Friday, January 21, 2011
Sorry Guys! I was sick!
Sorry everyone, I was sick with the Chinese stomach bug! Last couple of blog posts coming through in a bit!
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Friday, January 14, 2011
Bullet train!!!
All aboard!! Our next stop from Xi'an is Luoyang by bullet train!! We are traveling on a brand new, factory made train, and we are the first foreigners to ride it!!! We were even on Chinese TV!! How about that!! This train goes about 230 km per hour, which is about 200 miles an hour. When you look at it from the side and the front it looks like a huge eel! It was really nice inside, and it was so smooth, I thought it was a mag-lev train, but we will be going on that to the airport from Shanghai. I can't wait for that train, since I used to love Thomas the Train when I was a little kid!!
Muslim Monastery
I don't know if I spelled monastery right, but during our last night in Xi'an we visited a Muslim monastery. It was soo cool!! In China, this minority group is called the Hui, and originally came to China from Persian traders who were allowed to settle in the area. Of all the ethnic groups in China, the Han Chinese people are the most numerous, with an estimated 90 percent of the whole population of China. The Hui is one of 56 smaller minority groups in China, not including the Jewish Chinese, who are not recognized by the Chinese communist government as a minority.
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Alina and I on the Xi'an city wall!!
On our last day in Xi'an, we went bike riding on the Xi'an city wall!! The city wall surrounds th old city of Xi'an and has all of the old archeatectural buildings. Outside of the wall, the more modern, new city surrounds the wall, and is continuing to expand!! Since the Chinese New Year is almost here, and the year of the Rabbit is coming, the people of Xi'an hold a huge festival with tons of floats and artwork along the wall!! I wish we could have stayed for the festival!! This year, it's still the year of the Rat, since the Chinese new year is way different from our new year!!!
Xi'an Noodles!!
In Xi'an, the provincial specialty is noodles, since the ground is not suited for growing a ton of rice. Instead thy grow wheat and millet to substitute their diet. But they make really good noodles!! Also native to the Shaanxi province is black boogers!! These little buggers are the result of the local power stations burning coal. When it rains, and there has not been much wind, the rain can be acidic!! The black boogers comes from the fine coal dust that hangs in the air here. The dust collects inside the nose, and turns the boogers black!!! Talk to you soon!! Ray
Terra Cotta Warriors
In Xi'an we went to see the Terra Cotta warriors!!! I was so excited! We first went to Pit 1, which was in a huge hanger about the size of 2 football fields!! This part of the tomb of the first emperor of China, Qin Shi Huangdi, was set as a unit of soldeirs ready for war. All of these soldiers were to be brought into the afterlife of the emperor himself!! Also it's said that he buried most of his concubines and all of the master engineers alive inside the tomb!! Pit 2 was set as the armies camp, with kitchens, chariotts and standing and kneeling soldiers and archers. Pit 3 was set as the command center for all of the army!! Most of the statues though are missing their heads, because in theory, rebels took the heads as a sign of ritual decapitation. The final pit, number 4, had everything ready to be put in it, but didn't actually have any terra cotta soldiers in it. Theories state that this was supposed to be a battle seen, and that workers were working on his tomb well after Emperor Qin's death before the establishment of the Han dynasty!! All these satellite tombs are about 1 mile from the central burial mound were Qin was buried. It is said, and might be the next Indiana Jones movie, that in his burial chamber he had 3 different palaces made underground, with the map of china on the floor, and the map of the heavens on the ceiling. It's alsomsaid that the rivers of China were represented by liquid mercury, and the stars diamonds!!! No one has ever seen inside the tomb, because of recent Chinese laws inhibiting the excavation of burial mounds, and the fact that we do t have the right technology to preserve the artifacts inside the tomb, because most of the objects that are that old will disintegrate when they hit regular air!!! When the mound was completed, it had 2 different walls around it and a permanent garrison to protect the tomb from looters. Alright, goodnight!!! Ray
Xi'an Hotel Room
Zen master Sam Rogers (my roommate) looking intensely over his shoulder at the city action below in Xi'an, home of the black snot and coaly, smoggy air!! At least the hotel (Shangri-la) didn't have smog!! :)
Satellite Tomb
This is what a tomb in early ancient China would look like right after completion with every thing in it!! After year of staying underground ( over 2000 years) the wood rots because of groundwater and moisture, and the whole tomb caves in. The objects inside get crushed under the weight of the ground and are smashed. This is how archeaologists find the tombs when they unearth it!! Good night!! Ray
Jing Di's tomb
This is a satellite tomb from the burial mound of the third emperor of China, Jing Di. In it you can see lots of pottery and different things made out of clay. But the really creepy thing was the little men and women made out of clay that are in his tomb and satellite tombs!! The clay statues, which were like little terra cotta warriors, where in many different shapes and kinds. There were even eunick statues, along with dogs, pigs, wolves, cows, and oxen. Do you know what a eunick is? :) Bye!! Ray
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Kate with a Han chinese youngster in the Xi'an airport!!
