Beijing (V). The Great Wall

The last full day in China was a day trip to the Great Wall, which was one of reasons why I went to China!! If you think about China, the Great Wall surely pops up in your mind! Don't forget it is the only man-made structure which can be seen from space!!

Before the Great Wall, we stopped for a quick visit to one of the Ming Tombs. The Ming emperors are all buried together in the same area. A bit similar to the Valley of the Kings in Egypt. The tomb we went to was interesting, but after all the magnificent places we had visited in China, maybe it was a bit less spectacular.

The tomb was composed of an outer part with nice Chinese gates, which I guess were constructed after the tomb was discovered. The actual tomb is underground and can be accessed. The architecture is in Confucianism style, which is pretty austere compared to the typical colorful temples and gates in China. It was interesting for a change, though.





This is the interior of the tomb, and this is the first gate that was discovered. The history of the discovery is also quite interesting. Some peasants were working the ground when they found an ancient inscription which read: 20 meters towards the mountain and 10 meters underground rests the Emperor. ---> I just invented the figures... but it was something like that. So, excavations started and the tomb was discovered! This is the first gate discovered, in austere white marble:



After visiting the museum, where I learnt about some traditional Chinese art about how to decide the position of a house and how to design it to bring good fortune and long life to the people living in it. Many concepts actually made a lot of sense!

Afterwards, short hop in the bus and to Badaling, the place where we visited the Great Wall. The Great Wall is an awesome place and I do not need to say much about it. I guess almost everybody know why it is where it is and why. If not, think about the Mongolian invasions of China ;) and check wikipedia for a real explanation! :)

This is the typical image everybody in Spain saw when Spanish cyclist won several medals in the road cycling competitions in the Olympics. It was quite interesting to see the panel I had seen before on TV!



And what a climb to get to the furthermost tower: the Seventh Gate of the North, where there are many legends!



At some point, it was sooooo steep! Impressive!!





Most of the time, you were just checking where you stepped and kept on walking uphill without looking around...



But when you raised your head and looked around, the landscape was really inspiring!!




The Great Wall follows the shape of the mountains and goes up and down, turning all the time... It is not only it is a place of extreme beauty, it is also the perfect place for an unforgettable hike!!



Mao used to say that no man is a real man until he climbs the Great Wall. Now I am a real man! ;-)

Beijing (IV). Olympic Stadium and street markets

After visiting the Summer Palace, a quick hop into a taxi and 45 minutes to the Olympic Villa. Once there, the illuminated installations were quite impressive. Instead of going to see them close, I decided to see them from above before. I spotted a high building, a 8-star hotel (!!), and decided to go to the top floor to try my luck and see if I could have a look at the whole complex from above.

The top floor had a couple of ultra-expensive restaurants (1000 USD per menu and person!!!) and no watching area... However, I used all the "Españolidad" still in me, and I went ahead and talked the waiter into letting me in to the terrace to take some pictures ;) After the pictures, big smile and out of there asap!!!! "Vamos, echándole una cara tremenda al asunto. !Como buen español! ;)". This is the result! Such a nice view!!




Back on the ground, a close look on the buildings:

- The Water Cube



- Some Olympic Landmark



- The Bird's Nest



After the Olympic Villa, a quick hop in the subway and back downtown, to the area around the East of the Forbidden City. That area is quite up-market and was the first contact we had with Beijing high society! But, as you can imagine, this area is less attractive than eating in 4 cents a piece dim sum places!!



Nearby, there are some touristy street markets, where everybody can talk to you using a couple of English sentences. And even Spanish! One guy came to me saying "Hola! Que quieres comprar hoy?!" Was it so obvious I am from 西班牙！！(-> sorry if this is not proper Chinese... it is actually the Japanese letters for "Spain" in ancient times... literally, the country of the West).




Food places were a bit more expensive than the rest of Beijing, but the variety of food was maybe larger. Feeling like eating snake or deliciously looking scorpions?! All for you! I am not ready for that yet... (^_^)



After eating some noodles and barbecue, time for a nice massage and back to the hotel to sleep! Had been a hard day!! And next day, the Ming tombs and the Great Wall were waiting for us!!

Beijing (III). The Summer Palace

Back from Xi'an, there were still some major sites to visit around Beijing: the Summer Palace, the Olympic Stadium and the Great Wall.

The first day after Xi'an started with a visit to one of the most impressive places in Beijing: the Summer Palace. It is simply amazing... and huge!! If you want to see everything and go around the lake and take some rest, you need a whole day, or several!! ;)

The place dimensions are really big and it is full of beautiful places. It is difficult to describe all the places and most of you probably never read all I write XD, so I will just comment briefly each photo and you can just check them out! But please, leave some comments!!!

