Goodbye Beijing, Hello Xian
So I'm now in sunny Xian. At least I assume its sunny. Its hot certainly. But I haven't seen the sun from the ground for some time now... I'm hoping in Chengdu it was just misty and cloudy though rather than it being as bad as Beijing and shanghai in terms of smoggyness. Though if its going to be smoggy a pea-souper might be fun...
So what's happened since my last entry? Wait... what was my last entry... *Goes to look*.
Ah right, so after my last post I did the temple of Heaven and the Forbidden City (I keep wanting to call it the forgotten city but its a bit big for people to forget).
Of the two I actually preferred the Temple of Heaven. The Forbidden City (FC) was impressive but largely there was just a lot of thinking "Oh wow, this place is pretty damn big, look at the size of that courtyard, look at the size of that building, ooohhh... lots of big buildings... It was massively impressive and I've never seen anything like it but I was running late and so going through quite quick. I don't mind that too much. The only thing that I was annoyed about is that some of the museum type bits in it shut an hour before the rest of the place so I managed to miss a couple of things I'd have liked to see.
The reason I was running late though (apart from my usual late start) was that I adored the temple of heaven. Its largely a massive park but with some awesome buildings in it. I've not got my reference to hand but there was one massive pagoda type thing called something like "The hall of prayer for good harvests" which had a bunch of other buildings around it for supporting roles. The function is pretty much what it says on the tin. There were buildings where they stored the god's tablets... I forget their proper name and couldn't read what they said but I think they were basically a tablet with presumably the god's name or similar and represented them (maybe, I might have got the completely wrong end of the stick). I remember them saying they took them out of their "sleeping" place for the rituals...
Anyway, the electronic audio tour guide I got was very good except for not being able to pause and rewind. a couple of things I missed because I was distracted by something or my headpiece fell off and so on (or they were saying "Now you are here looking in this building" while I was still waiting to get past the crowd... It told me a lot of interesting things about the cosmology and architectural significance - such as square shapes represent earth and round are heaven. Which is why so many of these things are square walls with round buildings in. And the number 9 is very important because its the largest odd number less than 10, odd numbers being divine or something. But it meant that the number 9 appeared lots from 9x9 rows of studs on doors to the Circular mound altar which had a circular stone in the center at the top and then 9 stones in a circle round that, 18 in the next circle, then 27... There must have been about 30 odd circles of stones, all multiples of 9...
Anyway, failing to cut a long story short it was awesome and I'm really glad I went. The park around it was very pretty too though very busy and touristy in a few places (though to be honest I love the opportunity to buy ice cold bottles of water for 3-5 yuan at all these places. In the summer palace I know it was ice old because I realised after I was half way through that some of the water was still ice... I think that was 4RMB...
Brief aside on currency - Yuan is the official unit of currency but its also referred to as RMB (I forget what it stands for but its the name of the monetary system, a bit like Sterling). Its also Kwai sometimes which I believe is a mandarin word for a unit of currency. Kwai is the most common one I've heard people using... And as a ballpark last time I checked it was almost exactly 11 RMB = 1 pound. So the ice water for 4RMB was about 35p.
To give some other ideas of prices I paid for a tour to the terracotta warriors today which was 160RMB (transport, entry fees and tour guide covered, lunch not). My uber comfy train from shanghai to Beijing was 770RMB. My bed in Beijing was 85RMB (while in a triple dorm) and 65 RMB (while in an eight person dorm).
I was just trying to work out what else I've done and then realised that this was only yesterday I was doing these things. Time is really strange for me at the moment. Days of the week mean next to nothing (I'm trying to avoid terracotta warriors on the weekend since I figure it will be busier but that's about it) and how long since things happened is measured more in changes than real units of time. So I'm in a different city, different room, different people so it seems like ages since I was in Beijing despite it just being this morning.
So last night after all this I thought about going to Jingshang Park but I'd just spent 5 hours on my feet and though it did look like it would give a mighty good view I decided I just wanted to get back to my room and shower.
Oh, and then start to mildly panic about where I was staying. I'd got my flight sorted and confirmed but hadn't heard back from the hostel. So with the help of one of the staff I phoned them up (it was really useful to have him do the hellos and check they spoke English before passing over to me). They had no space. I paniced briefly and considered begging but before I'd had a chance to humiliate myself I found myself being given another phone number. This place had space so I booked myself in and breathed a sigh of relief.
I also met a few nice people at the hostel. In particular is Ed who was a really nice American guy staying in the same dorm room as me. He was 62 (I think that's what he said) and had many stories of traveling and was generally awesome and cool. It was very interesting to discuss with him his experiences in Vietnam since I'd heard it wasn't great to be American there but he said that those he'd talked to hadn't seemed bothered... I think he was part of what made me feel more relaxed about everything.