Once we arrived at the Xi'an airport and had some "airport food" :) there was this really cute little Chinese youngster standing outside the restaurant with her parents!! Chinese babies I think, from both mine and others in my groups perspective, are some ofthe cutest babies in the world! Babies in China are usually, now get this, potty trained at the age of 1 years old!!! To do this during the time in between, the kids were split pants!! I saw one of these kids at a restaurant there and you can see there butt cracks when they walk!! It's soo funny, but the parents for the time in between, let the kids go wherever they want. All that they have to do is find a good patch of ground outside of the building, and just let it go!!:) In English terms, mostly by Gerald, the tour guide, said that they call going outside for little kids " watering the flowers." Till next time! Ray
Flying over China!!!
We are half way to Xi'an, the oldest city in China!! You can already see the smog from the city, because the people in Xi'an still burn coal.
Plane flight to Xi'an!!
After a total of 3 days in Beijing, we made our way to Terminal number 2 of the Beijing international airport. We went through really tight security, if was soo much worse than in the US because the airport terminals and security is so much more organized than in China!! After that, we waited in our terminal, and then boarded a bus onthe tarmack to get us tongue plane on the other side of the runway. When we all got on the bus, with a ton of other foreigners and Chinese people, we thought we were going to bust the bus' engine because the weight was to much to handle!! It took forever!! But I think the reason why we didn't go so soon was because the engine was really cold from the 23 degree air!! Then we got on a commercial flight, and I am serious, the airplane we went on was soo much smaller than the regular ones we fly on in the US!! Talk to you soon!! Ray
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Mind Bender!!!
I saw this at the last Beijing restaurant that we went to!! I was really freaked out for about a minute... Can you figure it out?
Acting School
After we visited the temple of Heaven, we went to an academy for the performing arts!! This school is for primary shool students who want to go into a career in the operas and plays in China! These kids were from ages 5 to 11 and were jumping up and doing the splits! It was soo crazy!!
Tai chi lesson!!!
Yesterday morning we woke really early to go to a public park near the temple of Heaven to have a private tai chi lesson with 2 tai chi masters!! It was so much fun!! The hard part was tryin to do all the right moves that the masters are doing. It took about 15 minutes, and after that we went to the temple of Heaven!! It's said that it is the most beautiful building in the world!! It was really cool, but really cold and windy!! The temple was on a tier of three different platforms made of stone, with bronze insence pots and carved water spirits for water drainage!! It was so cool!! There was also these people playing a feather hacky sack game, and also playing with Chinese spinning tops in the courtyard where we did tai chi!! Until next time! Ray
Friday, January 7, 2011
Beijing duck
Here is the Beijing duck that we had 2 days ago! The restaurant was in a huge building that was more than 4 stories tall! The duck was baked in a huge oven and was really tender! We were told that the best part of the duck was it's skin, and when I ate it, it melted in my mouth because it was mostly fat :) but it was still really good food! To eat the meat, you dipped it in a sweet and salty sauce and then wrapped it in a sort of Chinese tortilla!
The Sacred Way
Sorry guys! I took most of the Sacred way and the Great wall pictures onmmy camera, so I wont be able to show them to you till the end of the trip!! Sorry! But the Sacred way has statues lining the roads left and right sides of the road. They are mostly animals, with some generals and officials from the Chinese army! I have the pictures, but just need a way to put them on the site while im here. Keepin up to date! Ray
Sacred way map!!
This is a map of the Sacred way, the road that the emperor had to travel to get to the Forbidden city. Only the emperor could walk on the road!
All of us at a Mongolian Hot pot restaurant!!!
For dinner yesterday we had a hot pot dinner were you could cook your own food! It was so good! There was so much food there! The way we usually eat in china for a big number of people at a restaurant is to have a lot of little stuff on a turn table and serve the food as you like. There was sliced lamb and beef, a whole array of different vegetables and mushrooms, and a really good tea that tasted like mint! Sorry everyone about the typing! Doing it on my iPhone!! Next time! Ray
Elizabeth Clark in the Forbidden City
Everyone was so cold at the forbidden city when we were in the courtyard!!
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Bronze lion in the Forbidden city!!!
In the courtard in the forbidden city there are a pair of 2 bronze lions!!! It's sort of odd because lions are not native animals to china!! Gerald said they heard about them through neighboring countries in India!! But these 2 lions are the largest in china, and are meant as a symbol of power in china!! Since these 2 are th largest, then it makes since that the emperor has these in his city because he was the most powerfullmman in China!!!
Forbidden city!!!
