Chinese Red Light

I've been wondering where the term "Chinese Red Light" came from, especially after noticing that not only do the Chinese not get out of their cars at red lights, but they rarely even stop! Yes, crossing the street, or riding in taxis and buses is pretty adventurous here!

We took an overnight train from Beijing to Pingyao, which turned out to be quite an uncomfortable experience - they didn't have any sleepers available, so we ended up sitting all night (12 hours) in tight quarters. Fortunately, the people we sat with were pretty small. It was a "real" Chinese experience I guess (as Matthias' mother points out), but I'm holding out for sleepers on the next overnight trip!

Pingyao was gorgeous (pictures on http://picasaweb.google.es/jrosenyc/BeyondBeijing) As the guidebook points out, it has a "movie set quality" and is extremely touristy. But it is one of the only wallled cities in China that is well-preserved - pretty much the way it used to be centuries ago - with scores of traditional dwellings and courtyards and without modern development. A mixed blessing, as the town was too poverty-stricken over the past 100 years to develop, but the residents now benefit from growing tourism. We spent two days here, walking around one day and biking the other. It was great.

We took the bus from Pingyao to Xi'an, which ended up taking 8 hours instead of the normal 6 hours due to construction .Matthias was happy, though, as the detour sent us through small mountain villages- infinitely more interesting than scenes from the expressway.

In Xi’an we enjoyed walking through the Muslim Quarter, which had lots of street food and merchandise on offer. We also went to see the Terra Cotta Army – touted as the eighth wonder of the world (probably because it was discovered only after the other seven were already chosen….) It was pretty impressive – an army of over 6000 life-size soldiers (no two alike) created in 200 BC. But we agreed that it wasn’t necessarily something we needed to see in person. Unlike the great wall (or the grand canyon for that matter) it’s not that much more impressive to see in person than to see in a film or book. Still, we enjoyed our visit to Xi’an.

Our train ride to Kaifeng was a different story, however. Since it was a day trip (about 8 hours) we decided we could handle what they call “hard seat” class again, but it was simply awful. The train was packed, and although our seats were numbered sequentially, they were in different rows so we didn’t even get to sit together. Was a pretty rough eight hours, but we made it to Kaifeng just in time to check in to our hotel and catch the impressive night market in action. Kaifeng is located on the “silk route” between Xi’an and Shanghai, served as capital under a few old dynasties, and is a veritable market town. We walked the streets all day, checking out the fruits, vegetables, meats and wares for sale. And at night, they set up an additional market in the main square (fortunately, right by our hotel) with what seemed like hundreds of foods stalls. I had some pretty good dumplings with my beer, while Matthias sampled the bugs on a stick (see photo!)

We are now in Zhengzhou, which we only came to because our train to Shanghai leaves early tomorrow morning from here. We are traveling (I believe) “soft seat” class – which should mean comfortable seats and no overcrowding….we’ll see. Zhengzhou is a pretty big city by most standards (except China’s I guess) with 2 million inhabitants. We didn’t see much here (the temple where kung fu supposedly originated is nearby, but we didn’t go) but we did have a fabulous dinner at a Peking Duck restaurant. We were truly delighted, especially since both of our parents were disappointed with the Peking Duck they had when they were in Beijing, as the food was as good or better than the Peking Duck in the famous NYC restaurant, the service was great, and the bill came to a whopping $12. Fun to splurge now and then.

Banned in Beijing!

It was a great surprise to reach our budget hotel in Beijing and find a DSL line in the room to get on the Internet! So, I updated the blog with the last entry, uploaded photos and then tried to look at what I had done, but I couldn’t access the completed blog. Not sure if it’s just this connection, or whether we are just not permitted to view blogs here (tried some other blogspot sites, but couldn’t view them either.) Anyway, doesn’t matter…just another excuse not to go back and fix typos…

We arrived in Beijing three days ago. The Mongolian train from Ulan Bator was truly first class, and had a lot more tourists on it than our train from Moscow. Scenery was awesome, and though the border crossing took a long time, all went well.