The other thing that I think has boosted my mood is that I think three or maybe four times over the last few days I've had random Chinese people ask if they can have their photo taken with me. The first time I thought they were trying a scam of some kind but it appears not. They just like having their photo taken with me. :) The people here are starting to seem a lot less scary from that sort of thing, to having conversations with taxi drivers when neither of you understand anything the other is saying to having conversations with young kids who all seem to be able to like saying "Hello" "What is your name" and "How are you". I've learned this now and occasionally wave to curious looking kids and say hello (nice and loud and clear) because they seem to love communicating with the funny looking foreigner.
Anyway, I'm in Xian now, The flight was OK except that I'd carelessly left my sun tan lotion in my carry on luggage and wasn't allowed to. By the time I got to the signs that gave any hint of this of course I'd already checked in my big bag. It means I need to pick up some suntan stuff fairly soon. Though of course only if I ever see the sun again...
The room I'm in is a bit of a shithole frankly. I'll take some pictures in a bit but to give you a rough idea there are marks all over the wall, one bed has marked sheets (I think permanent marks rather than unwashed), the walls are marked all over, the paint is chipping, the walls falling apart, cobwebs down the back of the desk, electrics that are either falling out of the wall or in some cases gaffer taped together... And I'm sure I've seen more mosquitoes in this room than I have for the rest of my trip...
The two redeeming feature are 1) working aircon. 2) I'm sure I had a second when I started this sentence... Oh yeah, the level of excitement of two is that it has toilet roll... And in fact given that both rooms i had in Beijing had working aircon 1 isn't that exciting either...
Given I decided to splash out here on a single room (dorms are great except people coming in late from drinking and others up at 6 for trips means sleep isn't always great) and so I'm paying more per night here than I did for all of Beijing put together means I'm a bit unimpressed. When I get to Chengdu though I'm back into a nice 25RMB/night dorm though. I've actually booked this already and have asked the staff here to sort out a train ticket for me.
So the current plan for Xian is Terracotta warriors tomorrow and if I'm not feeling too knackered a drop off on the way back at the Big Wild Goose Pagoda and the nearby Shaanxi History Museum (depending on time). Then day after is those two if I don't have time tomorrow, a bank trip to replenish cash supplies and see some of Xian and maybe walk some of the city walls. Then day after that (Sunday I think) I'm on a sleeper train which looks like it is leaving at 17:30 and arriving at 11:45 next day. Now though its midnight. And this will hopefully get posted over breakfast if I have time, if not after I've already seen the terracotta warriors.
So what's happened since my last entry? Wait... what was my last entry... *Goes to look*.
Ah right, so after my last post I did the temple of Heaven and the Forbidden City (I keep wanting to call it the forgotten city but its a bit big for people to forget).
Of the two I actually preferred the Temple of Heaven. The Forbidden City (FC) was impressive but largely there was just a lot of thinking "Oh wow, this place is pretty damn big, look at the size of that courtyard, look at the size of that building, ooohhh... lots of big buildings... It was massively impressive and I've never seen anything like it but I was running late and so going through quite quick. I don't mind that too much. The only thing that I was annoyed about is that some of the museum type bits in it shut an hour before the rest of the place so I managed to miss a couple of things I'd have liked to see.
The reason I was running late though (apart from my usual late start) was that I adored the temple of heaven. Its largely a massive park but with some awesome buildings in it. I've not got my reference to hand but there was one massive pagoda type thing called something like "The hall of prayer for good harvests" which had a bunch of other buildings around it for supporting roles. The function is pretty much what it says on the tin. There were buildings where they stored the god's tablets... I forget their proper name and couldn't read what they said but I think they were basically a tablet with presumably the god's name or similar and represented them (maybe, I might have got the completely wrong end of the stick). I remember them saying they took them out of their "sleeping" place for the rituals...
Anyway, the electronic audio tour guide I got was very good except for not being able to pause and rewind. a couple of things I missed because I was distracted by something or my headpiece fell off and so on (or they were saying "Now you are here looking in this building" while I was still waiting to get past the crowd... It told me a lot of interesting things about the cosmology and architectural significance - such as square shapes represent earth and round are heaven. Which is why so many of these things are square walls with round buildings in. And the number 9 is very important because its the largest odd number less than 10, odd numbers being divine or something. But it meant that the number 9 appeared lots from 9x9 rows of studs on doors to the Circular mound altar which had a circular stone in the center at the top and then 9 stones in a circle round that, 18 in the next circle, then 27... There must have been about 30 odd circles of stones, all multiples of 9...
