As I mentioned in yesterday today started a bit earlier than usual since we were kicking things off with a long drive. It occurred to me this morning as I got up at 5:15 that it was almost two hours earlier than I get up to go to work on a typical day. Ah well, had to be done.
We got on the road around 6:15 and headed North. I was surprised at how quickly the terrain started to get mountainous given how flat Beijing is. I think we were on the road for maybe an hour to and hour and a half before we were properly in the mountains.
After about 2.5 hours on the road we arrived in Chengdu, a lovely little city on the banks of a very wide river. Actually, every river I've come across during my time in China have been huge. At any rate, we were here to visit the Imperial summer resort. I'd call it a massive palace, but it's more like a massive collection of massive palaces all linked via parkland and small lakes. It was a really beautiful spot with tons of trees. In a way it reminded me of Killarney:
But with palaces:
Apparently this idyllic spot was where the Emperor of China would head when summer just got a bit too sweaty in Beijing. A few hours drive to the north cooled things down enough that he could keep... um... Emperor-ing? Of course, this being the 1700s he couldn't exactly jump in the Benz and booked on the highway, so apparently he would get 32 (presumably very fit) guys to carry him in a mutli-room palanquin for about a month and a half to get up there. Let that one settle in for a minute. He spent a month and half to get up to some nicer weather. Presumably he then spent the same amount of time getting back to Beijing when the temperature was more agreeable. So out of a year he would spend three months in a palanquin being transported to and from his happy place, while I imagine the bulk to the country scrapped by day to day in their huts trying to farm up enough to eat. You wonder why there aren't many Emperors around these days eh? It was never specified, but I'm imagining that the rebellion that eventually overthrew the Empire was started by 32 dudes who got tired of spending three month with a HOUSE ON THEIR SHOULDERS! Just guessing.
Anyway, enough of my musing on imperial politics. The place itself was, as I'm sure you can imagine, pretty darn nice. I particularly liked this building which had two stories, but no internal staircases:
That collection of rocks was actually the staircase to get up to the second floor. Honestly I think that looks awesome, and I want to see more of this outside-the-box architectural thinking in our modern world. We spent a couple hours wandering around and being ferried around in small boats, but according to the map we barely scratched the surface of this place.
Not a bad way to spend your summers.
I thought it was pretty appropriate that I was in such a beautiful place on Thanksgiving Monday since, if I were in Canada for the long weekend, I would have spent it in Killarney.
It wasn't all fun and games though! I got some serious work done here folks. Aside from soaking up the scenery and musing on why I wish I was an Emperor I also managed to accomplish a task that I'd been trying to get done for a few days. You see, here in Beijing the wildlife is pretty scarce, but every time we venture out to limits of the city I keep seeing these really stunning birds, but usually through the window of a bus travelling at high speeds, so I was never able to get a picture. Well, they may be pretty shy and hard to get your lens on, but they were plentiful up at the summer resort, so I managed to get a couple of shots of the wily little buggers. I'm hoping that once I get home Dad can help me get a positive ID.
Not sure if you can tell there, but while they look almost completely black and white there are splashes of blue above the wings. The brilliant white on their bellies is also reflected on the both sides of their wings, which makes them quite striking when in flight.
Once we left the summer resort area we headed to another Chengdu hotspot: Kuixing Lou. It's a small temple located on a high hill and it's dedicate to the worship of a god governing astronomy.
The temple itself is pretty neat, and they let me make a wish to the god. I'd have taken a photo, but apparently taking photos in temples, particularly pictures of the depiction of the god above the alter is considered very impolite. So I kept the camera away, and donated 10 RMB (approx $1.60) to the shrine, in return for which I got a lucky pen. Not sure what distinguishes this from buying a lucky pen from some monks, but I wasn't there to argue semantics.
The trip up to the temple was worth it just for the great views is offered of the city below.
Unfortunately that only took about half the day, and the tour sort of spiralled downward from there. It was a lengthy drive back to Beijing and then we went to a really run-down looking athletic centre when we could have a foot massage. I opted out of that since I didn't fancy a massage from someone who I couldn't communicate with, so Euphy and I just wandered around for awhile. A long while. Apparently post-massage they got the sales pitch portion of today's program. I think we spent an hour and a half sitting around while they tried to sell our travel mates... something. We're both starting to get really, really tired of all the time that gets wasted on this tour. I'm finding it particularly difficult because I'm so used to travelling on my own and not being held to anything even remotely resembling a schedule. We're really itching to get out of here so that we can start operating on our own.
