The Forbidden City

It's huge.  I mean nuts huge. It's made up of about nine sub-palaces, you know, for when you're friends drop by. You walk miles, and if you're me, you get completely disoriented.  I'm trying to imagine sacking this place and how embarrassing it would be to find out that you've been running around in circles.  It also gets like 80,000 visitors per day.  The day that I went, it was pouring rain, which probably kept things at a slightly more sane visitor level.  It did not make it any smaller, though, and according to my handy phone app, I walked about 9 miles, a few of them unintentional. 

It really is like Kung Fu Panda with the Hall of Supreme Harmony and the Hall of Mental Cultivation, and by 1pm I was ready for the Hall of Eternal Lunch and a Most Honorable Cup of Tea. And while it has enough restrooms for the number of visitors it gets, it only has one place for lunch, and it isn't that big.  There's basically one big long table and then some smaller tables and like a European cafe it's about the chairs not the tables (you share the table).  First you grab a seat, then you go to the counter to order, but don't leave anything valuable there.  Which makes it tricky if you're on your own.  Some 900-year-old guy who looked oddly like Michael Palin tried to grab my seat, but the nice group of friends who were right there chased him off for me, which is good since I was starving.  Lunch was good, and I had some ice cream to go (in the pouring rain).

Then it was on to more Halls of This and That, and I was having the damdest time finding The Hall of Paintings.  There were a million and one dragons, 

 Even the turtle is a dragon!

The emperor also had a load of clocks and a ton of broken pottery. By the time I found the Hall of Broken Pottery I was Over It.  On my way out of the maze (which took a few tries), I dropped by the Hall of Literary Brilliance and ta-da!  Paintings!  Beautiful ink paintings.

Of course, then you have to actually find your way out of there, which is harder than it sounds since you can't go out the way you came in and end up walking another few miles in the wrong direction, which is not helped by the fact that there is indeed a moat.  And to think that this did get sacked but no one ever made it to the Great Wall.  Of course, there's a handy subway station near this but the Wall is on the spine of a mountain range.  There's a lesson here somewhere.

 

The Great Wall of China

Impressive, although I’m not sure why you need it. It’s on the spine of a mountain range, and believe me, if you can make it to the top of that, through the forest, then you can climb that 20’ wall.  Megalomaniacs and the things they build!  But it is impressive and very cool to look at. Also, cellphone repeater towers at the top, but I think those are a recent addition.

To get there - at least to the part that I visited - you drive about 2 hours out of Beijing, then you get off the bus, and the bus drives through a gate, and you get back on the bus. Something about there’s a fee per person on a bus going through the gate, but not for pedestrians.  Then you drive up a steep hill and park the bus. Then you get out and walk up more steep hill. I mean steep. Then it gets steeper. Then you go up a flight of stairs, and then, if you’re me, you get on a gondola that (steeply) takes you to the top, almost. Because you still need to walk up a steep hill and go up some “stairs” that are really not stairs, they are a set of 2’-tall blocks which are - you guessed it - steep.  Now you’re on the Great Wall of China. Like I said, you hardly need the wall.  And I’m not sure if any invading forces ever made it that far, since it's also hot and humid. There was a handicap ramp to the gondola entrance from the top of the steep stairs, which I did not remotely understand, and an "Accessible" section after you got to the wall which was not only steep, but also slick because it was so steep and the rock was worn smooth.  This is a new definition of "accessible" with which I was not previously familiar.

But it is impressive!  I mean it winds its way though the mountains and has these lookout towers every so often that are awesome because they provide shade and are quite cool inside.

Being an ancient, crumbling wall, one does need to watch one’s feet when walking. And there’s not a staircase there that had normal evenly-spaced steps. So definitely watch your feet and try not to break your neck. Oh, and as the wall follows the spine of a mountain range, it goes up and down, which means a lot of stairs. Many of which are - drumroll please - steep. Several were triggering my vertigo to the point of me going back the other way. I met a few others who were having the same problem.

It it was, however, quite photogenic and very sketchable.

This is an "Accessible" route that you find once you've made it all the way to the top.  Hint: It's steep.  Also slippery.

A staircase:

 Then at the appointed time we met back down at the base for Chinese food.

Terracotta Warriors

Actually, it's the Terracotta Military Operation.  I mean, it's not just a bunch of the same guys: There's archers both standing and kneeling, generals, infantry, vanguard, chariots, you name it.  And it's not just that one batch that you see all the time (which, by the way, fills and airplane hangar) there's three more sites that have been excavated (including a Command Center) and a dozen plus more that haven't .  This was a major operation.  And each of these guys is unique and standing on a plinth with (they think) the person's name on it.  Art has a soul and you can feel each of these when your in the room with them.  They are large than life.

If you prefer your armies smaller, there are also half-size bronze chariots.  And bronze is an alloy which they were making over a fire without the fancy tech that we have now.

Of course, most of it is broken.  The wooden roof over their heads collapsed over the course of the years, and slowly they are putting them back together again.  Once upon a time they were colorful, but that color oxidizes when you dig it up, so we have the earth color.  But still beyond impressive.

