Final month in China - Beijing

After Pingao I visited my last new destination in China: Beijing.  Here I stayed in the Hutong district, behind the Forbidden City.  The location was ideal, and there were parks and interesting streets nearby.

Hutong district

Of course, still being summer there were many tourists and this showed when I visited Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City.

Tiananmen Square

The Forbidden City is impressive, and I liked hearing about the Emperor’s lives there.  Not much is said about the wives and concubines but I had read books on this before so it was nice to put things into context.  

entrance of Forbidden City

inside the Forbidden City

inside the Forbidden City

From one of the parks behind the Forbidden City I climbed up to the top of a hill and was able to get a good view of the Forbidden City, within its walls.

Forbidden City

You can’t go to China without visiting the Great Wall… and of course I made sure I did.  There are a number of places where you can visit the wall, the closest being about half an hour out of Beijing.  However, in an effort to avoid the mass tourists and tourist sites, I went to Jinshanling (built during the Ming Dynasty) which was about 3 hours away.  It’s very impressive to see the vast expanse that the wall covers, and how high it was built.  Some parts have been restored, though some ‘old wall’ remains.  We went mostly to the old part.  The usual guides were there to ‘show’ you the way.  These were mostly Mongolians. (Inner Mongolia is on the other side of the wall).

The Great Wall of China

The Great Wall of China

The Great Wall of China

The other ‘must’ for Beijing, or Peking, was to eat Peking Duck.  I went with a few of the guys from the hostel and we shared a table with other Chinese tourists (the restaurant we went to is one of Beijing’s oldest ones and there was a long queue of people waiting for tables).  They serve the duck skin first, with a bowl of sugar, which you eat together.  Then the duck comes, with its various accondiments.  The sauce is a little different from the Hoi Sin sauce we get in the west, not as sweet, but it was nice.  We were shown how to serve a portion, using chop sticks the whole way.

Lastly I took the bullet train from Beijing to Shanghai (travelling at over 300km/h most of the way) for a final few days in Shanghai before leaving China and returning to Europe after 18 fascinating months in China.

map of journey:
https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msid=201580203090844665640.0004c82bb675c842cd874&msa=0&ll=43.389082,110.830078&spn=38.5866,68.554688&source=gplus-ogsb

Final month in China - East China: Xi'an, Pingyao

I did leave Shanghai as there were many more places to see.  I went to Xi’an where the Terracotta Warriors are.  

one of the 3 hangers that protect the terracotta warriors

soldiers and horses

These were pretty impressive, partly due to how many there are but also because it’s hard to fathom how the archeologists dug through the rocks to find them, many being kept intact.  

how did they not break them when excavating?

it was pretty hot there!

Apparently they were discovered when a local man was digging a well and came across one of the soldiers in 1974,  They are still excavating today, hard to imagine how many more they’ll find.

excavation site

some of the many soldiers

From Xi’an I was back on the train to travel to Pingyao.  I was on a ‘hard’ sleeper this time but to be honest this was still comfortable (still a mattrass and a duvet), the main difference being that a ‘soft’ sleeper has 4 berths in a cabin that closes and the ‘hard’ sleepers are in an open carriage and have 6 berths.  I didn’t enjoy being in the top one – where you can’t sit up without hitting your head!  The conductors switch the lights off about half an hour after the train leaves and people keep pretty quiet (apart from the odd snorers…).  You also get woken up about half an hour before your stop you there's little risk of missing your station.

Pingyao gate

Pingyao is ‘the best preserved old towns in the North’.  Southwest China seems to have more of these, I guess the Northeast was modernised earlier.  Pingyao is a walled city and you can walk along the walls.  I stayed inside and preferred to walk along the streets, stopping at various street food stalls along the way.

vats of vinegar

A local produce they made lots of in this area was vinegar and you could see vats of this in many of the shops.

city performers

Most evenings the town put on a variety of performances.  Sometimes it was individuals performing.

drummer

decorative Pingyao

I also visited the 'Wang courtyard residence' (a luxurious residence built during 1762-1811 by the descendants of the Wang Family, one of the Four Families of the Qing Dynasty in Shanxi Province).  There were many courtyards and buildings as well as some pretty artwork.  

Wang Courtyard Residence

Wang Courtyard residence

view of Wang Courtyard Residence

Lastly, I visited Zhangbi Ancient Village which has a network of underground tunnels where the villagers hid from any advancing enemies.
  

underground tunnels

I

Final month in China - Shanghai

I didn’t expect to like Shanghai as much as I did.  It’s a buzzing, modern city, with both new buildings (Pudong) and some traditional parts remaining (Old Town, French Concession).

modern Shanghai

Old Town

shopping streets

I had all sorts of plans to visit places around Shanghai (the Canal Towns nearby for example) but ended up staying in the city when I was there.  I enjoyed the traditional streets, the modern Nanjing shopping street and walking along the Bund at night.  I also found some nice roof top bars where I enjoyed drinks at sunset with fellow travellers.

The Bund by night, overlooking Pudong

Bund view with full moon

On a clear day I went to the top of Jin Mao Tower in the Pudong area to get nice views of Shanghai.

Jin Mao Tower

view of Pearl TV station and Shanghai from Jin Mao Tower