I Like to Think it's Because I'm Famous

It's impossible not to notice the stares I'm getting while traveling in China.  Especially in the more rural cities of Guilin and Xi'an, but even quite a bit in Beijing, the local people seem fascinated with me.  Sometimes the look suggests they can't believe I'm real.  They aren't even phased when I look directly back at them.  It's a very strange feeling.  I'd like to think they're trying to figure out if I'm famous, but I'm pretty sure they're just targeting me, be it just to sell me something or possibly pickpocket.  I'm almost certain they think I have money (unfortunately, they're wrong).  

I haven't felt unsafe ever.  I've walked through enough cities to know to be careful around big crowds.  And as the cities get bigger and more modern, too, I feel I'm drawing less attention.  The people in Shanghai are more used to it, and they even know more English.  Mellie was making fun of me because of this picture.  She said, "There's no way we're not a target with you two walking around!"  Obviously, I stick out, but she's also talking about her father here with all his cameras.  :)

Xi'an - Ancient China

As I'm posting this we are in Shanghai, and now we finally have enough Internet access and time for me to catch you up on some other stops we've made.  From Guilin, we flew to Xi'an on Tuesday, September 16.  We used our first afternoon there to get some laundry done and rest. By that point we really needed a re-charge anyway.  We had an excellent dinner that afternoon at a local dumpling restaurant.  We were served a traditional 12-course dumpling meal and were able to communicate with them that didn't want pork or seafood.  Up until that point it had been hard for us to find restaurants that serve anything but pork.  That was in southern China, though, and Xi'an is further north in the middle of the country.  The further north we get the easier it's been to find food that agrees with our diet.  Anyway, that was our highlight from the first afternoon.

Wednesday morning began with a tour of ancient pagoda in Xi'an.  It was built about 500 years ago and stands 15 stories high.  Mellie and I took the opportunity to climb to the top of it.  Here are some pictures.  Mel has just reached the top and is heading out onto the roof in her picture.

Xi'an prides itself on being the oldest city still in existence in China.  It has thousands of years of history around the city to prove it, too.  There are over 10 million people living there, but taking the tourist route makes it seem very rural and ancient.  It never felt like a very modern city and that's probably why we never felt totally comfortable exploring it ourselves.  From what little experience we had we knew it was very difficult to communicate in English there.

  

This picture is me posing behind the emperor's garb at the official Terra Cotta Warrior replica factory.  This was the second stop on our tour and a chance for us to do some souvenir shopping.

The main attraction of Xi'an is the Terra Cotta Warrior excavation site and museum.  It was the last stop on our tour.  The site is about 45 minutes outside of the city.  It was originally found by a farmer back in 1974.  It has since become a massive excavation site and tourist attraction.  While there are only a few hundred of the life-size soldiers restored in the exhibit, archaeologists suspect there are over 2,000 total.  The statues were buried with the first Qin emperor around 200 BC.  They were there to protect his body in the after-life.  Over time, though, the mausoleums collapsed breaking nearly all the statues, thus the need for restoration.  There are different types of statues that include soldiers, officers, generals, and even horses and chariots.  Remember, all these statues are life-size and no two are the same.  It's quite amazing.

That was about it for Xi'an.  It was a fairly quick stop.  We know there's more to see, but we decided to allocate more time to our Beijing leg which is where we headed next.

Guilin - A Beautiful City

Our visit to Guilin from Sunday to Tuesday (Sept. 14-16) was great!  It's a smaller city than Guangzhou, in fact it's the smallest city on our tour.  There are only about 2 million people there compared to about 5 million in Guangzhou, I believe.  We stayed in a very scenic hotel overlooking a lake crossed by many bridges which stand as replicas of famous bridges from around the world.  They light them all up at night along with the walking paths around the lake to create quite a beautiful scene.

The afternoon we arrived there we spent some time touring the city center where all the shopping and eating is.  Unfortunately, we struck out again at the restaurant we chose (more on this curse later) and the shopping was too busy so we just took our time strolling around the lake on the way back to our hotel.

The next day was jam packed with tours.  We first headed to our Li River cruise.  If you've ever seen paintings or photos of China that included fog covered mountain peaks hovering over a winding river, that's the Li River.  It is every bit as scenic/epic as those pictures make them seem, too.  The cruise lasted about 4 hours which was a bit long, but that comes with the territory.  The boat docked in a small village about an hour outside of downtown Guilin where the streets were lined with merchants selling souvenirs.

On our way back to Guilin we stopped by the Reed Flute Cave, another popular tourist site.  Again, everything was very nicely decorated with lighting that highlighted some points of interest in the cave.  This picture shows the reflective "lake" inside the cave.

Our day ended with a nighttime boat tour of the Four Lakes in Guilin.  Mellie took this picture below of one of the lit structures highlighted along the lakeside.  She kept saying how much the whole tour felt like a big Epcot exhibit.  It was very nice.

That was it for Guilin.  The next morning we took off for Xi'an, which I'll tell you more about in another post.  Our thanks to Bob Li, our tour guide in Guilin.  Cool guy.

The Journey Continues

Well, we have spent 2 days in Guilin and 2 days in Xi'an now. Tomorrow morning we're on our way to Beijing! Everything is still going well. I have a lot to catch you all up on from these two cities. Hopefully we'll have more internet access in Beijing and I can fill you in and post more pictures. Gotta run.

Catching Up

We've been on the road for five days now and I want to bring everyone up to speed on how our adventures have been going.  "Catching up" also indicates the sleep we're trying to get between all our travels and the jet lag.  Anyway, let me fill you in.  

It all started last Wednesday when Mellie and I and her parents flew from Orlando to San Francisco.  We decided a while back that it'd be best to break up the long flights by spending a day in San Fran.  Plus, I've never been there so I was excited to get the opportunity to see the city.  We started our day at Fisherman's Wharf, then went to see the Golden Gate Bridge, and ended our tour by riding a cable car.

The next day we were off to China.  We flew to Guangzhou, and it ended up being just over a 13 hour flight.  That was early Thursday afternoon, and we arrived in Guangzhou late Friday night.  We stayed at the Guangdong Victory Hotel, which was very nice.  I had kind of feared what it might end up being like since I booked it online for a pretty cheap rate, but it was very clean and comfortable so we were very satisfied.

Anyway, we woke up Saturday morning and did some walking around in the immediate area of our hotel.  We visited the fanciest hotel in the area, the White Swan, and then strolled through a park where many locals were practicing tai chi, dancing, and all other kinds of recreational activities.  

The afternoon in Guangzhou was spent on a tour we booked to see the Chen Clan Academy, an ancient shrine memorializing a successful family from the area.  In the evening we joined a river cruise that went through the middle of the city.  It was a long day, but very nice.

On Sunday morning we flew to Guilin.  It was about a 45 minute flight from Guangzhou.  I'll tell you more about this city later.  Everything has gone very smoothly thus far and we're seeing a lot as you can tell.  Keep checking in as I'll try to keep posting updates and pictures.  As of now, though, it's 10:00PM Monday, and we are heading to Xi'an early tomorrow morning so I'm off to bed.