Yesterday we went to the Forbidden city!!! It was so big!!! To get to the city you have to go across the tiamanen square to the Gate of Heavenly peace!!! From there you walk north for more than a mile of walls, pagodas, houses and gates to get to the emperors throne room!!! We started at the gate of heavenly peace and made our way through all of the numerous courtyards!! It's was soooo cold over there because there were no trees to block the wind!!! Our guide for china, a British/ american by th name of Gerald :) said that the reason for nontreesnalong the city was because the emperor was afraid of assasins coming into the complex to kill him!! For this reason he slept in different rooms around the complex every night and was not in one room for more than one day!! We went all over the complex, looking at the throne room, the rooms for the wives, and all of the buildings in between!! After the city, we then went to a really good Chinese restaurant called Ken De Rouge!! It was a tin better than the dinner we had at the hotel!!! After that we went on a pedi cab ride through the Ho Hi district of china!!! This is one of th most preserved neighborhoods in china for the historical, century old houses that they live in!!! Then we went to a famous restaurant known for their famous Beijing duck!!! It was really good and they carved right in front of us!!! The guy was really good at carving the duck, inmwonder how many ducks they to through in one day? It was soo fun yesterday, but today we are going to go sledding on the Great Wall!! Talk to you later!! Ray
Calligraphy!!!
I learned how to write chinese characters!!!! This one means to have a long life!! Keepin up to date!!! Ray
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Walking the streets of Beijing!!
This morning we walked the streets of Beijing at 7:00!! We took a ton of pictures and really made ourselves known as tourists!! We even saw a Mexican food restaurant!!
We are finally here!!!!
After 13 long hours on the plane we are finally in China!!! the flight over was miserable!! But we got tonland inthe new Chinese terminal that was used for the Beijing olympics in 2008!! Once I walked into the airport, I was blown away by the shear size of the compound!!!! The whole terminal was in the big shape of an I and spanned the whole length of 2 runways that stretched across the lengths of the airport!! When we got there we road a super cool subway train to the baggage claim area that I swear was half a mile long!!! Once we got our bags we met up with our choffuers at the parking lot next the the airport. Outside the temperature had plummeted to a chilling 28 degrees!!! I am difiniteley going to were really warm clothing tomorrow to the forbidden city even if it's going to be sunny outside!!! Then we go to our hotel while learning about modern Chinese history along the way, and found out that our hotel is right next tO a Starbucks!!! Yes!!! Then we went to dinner at a built in restoraunt inside the hotel, and I am still made at myself for not bringing the camera to take a picture of some of the weirder stuff!!! I bet you can't guess what I ate there with my friends!! We had cow tendons!!! They were really chewy and had a terrible limey taste to it!!! I almost threw up when I at it, but managed to get it down :) Also, more disgusting was we ate this black tree fungus that was really slimy and felt like a huge slug in your mouth, and was also crunchy at the same time!! I promise I will get some more pictures of the meals to come in China!! Staying adventurous and trying new sights, sounds, and taste!! Ray
Here's some of the food from the plane!!!
This soup was a fish miso soup!!! It was sort of good, but after you got down to the broth, it gets too fishy and salty to drink!!! Keepin in touch!!!
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
We are half way there!!!
We finally made it to Chicago, and it is freezing over here!!! Our flight over was 2 hours long, with 13 minutes to spare!! I guess I was wrong when I said it was going to be 3 hours. We have a time roll over of 1 hour 45 minutes before we head out on the 777 for Beijing, China. I can't wait to get to china!! Keeping in touch!!
On the way!!! But still on the ground!!!
We are finally on the plane to Chicago!!! With the whole flight booked to Chicago, its a tight squeeze on the flight. We are flying on a 757 Continental united airlines plane!! These planes are small compared to a 777 which we are flying on to China. I woke up at 4:00 today just to get to the airport in time!!! The security was terrible,nbu I'm glad that we are on out way!! I will be catching up on some 200 years of Chinese history on this flight and the one to Beijing!! Be in touch soon, and will be sending more pictures!!
Sunday, January 2, 2011
Here is what I am packing!!
For the China trip there is max weight limit of 44 lbs for the checked bag and I think that it's going to be hard to get to when mine already is 48 pounds with not everything in yet!! I have packed all the essentials; t shirts, long john's and long sleeves, pants, gloves, a beanie and a winter coat, plus some other things like hand warmers, and vitamin C. It's going to be an amazing trip and I can't wait!! We are flying from Hobby International airport to Chicago, and then flying non stop across the Interntional Date Line all the way to Beijing, which in total will be about a 17 hour flight, not including air traffic and the stop at Chicago ORD!!! We are then staying at Beijing and sampling some of the sights and sounds and not to mention the food!! We will then depart and jump around from Beijing to Xi'an, Hangzhou, Shanghai, Zhengzhou, and Luoyang!! All in all the trip will be a total of 17 days!! I will keep y'all posted and informed about all our daily progress. Until Beijing, Ray Brown
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