Anyway, failing to cut a long story short it was awesome and I'm really glad I went. The park around it was very pretty too though very busy and touristy in a few places (though to be honest I love the opportunity to buy ice cold bottles of water for 3-5 yuan at all these places. In the summer palace I know it was ice old because I realised after I was half way through that some of the water was still ice... I think that was 4RMB...
Brief aside on currency - Yuan is the official unit of currency but its also referred to as RMB (I forget what it stands for but its the name of the monetary system, a bit like Sterling). Its also Kwai sometimes which I believe is a mandarin word for a unit of currency. Kwai is the most common one I've heard people using... And as a ballpark last time I checked it was almost exactly 11 RMB = 1 pound. So the ice water for 4RMB was about 35p.
To give some other ideas of prices I paid for a tour to the terracotta warriors today which was 160RMB (transport, entry fees and tour guide covered, lunch not). My uber comfy train from shanghai to Beijing was 770RMB. My bed in Beijing was 85RMB (while in a triple dorm) and 65 RMB (while in an eight person dorm).
I was just trying to work out what else I've done and then realised that this was only yesterday I was doing these things. Time is really strange for me at the moment. Days of the week mean next to nothing (I'm trying to avoid terracotta warriors on the weekend since I figure it will be busier but that's about it) and how long since things happened is measured more in changes than real units of time. So I'm in a different city, different room, different people so it seems like ages since I was in Beijing despite it just being this morning.
So last night after all this I thought about going to Jingshang Park but I'd just spent 5 hours on my feet and though it did look like it would give a mighty good view I decided I just wanted to get back to my room and shower.
Oh, and then start to mildly panic about where I was staying. I'd got my flight sorted and confirmed but hadn't heard back from the hostel. So with the help of one of the staff I phoned them up (it was really useful to have him do the hellos and check they spoke English before passing over to me). They had no space. I paniced briefly and considered begging but before I'd had a chance to humiliate myself I found myself being given another phone number. This place had space so I booked myself in and breathed a sigh of relief.
I also met a few nice people at the hostel. In particular is Ed who was a really nice American guy staying in the same dorm room as me. He was 62 (I think that's what he said) and had many stories of traveling and was generally awesome and cool. It was very interesting to discuss with him his experiences in Vietnam since I'd heard it wasn't great to be American there but he said that those he'd talked to hadn't seemed bothered... I think he was part of what made me feel more relaxed about everything.
The other thing that I think has boosted my mood is that I think three or maybe four times over the last few days I've had random Chinese people ask if they can have their photo taken with me. The first time I thought they were trying a scam of some kind but it appears not. They just like having their photo taken with me. :) The people here are starting to seem a lot less scary from that sort of thing, to having conversations with taxi drivers when neither of you understand anything the other is saying to having conversations with young kids who all seem to be able to like saying "Hello" "What is your name" and "How are you". I've learned this now and occasionally wave to curious looking kids and say hello (nice and loud and clear) because they seem to love communicating with the funny looking foreigner.
Anyway, I'm in Xian now, The flight was OK except that I'd carelessly left my sun tan lotion in my carry on luggage and wasn't allowed to. By the time I got to the signs that gave any hint of this of course I'd already checked in my big bag. It means I need to pick up some suntan stuff fairly soon. Though of course only if I ever see the sun again...
The room I'm in is a bit of a shithole frankly. I'll take some pictures in a bit but to give you a rough idea there are marks all over the wall, one bed has marked sheets (I think permanent marks rather than unwashed), the walls are marked all over, the paint is chipping, the walls falling apart, cobwebs down the back of the desk, electrics that are either falling out of the wall or in some cases gaffer taped together... And I'm sure I've seen more mosquitoes in this room than I have for the rest of my trip...
The two redeeming feature are 1) working aircon. 2) I'm sure I had a second when I started this sentence... Oh yeah, the level of excitement of two is that it has toilet roll... And in fact given that both rooms i had in Beijing had working aircon 1 isn't that exciting either...
Given I decided to splash out here on a single room (dorms are great except people coming in late from drinking and others up at 6 for trips means sleep isn't always great) and so I'm paying more per night here than I did for all of Beijing put together means I'm a bit unimpressed. When I get to Chengdu though I'm back into a nice 25RMB/night dorm though. I've actually booked this already and have asked the staff here to sort out a train ticket for me.
So the current plan for Xian is Terracotta warriors tomorrow and if I'm not feeling too knackered a drop off on the way back at the Big Wild Goose Pagoda and the nearby Shaanxi History Museum (depending on time). Then day after is those two if I don't have time tomorrow, a bank trip to replenish cash supplies and see some of Xian and maybe walk some of the city walls. Then day after that (Sunday I think) I'm on a sleeper train which looks like it is leaving at 17:30 and arriving at 11:45 next day. Now though its midnight. And this will hopefully get posted over breakfast if I have time, if not after I've already seen the terracotta warriors.