Monthly Archives: June 2007

Things to Do in Beijing

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I have to admit – we probably shouldn’t even do an entry on Beijing until we go back there next month. Our three nights and two days there on this leg were mainly occupied with chores: picking up tickets from the travel agency, finding a camera shop to repair our busted equipment, trying to make a few changes to our airline tickets and doing laundry. Not exactly blog-worth material, I wouldn’t blame you if you stopped reading right here.

Beijing is – surprise – a huge city. And everything happening there right now revolves around making sure that the facilities for the Olympics next year are done way ahead of time. The Chinese don’t want another “Athens” happening on their watch. There are billboards around making sure no one forgets it either – one counts down the days until the games begin. There are reports on the news promoting how many stadiums are done, how many days ahead of schedule they are and so forth.

But still, most of this is material for a future blog entry when we actually do something in Beijing beyond our laundry. The only real drama this time around was what has become known between LeeAnne and I as “The Qantas Affair”.

We’re at a point in our trip where we are over half way done, and we’re ready to make a few tweaks to our itinerary. A few date changes and a few destination changes. After looking long and hard at Mauritius, we just can’t find a place to stay for a reasonable amount of money, so we’re going to ditch it and trade those flights for flights from Johannesburg to Victoria Falls. Also, we’re hoping to change our flight from Nairobi to London to a flight from Johannesburg to London, it’s just going to be a lot easier. That is, if we can get ‘er done.

QANTAS we are quickly learning stands for “Queer And Nasty Try Another Service”. Actually, that’s too harsh, we’ve used them to make ticket changes on this trip already and everything went fine, but the Beijing office is a cause for alarm.

The people behind the desk in Beijing have no experience with the One World ticket, didn’t know how to make any changes and apparently don’t know where Victoria Falls, Zambia, or Namibia are, much less what their airport codes are. By the time we left the office, I was actually glad to have nothing done and our paper tickets to Mauritius safely in our hands. First, do no harm.

So nothing may come from our visit to QANTAS in Beijing, but we still have opportunities to make changes in Shanghai, Hong Kong and Jo’Berg. We have to draw a high card in one of those cities. Wish us luck.

Shaolin Temple

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Shaolin Wushu Students

Shaolin Wushu Students

What can I say – Lonely Planet you got it wrong again! The LP entry on Shaolin kind of disses on it, making it seem like an over-touristed slock show. LeeAnne and I went in with very low expectations, but if you’ve seen as many Kung-Fu movies as I have, going to China without visiting Shaolin Temple is like eating a peanut butter sandwich with no peanut butter. And we were greatly rewarded.

First, getting to Shaolin is not exactly easy. It isn’t the hardest to get to place we’ve been in China, but it did require an overnight stay in a neighboring city we didn’t particularly want to visit, a long bus ride, followed by short bus ride and some confusion over where in the heck to stay in the middle of bumkin-ville. All worth it.

We might have a different perspective on the whole thing if we had stayed in Zhongzheng or Dengfu and just made Shaolin a day trip. But we had heard there were a few guesthouses near the temple and if you wanted to you could actually spend the night at one of the Kung-Fu schools that dot the area. Luckily for us, when the bus dropped us off at Shaolin the we were directed by the locals to “Darhma Hall” located on the campus of a Wushu School with 7000 students between the ages of 7 and 18. That really made it worth it for us.

The Temple itself has been destroyed several times and the most recent reconstruction dates only from the mid-eighties, so if you’re looking for charming architecture this ain’t it. The weather when we were there was crappy, so hiking in the hills around the temple (which is suppose to be very nice), wasn’t an option. And Lonely Planet was right about one thing, there are a few too many Chinese tourists. Although the monks do put on a great Vegas inspired martial arts show in the auditorium.

The highlight then was staying at the school. Even though we didn’t participate in classes, we got a great look into the school just by being there and watching them practice. Nothing like spending the evening with 7,000 Kung-Fu bad-asses.

We also learned why China will rule the world. These kids were up at 5:30 practicing in the courtyards and after a day full of Kung-Fu, they were studying in school all night! We walked by one classroom at about 9PM on a Friday, and there they were studying their little Kung-Fu hearts out. I’m not sure, but if I’ve learned anything from Kung-Fu movies, I think they may also sleep on their heads. This place is just that hard core.

Lonely Planet, get it right next time – Shaolin is worth the trip!

A Tale of Toes and Terra Cotta Warriors – Xi`an

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Terra Cotta Warriors

Terra Cotta Warriors

Of the many, ‘must see’ cities in China, Xi’an is certainly high on the list.  It’s considered one of the four great ancient capitals of China and is the eastern terminus of the old Silk Route.  Today, Xi’an presents a good example of the contrasts of China.  Within the Ming era moated and walled city, are an ever growing number of modern high rises and fancy shopping malls where you can sit at Starbucks and sip your $3 latte while overlooking the Bell Tower.

Thanks to the tremendous find of local farmers digging their well back in 1974, most of us go to Xi’an to visit the Terracotta Army.  It’s one of a handful of places that everyone asks if we will see while in China and with very good reason.  Though there is still much work to be done excavating what’s believed to be an army of 7000 warriors, it is still mighty impressive.  Every warrior is said to be distinct representing actual soldiers in the army of the Emperor of Qin. It supposedly took 700,000 workers 38 years to complete.  I’m sure their labor practices were unquestionable!

Though we’ll fondly recall our visit to the Terracotta Warriors, Xi’an may be most memorable for our visit to the local hospital.  It seems I did something nasty to one of my toes while hiking Tiger Leaping Gorge.  At first it seemed like I just jammed it and might lose a toenail.  A little pain and inconvenience, but not a big deal.  But after two weeks of increased swelling, redness and pain, Dave suddenly became convinced that I was going to lose my toe unless I went to the doctor.  Since their was what appeared to be a small hospital just down the street from our hostel, I stubbornly agreed.  With our Mandarin phrasebook and laminated medical picture translator in hand, how could we go wrong?

The fact that we spoke no Mandarin and the two doctors didn’t speak any English made for an interesting encounter.  While I pointed one dr. toward the toe in question, showed him the characters for hiking in the book and attempted to indicate that it had been two weeks, Dave entertained the other dr. by pointing to pictures on the medical translator.  No Dave, please don’t point to the enema!  No, you say it’s not broken?  Good.  What, you want to give me an IV?  Vigorous shaking of the head.  No, definitely not necessary. After a drawn out didactic conversation that noone could really understand and a little poking of the toe, the dr. applied a liberal amount of mercurochrome, wrapped it up in gauze, instructed me not to wash it (I think) and prescribed two kinds of antibiotics.  Luckily, our trusty phrasebook includes key pharmaceutical questions such as “how many times a day?” 

All of this undivided attention, including that of most patients and nurses on the floor, and meds cost us a little over $2.  And amazingly enough, the toe has resumed looking like a toe and is no longer causing me pain.  That mercury is good stuff!