Whew!  Hey everyone!  Sorry for the lack of updates… time has been flying by so fast since we’ve been here.

Well, I’ve been on a number of adventures.  We’ve seen a lot more of Beijing and also took a weekend trip to the city of Xi’an to see the famous Terra Cotta Warriors.  That was an interesting voyage in and of itself.  We took the train there and back, which was a first for me.  The trip is only about 12-14 hours, so an overnight train is really convenient because you can just settle in, sleep, and then wake up when you get there.  We stayed in a hostel, which was also new to me but the place was really cool.  It was like a funhouse of sorts – there were three floors of rooms, all arranged in pretty random patterns with all kinds of courtyards and sitting spaces.  The most interesting thing for us was the cafe inside the hostel that sold all kinds of international food, but specialized in American fare – I can’t tell you how much I missed bacon.

Anyway, Xi’an is an interesting city because it’s a mix of very touristy places and very authentic places.  Beijing is very Westernized and sanitized for the Olympics, so while it’s more like home in some ways it doesn’t necessarily reflect everyday city life in China.   Xi’an is much more “real” until you get to tourist traps like the Big Goose Pagoda, where you have to cross an enormous plaza of KFCs and expensive hotels before you get to the actual temple grounds.  In one part of the city we actually found two KFCs right across the street from each other.  They’re big on fried chicken in Xi’an, I guess.

Anyway, we did get to see the Terra Cotta Warriors, which was pretty interesting.  I can’t imagine living in a place where thousands of years of history is right at your fingertips.  The warriors were built to guard the tomb of China’s very first emperor thousands of years ago.  It’s really pretty incredible, especially after you get a sense of the scale.

While that’s the main attraction, there is a lot to do in Xi’an that most people don’t know about.  I had originally planned to spend a week there, so I had to compress everything into three days.  I went to see the Big Goose Pagoda and the Little Goose Pagoda, which are necessary stops for any visitor, as well as a number of smaller and arguably more interesting places like the city wall  (where I pretended to shoot arrows through the notches in the wall, as pictured below), the Forest of Stone Tablets, the Temple of the Eight Immortals, and the Great Mosque.  Speaking of the mosque, Xi’an has an incredible area known as the Muslim Quarter where there are street vendors galore selling everything you can think of, from meat on a stick and pita-like flatbread to t-shirts and traditional flutes.

Next week is Golden Week in China, which basically means the whole country is going on vacation at the same time.  I’m planning on going with a group to spend a few days in Mongolia.  Hopefully when I return I’ll have a few photos of myself on riding a yak up a mountain, or something.  See you then!

Well, we made it to Beijing!

So much has happened in the last few days that I hardly know how to start.  I guess the beginning is a good place…

The flight in was both really good and really bad.  It was really good in that it was a perfect flying experience.  Everything was on time, there was no trouble going through checkpoints, the airline staff was helpful and friendly.  I’ve heard nothing but good things about Japan Airlines and I was not disappointed.  Even though everything went great, there is really nothing that you can do to get past the fact that you’re basically spending 12 hours in a tin can in the sky.  There is not much to do to keep yourself occupied in one seat for that long, and I happen to be the kind of person who can’t take naps so I couldn’t sleep at all.  We flew into Tokyo first, and then took a plane to Beijing, but that was much shorter and I did manage to pretty much sleep through the whole thing, so that was nice.

Anyway, on to the interesting part!  Beijing is not really what I expected, though I don’t really know what I expected.  In some respects I believe that all cities are the same, and it’s only the people that make them different.  Beijing in particular has  undergone a ton of renovation to prepare for the Olympics, so in our part of town everything looks very much like a Western city.  If you venture into some of the older neighborhoods you can still find some authentic Eastern city life, though.  Beijing is famous for little alleyways called hutongs that are full of tiny shops and groups of men playing dominoes or go, and those are the places where you can see some more authentic Chinese culture.  The people so far have been pretty friendly and helpful, even though I speak very minimal Mandarin.  I am actually surprised by how far the phrases I know have gotten me – hello (ni hao), thank you (xie xie), and excuse me (lao jian).  My accent is horrible, but people get the idea.

We’ve only been here for four days but we’ve already seen some incredible sights.  On our first full day we took a short trip to the Summer Palace, which is an amazingly beautiful city of sorts arranged around a lake with gently rolling hills.  You can take boats across the lake or just wander through the complex, which is full of old buildings.  The only bad part is that I had spent the earlier part of the day taking photos of the city, and my camera battery died, so I have no pictures!  I’m sure we’ll go back, so I’ll post them when I can get them.

The next day we visited Houhai, which is an upscale shopping/tourist area arranged around a small lake near the center of the city.  There are lots of bars and restaurants lining the lakefront and in adjacent houtongs.  One of the major attractions for tourists are the pedicabs, and our group was pretty much assaulted the entire time by pedicab drivers trying to pin us down saying “Hello! Hello! Rickshaw!”  An interesting cultural experience, to say the least.

Yesterday we took another short trip to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City.  I think this one was the most fascinating of all, because it gave a sense both of modern and ancient China.  Tiananmen Square is basically a huge open plaza meant to be a gathering place, under the symbolic watchful eye of the huge portrait of Chairman Mao.  While this is a symbol of more modern Communist rule, all you have to do is go through the tunnel under one street and you come out in the Forbidden City, which is as ancient and culturally rich as it gets.  We didn’t get to spend a lot of time walking through it, but we did get to see the huge gates and some of the smaller inner buildings.

We’ve been going through some of these major sites fairly quickly at first with the whole group.  Later, once we’ve gotten a general sense of the major landmarks, we’ll be able to arrange our own trips to spend more time going through the ones we really liked.  I’d personally like to take day trips to all of these places, since the few hours we spent at each can’t do them justice.

I know that we’re going to the Temple of Heaven tomorrow and the Great Wall on Saturday, so keep watching for more news and photos.  Our internet connection in our dorms has been pretty iffy lately, but I’ll post as soon as I can.  Later!