Megalomaniacs and the things they build!  Of course, one of the folks I met while I was on The Wall posed the question: "Would the emperor have to dig them up in the afterlife?" 

Li River

This landscape is nuts. I took a cruise along the Li River and talk about wow. I have no idea what to say about this other then “wow.”

The hotel was also wow, nestled in the hills, away from the noise of the city, with great views and a real chef cooking up really good food. I did a lot of sketching from the rooftop restaurant and met some folks who were on a tour together, one of whom was an artist as well. They told me about a light show that I should see.

The second day I was there it was pouring. Having lived in a rainy place it didn’t faze me to much, although it did make sketching a bit of a challenge and kept me away from caves and local to West Street, their shop-filled neighborhood. It was fascinating to walk around in, even in the rain. The usual crazy variety of shops from kitch tchotchkes to food things (although I’m not always sure what those things were). Also, a nine-hundred-year-old-woman kept apparating out of nowhere trying to sell me an umbrella. I lived in Seattle for 20 years and never used an umbrella.

I found a nice little café for lunch and had a wonderful mushroom and bok choy stir fry, and watched the rain (and the woman with the umbrellas, who like a vampire cannot cross the threshold without permission, was circling the café, still trying to sell me an umbrella). The rain let up in the evening, which is good, since I wanted to see that showed that they’d told me about. This was also wow. Think Cirque de Soleil but on a river. It was apparently designed by a guy who designed the opening ceremonies for the olympics one year.

I am now in Xi’an. It was literally 100 degrees out. The town seems like it would be fun to explore if it were about 30 degrees cooler. There are a lot of shops nearby, but mostly I just want a shower right now.

Nestled in the hills

My luggage has now been x-rayed so many times that I’m amazed it doesn’t glow. Every time you go to the subway, they X-ray. Today it was Pudong airport, which consisted of many lines and multiple x-rays.  Just get there early, which I did, courtesy of the maglev again, traveling at 431 kph, which I swear is faster than the trip over. The flight itself was noteworthy only in that you board the plane by taking a bus across the tarmac. I think terminal 2 doesn’t really exist. There is a building,  but it’s fenced off, and all the planes are lined up off to one side. They showed a movie on board, about someone who became a smuggler to support his son after the divorce.  Or something like that, it was hard to read the tiny subtitles. I have no idea how it ended since we landed and they turned it off just as the police were moving in.

I’m now in Yangshuo, where I will spend the next couple of days nestled in the hills, sketchbook in hand. Here's the view from my hotel room.

Shanghai

Shanghai! Where riding a motorcycle on the sidewalk without a helmet while texting is not only acceptable, it also seems to be the norm.  That’s ok because they also smoke. And I’m not convinced that any of the traffic laws apply to motorcycles or bicycles unless there is a policeman there actively enforcing them. Things like red lights and stop signs seem completely irrelevant. And keep in mind that there are about 5 million people on motorcycles, bicycles, and other non-car motorized transports, all running stop signs and riding on sidewalks in a massive pack. Walking down the sidewalk and crossing the street is quite an adventure. 

The city is a bit like Japan in terms of being a combination of traditional restaurants and architecture mixed in with Gucci, Old Navy, Starbucks, and McDonalds. I always enjoy checking out the American fast food joints in other countries since they often have very little in common with their American counterparts outside of the name. At least half of the menu is unique to that country, and maybe more. It’s a bit surreal to be sitting in a Starbucks with a matcha latte listening to the standard Starbucks music while watching a group of Chinese retirees do tai chi in front of a temple.

I took the metro subway down to The Bund, which is old French architecture with a waterfront path looking across to the Shanghai skyscraper postcard skyline.

Rather a pretty area if you can keep from passing out from the humidity. There are vending machines and people selling cold drinks everywhere, possibly to keep the entire city from passing out.  It is a very nice waterfront promenade, and the subway system is very efficient.  I took the maglev plus subway to get to the hotel from the airport. That maglev is very efficient transportation, going close to 20 miles in about 8 minutes, with a very smooth ride. The interior décor of the trains oddly feels old and worn out - maybe because they tried to do something nice that just doesn’t hold up with being mass transit from the airport.

Of course, then I need to get from the subway station to the hotel, which is just across the street, but that street is basically a freeway, and while there’s an overpass, the escalators only go up so you’re carrying your luggage down a very tall flight of stairs. Same problem in the subway. I think somewhere there is supposedly an elevator, but I haven’t seen it. So I lug the luggage. 

There’s a very nice shopping area with a park on the other side of the freeway, and like any place, everything seems to happen there, and I caught some live music on my way back, that seemed to be pop hits sung with Chinese translation of the lyrics. That seems to be the way to be a star anywhere: sing tunes that are known to be hits in the native language.

I've been hiding in the hotel room through the worst heat of the day, and now I think it’s time to head out and do some more exploring before it’s on to the next place tomorrow. Plus I want to be back here for sunset: from the 20th floor I get a great view, and pollution and humidity make for great sunsets.