One plus side at the end of the day was that dinner wrapped up fairly quickly and we were able to get back to the hotel at a reasonable time, so I'm not feeling as rushed as I have been while writing tonight. That's especially good because I really took a lot of photos at the summer resort and it took me forever to rename them. For those of you who haven't travelled with me, I have a pretty meticulous naming convention for my vacation photos, and I like to do my renaming at the end of every day just to make sure it gets done, and to keep the task from getting too out of hand. When I get back at the end of the day with 150 photos though it's still a pretty daunting task. I was discussing the issue with Euphy yesterday and I think when I get home from this trip I'm going to write a piece of software that will do the bulk of the work for me.
Since I'm not as pressed for time as I usually am I should take a moment before signing off to get one of my more random observations down. I've been wanting to talk about the food for awhile now since I know I've been writing as if the meals haven't existed. On the contrary, I've been eating fairly well on this trip. We start each day off with a fairly well equipped breakfast buffet here at the hotel and then get lunch and dinner at different restaurants each day. There's clearly some kind of arrangement with the tour company though because there are always exactly four tables ready for us at each restaurant, we sit with the same group each day, and there's always a 1.6L bottle of Coke, and two 600mL bottles of beer (usually Yanjin) ready on the table. My Canadian instincts kicked in on the first day and I wondered how they'd prevent fights from breaking out with only 1.2L of beer for 12 people, but apparently it's quite sufficient. They only crack open the second bottle if I really jump in there and lend a hand.
The spread at each meal always consists of a huge container of steamed rice, often some soup, and a selection of dishes in the typical Chinese fashion. We just spin the Lazy Susan around and grab whatever strikes our fancy at the time. So far it's all been really good, lots of Northern Chinese style food with heavy sauces and always at least one dish with some heat to it. I've been enjoying it quite a lot. I'm a bit concerned for one member of our group though, since he's a vegetarian. Seems like every meal they make a point of bringing out one veggie-only dish for him, and as far as I can see he's living on steamed rice and steamed greens. I'm waiting for him to collapse from malnutrition at any moment. I'm not really sure if that's indicative of China being a difficult place to travel for vegetarians, or this is more a situation of the tour having a very regimented system in place that doesn't have a lot of flexibility for dietary considerations built into it. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the dinner I had tonight was at The Monday Night restaurant where they serve up the Monday Night Meal the same as they do to every group that gets brought in by this company on every Monday night.
What's been interesting to me about the food is that while each meal consists of different dishes, it's all very typical Chinese. I found it very odd at first because I'm so used to the huge range of cuisines available to Torontonians. If I want to go out for dinner in Toronto the first decision to make is what kind of food I want to eat. Chinese, Japanese, Italian, Indian, French... the list goes on and on. In Beijing I've noticed a lot of KFC, Pizza Hut, and McDonalds, and I caught sight of a Korean BBQ, but I haven't noticed much else in the way of non-Chinese. Of course that could just be a side-effect of not being able to read a majority of the signs. It's left me wondering about our meals though. The way I look at it, there are two possibilities: either we're eating strictly Chinese because the tour group is composed largely of Chinese expats and most people would adopt the attitude of "I didn't come to China to eat pizza." The other possibility is that there's a real dearth of decent international cuisine in Beijing. Maybe Toronto has just spoiled me and left me thinking that all big cities have the kind of selection that we do for ethnic foods. I'm not really sure what the answer is, in the end I just like to muse on these things.
Well, that concludes today's ramblings. I hope at least a few of you have managed to stay awake through all of that. For me, I think it's time to call it a night. Tomorrow, I believe, is the Great Wall, and I'm really, really looking forward to that. I'm going to get rested up for the big day. Talk to you all tomorrow.
1 comment:
You had me doing a WTF face when you compared Chengdu to Killarney, until I scrolled down and saw "with palaces" I them Lol.
It may be a pain, and the software idea is great but renaming photos after the trip, well it won't happen.
I think Toronto being the most multi cultural city "In the world..Jeremy Clarkson voice" might explain the vast selection of food. I did enjoy trying Italian food in Japan I do prefer to stick to the local cuisines if I visit a country. Being a group they are likely keeping things somewhat generic to appeal to everyone. Once you are out on your own I am sure you can try different styles of local food. Although if you see a yakitori place DO IT.
Post a Comment