I’ve got a really great first impression of China. Beijing is quite nice – our hotel is better than I expected (for the $25 per night we are paying!) and people are super-friendly, even when they don’t speak English – or at least I think they are being friendly… Our hotel is a bit out of the central tourist district, but this bodes well with us, as we like this area better, and we are close to the subway and still walking distance (45 min) to Tienemen square (I know that’s misspelled, but I’m too lazy to look it up now.) As the pictures (which have been added to the latest album by now) show, we have visited the famous square, the Forbidden City, and the Great Wall. Poor Matthias, he just hates going to these tourist sites – with their hefty entrance fees – but is afraid of getting back and having to face people who ask: “so, how was the great wall?” if he doesn’t go. As for me, I enjoyed seeing the sights, almost as much as walking around the different neighborhoods.

We have been eating well, also. Matthias is still thrilled with the prices. Our eating strategy includes street food when available, and then going into restaurants where others are eating, so we can just point to the food that looks good. Of course, that can be a problem when Matthias wants to eat supper at 5:45 and no one else is eating yet! But we have managed.

Tomorrow, we are taking a night train to Pingyao – a town I read about in the Lonely Planet guide, about half way to Xian. Unfortunately, sleeper carriages weren’t available, so we will be in the crowded seat section for the night (a far cry from our first class transSiberian experience, I think. But hopefully we’ll have a decent ride and be able to book more comfortable accommodation for our onward journeys. At least the hotel/hostel accommodations throughout China look like they’ll be both nice and affordable. That definitely helps!

Will post this and the photos soon (Internet in the room doesn’t seem to be working tonight.)

Crossing over

Hello from Asia! I’m writing this in Ulan Bator, Mongolia, but will probably post it from China. We have had a nice first two weeks of our latest adventure – mainly getting here. We left Germany on 29 September – taking the train to the port town of Rostock, where we spent the evening before getting the ferry to Helsinki and Tallinn at midnight. Matthias was sick with a bad cold, so that put a damper on things (at least for him), but the ferry ride was nice. Unfortunately, we had unwittingly booked the connection from Helsinki to Tallinn too close to actually get out of the port and see the city, but since we arrived there at 6am, it was raining, and Matthias was feeling poorly, it probably wouldn’t have been great sightseeing anyway (but since I did get off the ship, Finland gets added to the list, right Jen?)

We arrived in Tallinn around noon and found our cushy hotel near the train station and old town. The weather cooperated somewhat and we were able to walk around the old town checking out the sights. Lovely city!

The next day, our train for Moscow left at 5PM, so we had time to walk out of town to a nice park and back through the old town. We only booked seats on the overnight train to Moscow, which was probably a mistake, but the time passed quickly enough and we made it without too much hassle (or too much sleep!) Our hotel was outside of town, but the metro in Moscow is pretty good, so we found it easily enough (once I figured out how to recognize station names in Cyrillic letters!) Actually, I was once again amazed at the metro in Moscow…not just because the stations are beautiful, but because of the HUGE crowds it handles. We had to go to the train station the next day at rush hour and we were literally carried along with the sea of people. (I would have taken a picture, but I was afraid of being pick-pocketed!) I mean, if/when we have these swarms and bottle-necks in NYC, people get crazy – but I think the people of Moscow are used to it. No pushing or shoving, just marching along with a sense of “what can one do?” And I think it’s like that every day. I would kill myself!

But after the crowds, some rain, and confusion trying to locate the station and train, we grabbed some delicious fast food and got on our train – into our first class compartment. YAY! Okay, first class just means that there are two beds, but it was exciting nonetheless. We were on the train for four days and five nights to Ulan Bator. The scenery was pretty awesome – especially nice because it was fall and the leaves were changing. Not that it was the most spectacular that I’ve seen, but it was also fun to go to the dining car and meet fellow travelers (not as many as I expected, though) and to get off at the stations and buy food on the platforms. We reached Lake Baikal on the third day – also lovely, but by that time we were ready to get off. Just had to get through 6 hours at the Russian/Mongolian border crossing and the next morning we were there.

Ulan Bator is an interesting city – what I believe to be a cross between a Russian and Chinese city (but I haven’t yet seen a Chinese city, so I don’t know yet.) We stayed here for four days, but didn’t take a trip to the countryside (a cross between Matthias’ cheapness and my laziness – maybe we’ll be sorry some day, but the weather seems a bit cold for camel riding or sleeping in a felt tent with fellow backpackers.) But we have enjoyed our time here, eating cheap food and seeing the sights, including the huge market, selling everything from chicken (live and butchered) to fashion boots. Always a highlight for Matthias, we are looking forward to more markets across Asia. So, I’ve got to get to bed as our train for Beijing, which crosses the Gobi desert and Great Wall, leaves at 8AM.

New links to photos on the left!