The Summer Palace entrance is full of buildings like this, very colorful and with beautiful courtyards.



Water and rocks are an important part of the palace. Recently I was told that Asian culture mixes hard elements (rocks) with soft ones (water flowing) to create harmony. Since I was told that, I have noticed this pattern repeats in China, Japan, Thailand... and I guess all the other Asian countries. (Cám ơn My Anh!) An example here:



A very famous covered corridor where emperors used to walk.



The most beautiful temple in my opinion. Just on top of the highest hill in the Summer Palace.



It is so steep to climb there, that at some points you can barely see the temple on top. Really nice climb!



From the heights, the view of nearby temples was very nice.



And so was the view over the lake and the city!



On the other side, more temples.



A detail of a roof. This pattern repeated quite often, both in the Forbidden city and in the Summer Palace. Somebody knows why?!



And at the bottom of the mountain, near the entrance on the other side of the complex, an interesting, street with shops on both sides and a river in the middle.



This is the marble boat, one of the most famous places there.



From this gate, ships departed to other parts of the lake.



And this is a panoramic view on the Southern part of the hill, with my favorite temple up there!



There were some islands with small pavilions and beautiful bridges to access them. For me, it feels sophisticated. Much more stylist than any other thing in Western culture!!



And one of the gates to the complex of palaces I just shown to you.




Now, it is your time to comment! What do these pictures inspire in you? What do you think of the places I visited in China? What place do you like most?

Around Xi'an

One of the most interesting days of our visit to China was the day we spent around Xi'an. We visited three important historical places: Huaqing Hot Springs, the Tomb of Qin Shi Huang, and the Army of Terracotta Warriors. The first place was really beautiful because of the nice Chinese buildings and gardens and the blooming trees! The second one was a bit disappointing at the beginning, because you cannot see anything of the tomb... it is actually still closed!! and the third one was the reason to come to Xi'an: a real marvel of the world; one of the most impressive archeological places I have ever seen.

Huaqing Hot Springs were a favorite retreat for Emperors in the Tang Dynasty. They kept their concubines here. This place is famous because it was home to Yang Guifei, according to legend, one of the most beautiful women in history, and which caused great trouble to the Emperor (some political rebellion). The place is full of beautiful ponds and beautiful buildings. The following photos do not need any explanation! Just enjoy the beautiful Chinese scenery!!







The next stop of the day was the tomb of maybe the most famous emperor in ancient China: Qin Shi Huang. This Emperor was the first person which could unite all the country under a unified rule in 221 BC. His tomb is, according to chronicles of that time, quite impressive but it was discovered not too long ago (around 30-40 years ago) and it is still unexcavated. It is very protected and archeologists do not want to destroy it when they open it... or just they do not want to get killed!! In my opinion, I am not quite sure it is ok to open it and raid it... It is a tomb after all, a place of eternal rest, right? This is something I thought a lot about in Egypt. All these pharaohs, emperors, kings... took so much trouble in hiding their final resting places and treasures and then, we are just looking for them, to raid their tombs to exhibit them in museum all around in the "developed" world... I am not sure that is the right thing to do or if we even have any right to do it. Anyway... So this is the tomb: a mold in the middle of a large plain. The view from the top were quite nice and around the mold, many gardens with blooming cherry trees. Not bad!





And finally, the highlight of the day, and possibly, of any trip to China (!), the Army of Terracotta Warriors. There are many legends of why Qin Shi Huang would have built such an army to protect his tomb. Was he scared of the after life? Did he plan to resurrect and have an army ready for his conquest plans? Questions that will remain unanswered forever. At least, we can now visit these place and be overwhelmed by the dimensions of such an army!! Another thing to take into account is this was discovered in 1974, so it is still archeology in the make (is this good English?...); I mean, archeologist are still working on it.

The place consists of three different pits, discovered at different times. This is pit number 1, the one that was discovered first and which therefore has more restored warriors. It is quite amazing... so huge... so many warriors... and the most impressive thing: there are no two warriors which look the same (out of more than 10000 figures!!).







This is the third pit, where higher ranking officials are. As you can see, their position is not combat-wise. They are looking at each other as a proof of respect. This is the smallest pit and only has around 60-70 warriors.



Outside of the pits, more cherry trees!



Pit 2 is very large, but it is still undergoing restoration. So not much can be seen there. However, there are some exhibited individual warriors which are interesting: you can watch them from less than 1 meter away!



To sum up, Xi'an was an amazing place to visit. The city is really beautiful and the archeological places around are just awesome. If you go to China, plan at least 2-3 days in Xi'an!! You won't regret.

PS: that was a long post! ;-)