The Great Blog of China

Amanda and I took what I have to call, a truly surprising and very good trip. To ease my nerves going in, we decided to book through a tour company. While this may have been a bit more expensive, it proved to be a big success.

Of the three cities we visited, one tour guide had a great expression, “If you want to see thousands of years of history, you visit Xian. If you want to see 500 years of history, you visit Beijing. If you want to see 100 years of history, you visit Shanghai.”  

Beijing

Of all the cities, this is the one that I thought would be the most uncomfortable. For some reason, I had this feeling there’d be just grey sky, people wearing all green with red hats, everyone moving in single file lines. I know this is unrealistic, but I literally had no idea what to expect.

One thing I didn’t really think about going into this trip was how many tourists from China would be seeing their own country. When we went to The Forbidden City, I was stunned by how many people there were, and the majority of them coming from China. Later, I realized this isn’t that odd. If you go to the Statue of Liberty, you’re probably going to see a lot of American tourists, right?

The highlight of our time in Beijing is probably not so shocking, The Great Wall. It’s a place that makes you feel so small. Not only in size, but it makes you feel small in terms of history.

We went to the Mutianyu section and I just kept thinking in my head, how the heck did they build this thing? The scenery around the Wall is very pretty as well. Unfortunately, it was rainy, cold and windy the day we went, but knowing this was probably the only time we’d be there, just took it all in stride. Despite seeing friends’ photos of the wall and pictures in magazines and so on, it was still remarkable to us.

We did a hundred other things, with the best being dinner with our friends Wayne and Mei, and another with a fellow Mizzou AEPi, Alon. We also saw pandas, the Lama Temple, and a traditional Hutong among other things.

 Xian

This is the place we knew the least about going in. In fact, the only reason we booked a visit here was because of a suggestion my friend Greg made about seeing the Terracotta Warriors. Well, this ended up being our favorite stop on the tour. Xian was once the capital of China, and it had been so for thousands of years. Now it’s a city with 9 million people living in it. The city wall that once guarded out enemies is still in tact. We were able to ride bicycles around the wall, which was one of the cooler experiences we’ve ever had in our travels.

After that, we visited the Wild Goose Pagoda. While the main pagoda itself might not be the prettiest ever, I thought the surrounding buildings were fantastic. The color scheme was nice, and the flowers were gorgeous. The next day was devoted to seeing the Terracotta Warriors. Way back when, an emperor decided he’d need an army with

him in the afterlife, so his men created hundreds and hundreds of model life-like warriors to be his future guards. They were all underground, but have now been discovered since the late 80s. It was just incredible to see. To me, it was all about the scale of the project. Similar to the Great Wall, I just kept thinking how much effort it took to make these.

Shanghai

Our last stop was in the modern city of Shanghai. They took us to some beautiful parts of the city, most notably the Bund. When I think of Shanghai, the Pearl TV Tower always comes up.

What I didn’t realize was that on the other side is the actual Bund. It’s this section on the water that is full of old colonial style buildings.

One of the best things we did was to visit the Jewish War Refugees Museum. During World War II, Shanghai was one of the few places in the world that accepted Jews trying to flee the Holocaust. More than 23,000 European Jews found a safe home in Shanghai. They set up a Jewish ghetto in the city and a lot of the apartment buildings are still there today.

All in all, the trip was eye opening. I was impressed at how modern some places were, and yet, the coolness of the history there. Yes, we saw quite a bit of spitting anywhere and even babies peeing in the train, but hey, that’s what memories are made of. Happy we went, so, what’s next ;)