes slightly longer due to its labyrinth like structure.  

Yuyuan Gardens (top) and Jing'an temple (bottom).

Admiring the skyline at The Bund both during the day and at night was of course a must – and completely free of charge. I would advise not to go to the Bund tunnel – I went and it was a 5min light show inside a tunnel accompanied with what I though was an incoherent story.  Oh well, it did not cost a fortune but I would describe it as “paying money for watching  fireworks on a big, moving screen”. I didn’t have time for much of anything else during my short visit – hanging out with my friend Petra who was in Shanghai for a work related training course was my main aim, after all.

Shanghai skyline deserves a second shot.
Photo courtesy of Petra Diener, the German Superwoman.

TIAN TAN – The Temple of Heaven

After returning to Beijing I went  to see the Temple of Heaven. Honestly, again, I’ve seen too many places and not found out enough on the background. I found Tian Tan pretty, yet the most interesting parts of it were:

1. Observing the Chinese people in the park do group singing. They even had their own little song books and a small band accompanying them.
2. Watching people queue for the Imperial Vault of Heaven (we could not find the place with the echo wall next to it – maybe we were just stupid and could not find the entrance. Perhaps you can still enter it. Yet with the number of people visiting Tian tan on any average summer day you can forget about hearing any echoes of your whispers).
3. Buying a miniature Tian Tan building kit and assembling it with my classmate Aimee.

All in all, it was worth a visit, it was pretty but not as impressive as I though it could have been. We continued our visit to the Drum Tower (and found it’s closed for renovation) and then to Jingshan Park to take a look over the Forbidden City from the top of the hill in Jingshan park. Jingshan park also has a memorial site for one of the former emperors who hung himself from a tree when the city was overtaken by invaders. Surely not the same tree anymore (?), I would think, although trees can live to be very old.

Men playing a local game (that remains a mystery to me), the group singing, and the buildings at the Temple of Heaven. The last image (bottom left) is the queue for the Imperial Vault of Heaven. It doesn't look long but it moved really slowly.

Our own Tian Tan finished. Almost as strong make as the real one. Will last for centuries.

OKTOBERFEST BEIJING

The evening of the sightseeing day ended with getting dragged over to the Beijing Oktoberfest. A good fun event. According to my friend Andreas who has been to the real one , the Beijing one is an exact copy – except for that they also have a couple of local Chinese acts on the stage.  An entertaining band, lots of beer in big glasses and good company – always makes a good evening. Despite my protests I got dragged clubbing (my friends told me I can’t get a taxi home since it’s raining and when it rains in Beijing everything turns into a chaos). I did have a very fun night out at a club in Sanlitun, despite having been that intoxicated that I even peed on a parking lot in Sanlitun. That’s what Oktoberfest does to you – ruins your good manners but guarantees a great nigh out.

ART MUSEUM

I would warmly recommend the National Art Museum to anyone who is at all interested in art. There seemed not to be any permanent exhibition so it will depend a bit on your luck what will be on display but we were very lucky to have a great representation of both contemporary and more traditional paitings. We saw landscapes from Gansu in an exhibition called “Kunlun Heart, China’s dream” painted by Ma Wanguo, architecture, traditional flower and bird paintings by Wu Changshuo – and my favourite, great exhibition of contemporary  artists.

FLAGRAISING ON TIANANMEN SQUARE

On a cold end of September morning I at some moment of insanity thought it would be great to see the flagraising at Tiananmen square. A daily event in Beijing at sunrise - therefore the timing changes every day. On the day I went down with my classmate Peter, it took place at 6.06am - which meant we had to be there by 5.30am and still got views mainly of the Chinese crowd gathered to see their own national flag raised with some of the most impressive buildings in Chinese history in the background (Tiananment gate and The Forbidden City).

There have been better days and worse days during my over two months in China, but I would still like to conclude with saying “Life is good”. Here, a sunny picture of my neighbourhood on a slightly chilly September morning to make the point why life is so good - when the sun is shining and it's a nice, cool autumn morning even the city that at first seemed so dirty can look beautiful. Sending some sunshine to everybody! :)

The joys and frustrations of learning Chinese

I’m again sitting at home staring at my Chinese book wondering what do all of these strange scribbles on my book mean. I supposedly have learned all the characters, yet I always find it very hard to remember them when I see them anywhere outside of the original school book text. Those of you who have studied Chinese would know the additional challenge that a pictographic script adds to learning a language. I have discovered an entirely new world of “not understanding” or “partially understanding a language”

1. 1I do not know this word, I do not know how to write it and I do not know what tone it is.
2. 2I know what this word means and I can write it in pinyin, but I struggle remembering the correct tone (can often result in a completely different word) and I have no idea what the character for this looks like.
3. 3I know this word, I can pronounce it correctly with the correct tone but I can’t recognise or write the character (because I’ve never seen it).
4. 4I can recognise this character, and I know what it means but I have no idea how to pronounce it. (For example, this happens when you have seen a character in sign at a shop– but don’t know what the pronunciation is or how to write it either in pinyin or the character)
5. 5I know the word, can pronounce it and can recognize the character when I see it but I would not be able to write it unless I had a model.
6. 6I know the word, I can pronounce it, recognize and write the character. Unfortunately I still have very few characters that I can put in this group!

Add to the above idiomatic expressions  and grammar and you know why many people find studying Chinese frustrating. I’ve been told that Chinese grammar is easy – although I wouldn’t call it extremely difficult I don’t think it’s easy for speakers of European languages. Interestingly enough I personally find it often easier thinking about the English translation of Chinese than Finnish. Finnish language structure is just in its own league. I am yet to learn a language that resembles my mother tongue even remotely!

Despite the frustrations I still find Chinese language interesting.  The characters may be difficult but they are also beautiful. Writing has been one of the most enjoyable activities for me (a task that divides the opinions of many Chinese learners – some love it whilst others absolutely hate the scribbles). I am pleased that I have another 4 weeks to study and 2 weeks to travel in China, yet I know I will also be happy to complete my three and a half months here. I will want to continue studying Chinese yet I want to do it at a slightly less intense pace.

One fo the most enjoyable activities is writing Chinese characters. I can't recognise them - but I love writing them. Hence my character practise notebook has lines and lines of neatly drawn characters - and it isn't even part of my homework. I just like doing it whenever I can find the time. Putting it into practise is somewhat more challenging and my attempts at short dialogues or stories for class always end up coming back with multiple correction suggestions from my teacher (on the right). A long way to go to mastering this language - but it is a good start!