China: the tour of ancient capitals part 2

Location: Shanghai

Time: 8:47pm

Weather: 9C, clear

From where I last left off last time, I ended up staying in Nanjing for 2.5 days, staying right by the Confucius Temple which has this massive touristy surrounding shopping area. With the Qinhuai River running through and older styled buildings on both banks, it is a beautiful area of town, and I was also lucky to get to enjoy the spectacular display of lights for the annual Lantern Festival. 

On my first day I first went to the Gate of China, the best preserved part of Nanjing's old city wall. Unlike the walls in Xian, it's not a top tourist destination and I saw very few people at the top. From there I headed to the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall, a heavy-hearted place but very well done with detailed descriptions of the entire event. Then I went to the Ruins of the Ming Dynasty Imperial Palace, now just a park but I had no idea the Forbidden Palace in Beijing was based on its former structure, and then the Presidential Palace. In the evening I checked out the center of Nanjing which is Xinjiekou. Food wise Nanjing is known for its duck and I had everything from duck blood noodle soup to duck xiaolongbao.

I spent most of the second day at Purple Mountain, where there were the mausoleums of three famous people:

-Dr. Sun Yat-Sen

-Ming Xiaoling, the first emperor of the Ming Dynasty

-Sun Quan

Each of these are very intricate structures with multiple gates and chambers. I can't count how many tombs I have visited in China but the one recurrent theme is that the elaborateness of the tomb reflects the status of the person. Other than the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Mausoleum, it wasn't very busy in the rest of the parks, perfect for enjoying the plum blossoms which are just beginning to bloom. Of course being in China (this can be said for most of Asia too), you can't have parks without temples and pagodas. Parks in China are one of the best places to people-watch and observe ordinary citizen life, as people like to gather in the somewhat rare pockets of greenery to take a break from the concrete jungle. 

On my last morning, I went to Yuhuatai Memorial Park, which commemorates all those who died in fight for Liberation for the Communist Party. It can be said to be a "red" tourist destination, for the Red Party which is another name for the Communist Party of China. My last stop was Xuanwu Lake right in front of Nanjing Train/Bus Station. It is a massive area filled with many dikes connecting little islands, and I only walked a small way around the lake before running to catch my 4 hour bus to Huangshan. 

I quite liked Nanjing for its slower pace of life but it also had this ominous feeling, perhaps it has something to do with the 300,000 plus people who were killed by the Japanese during World War II and the numerous tombs of famous people that are found around the city. It didn't help that it remained being grey skies the entire time I was there. 

Before I start about Huangshan, I just want to say that my last stop will remain in my memory as one of most friendly places on this trip. From the owner of the hostel I was staying in in the small town of Tangkou at the base of Huangshan coming to pick me up himself, to the street vendors who didn't mind chatting with you even if you're not interested in buying their stuff, people there seemed more genuine, perhaps due to it being a more rural area. On the bus ride there (as well as the long 6 hour ride back to Shanghai), I saw for the first time a countryside part of China, in the mountains with many trees and relatively few people live.

Other than being a good base for Huangshan, there's not much to do in Tangkou, where every building is either a biscuit shop, hotel and/or restaurant. I started my day up Huangshan early, getting to one of the hiking trailheads around 8am. The stairs weren't as steep as Huashan but still a good burn on the legs, and I reached the Greeting Guest Pine, the first point of interest of summit area, in around 1.5 hours. The fog started to lift just as I got to the top, and I witnessed a live Chinese painting right in front of my eyes.  Huangshan is a bit different looking to Huashan as there are more trees, mainly pines, on the giant slabs of granite. Some more climbing and I got to Bright Top Peak, from what I can see the highest point at 1860m, which started to get somewhat icy. I thought Yushan was very developed with the well-equipped  Paiyun Lodge, but here was even more over the top with a few massive hotels to serve those who want to stay overnight to watch the sunset and sunrise. I realized that I had more than enough time to get to the other trail down to the mountain and walk down before the last bus back to town, so I walked more leisurely in the afternoon seeing all the interesting landmarks. One of my favourites was A (stone) Monkey Gazing at the Sea, but unfortunately the fog returned in the afternoon and the supposed sea of clouds didn't happen. 

The last morning I had in Tangkou before returning to Shanghai I went to Hongcun, a UNESCO World Heritage town showcasing one of the best examples of Anhui-styled architecture. Although the admission was steep, I thought it was a very worthwhile place to visit and just walk around aimlessly seeing how the people who still lived there go about their lives. The village is very picturesque, such that I couldn't stop taking photos (in fact, many artists come to paint for an entire day), and is mapped out in the shape of a cow, filled with canals running alongside the narrow cobblestone lanes. The detailed carvings on some of the larger residences are absolutely beautiful.

With the 2 days I had left in Shanghai, I didn't do much sightseeing as I'd been to pretty much all the places prior, but went to see my grandparents and also met up with a friend who I'd met in Australia. Shanghai changes so much every time I come back to visit and I can never catch up.

With a much better understanding of some aspects of Chinese history and culture, that concludes my trip to China and puts an end to my nomadic travelling life for now!

China: the tour of ancient capitals part 1

Location: Nanjing

Time: 3:56am

Weather: 2 degrees, cloudy

After getting off the most packed 7 hour overnight train from Kaifeng to Nanjing where I also had no seats (what an experience!), I'm currently sitting at a 24 hour chain dumpling restaurant waiting, with a bunch of university students returning back to school, for the first subway to start. For not getting much sleep the past few days, in favour of making the most of my time, I feel rather alert so thought I'd take the time to update on a few things. 

Although I've been to China numerous times (born and lived there after all), this is my first time travelling here alone. So far it's made these renewed impressions on me:

-traffic chaos, cleanliness, and the number of touts are not too different from SE Asia

-for the most part, people don't seem too keen on chatting with strangers and would prefer to answer your questions with as little words as possible

-most tourist attractions cost money, but there are many free places too like government sponsored museums

-to add to the point above, everything is very commercialized, every place has got their local specialty for you to buy and tourist attractions will purposely build their ticket gates far away from the actual site so you have to pay to take their shuttle

-there don't seem to be nearly as many foreign backpackers, or perhaps they are not as well spotted amongst the masses of the Chinese

-food is great and cheap, as long as you stick to away from very touristy areas. Some of the best foods come from the shabby, hole in the wall roadside shop.

-blue sky exists, even in Beijing! The pollution seems to have gotten better, although I'm told that often they've simply moved factories away from the biggest cities to nearby cities, such as Shijiazhuang which had a pretty evident smoky smell as soon as I got off the plane.

-security and ID checks are everywhere, necessary to keep track of 13 billion people

Leaving Taipei on February 10th, I arrived in the industrial city of Shijiazhuang (in search of the cheapest flight), and was very lucky to meet two people on the plane who brought me to find something to eat (unfortunately the only thing open at midnight in the middle of Chinese New Year was McDonalds) and then directed me to the train station. Eventually I took a 3 hour train at 2am to Beijing, where I got reunited with my grandparents and uncle's family. 

After some rest, that first day I went to Nanluoguxiang, a preserved ancient part of town, and Ditan Temple Fair, only held during Chinese New Year and similar to Taiwan's night markets but on a much bigger scale. I ended up staying in Beijing for four days, going to Yanqing Ice Sculpture Festival (originally I had wanted to go to Harbin but it turns out there are ice sculpture festivals near Beijing too), Tiananmen Square, Shichahai, walking through lots of hutongs and traditional architecture. 

Like other big cities I've been to such as New York and Tokyo, you can stay in Beijing for a month and do different things everyday. I also did a day trip to Tianjin, which is quite different with numerous European styled architecture, since the city had many foreign concessions in the past. I finally got a taste of real winter as it was very cold and snowed a couple times, sometimes down to -15degrees with the windchill.

On Feb. 14th, I left Beijing for Xian on an overnight sleeper train (China's great with these, saves lots of time and lodging for the night). Coming out of the train station the next morning, I was met with the city wall which is the most complete of any city in China. As the ancient capital for many dynasties and the starting point of the Silk Road, Xian has a very historical feel and an interesting mix of Chinese and Muslim culture. With many points of interest both in and out of the city and lots of delicious food (my favourites being 羊肉泡馍, goat meat soup with torn bits of biscuit dunked in, and 凉皮，transparent rice noodles tossed with spicy sesame sauce), it remains to be my favourite city on this trip. In the two days I was there I went to some of the famous sights such as Clock Tower, Drum Tower, Muslim Quarter, Big Goose Pagoda, Tang Paradise, Huaqing Pool, Lishan, and of course the Terracotta Warriors Museum. Every spot is like a mini time travel experience, in fact, that feeling recurred just about everywhere in China. 

From Xian I went hiking up Huashan, one of the Five Great Mountains of China. Huashan is said to be the most precipitous mountain in China for it's steepness, some of the trails go up at a 90 degree angle which nowadays have stairs and chains but people in the past would have just climbed up barehanded. It's unlike any other mountain I've been to, as it's simply big slabs of rock with very little trees, although still very stunning. Everywhere there are these locks of love with red ribbons tied to the side chains. Like Taiwan (probably even more so), the path is very developed with stands selling food and water all along the way and hotels with full restaurants at the top. I met two sisters from Changsha and hiked pretty much the entire time with them, going up the peaks of all cardinal directions (highest was the south peak at 2154.9m). 

For the sake of time and safety (many parts of the trail were covered in ice), we took the expensive gondola down. Around 6:30pm when I came down the mountain, there were still many people planning to hike up, doable with the well lit trail. Later that evening I took a train to Luoyang, and stayed there for one day visiting the magnificent Longmen Grottoes, Luoyang Museum, and Old Street. Luoyang was another imperial capital filled with impressive cultural heritages from as far as the Song Dynasty.

You cannot come to Luoyang without going to Shaolin Temple, origin to the well known Shaolin style kungfu, so I took a day to go there, in the Songshan National Park area. The actual Shaolin Temple was filled with tourists and not too memorable for me; what I really enjoyed were the Pagoda Forest, the resting place for many of the monks (looks very much like the ruins at Ayutthaya), and a quiet hike up to Wuru Peak which had a natural cave where Dharma is said to have meditated for 9 years. After Shaolin Temple, I spent a night in Zhengzhou, a city built to be a transportation hub in the middle of China, but otherwise not much to do there.

 

Yesterday morning I took an early train to Kaifeng, yet another ancient capital, spending the day walking through more historical sights, At the Kaifeng Fu, I took a trip back to the Ming Dynasty complete with reenactments of the emperor going about his duties. Seeing how many people were lining up to go into Millennium City Park, the biggest reenactment park in Kaifeng based on a Song Dynasty painting called Going Up River for Qingming Festival, I decided to forgo what is sure to be a tourist trap and instead spent a while at Henan University, where scholars used to study for the imperial exams, admiring the Grand Hall and the Iron Pagoda.

Part two of the rest of China to come!