History class in Xian

This past weekend we took a short trip to Xian, which was once the capital of China during the ancient dynasty era. Touring all the historical spots made each stop feel somewhat like a history lesson, but it was definitely one of the most fun "history" classes I've had!

Our hotel was right across the street from Huiming Jie, which is a street full of Muslim vendors, souvenirs, and food (of course). There was a huge area of fruit stands which sold all sorts of dried fruit. Apparently kiwi is one of Xian's famous fruits, so many of the fruit stands were selling tons and tons of dried kiwi.


We ate some traditional Muslim street food for dinner. This picture is of "yangrou paomuo", which is lamb soup with small pieces of chewy bread and lots of spices inside. I promise the soup tastes much better than it looks or sounds.


On Saturday our day started bright and early with a tour around all the famous historical sites in Xian. Our first stop was a factory that produces fake terra cotta warriors for all the street vendors to sell. They actually looked surprisingly authentic in the factory, much more so than on the streets.


Our next stop was Huaqing Chi, which was the vacation home for ancient Chinese royalty, similar to the Summer Palace in Beijing. Huaqing Chi is known for having hot springs which emporers used to use for bathing. The palace is absolutely gorgeous and situated next to a mountain range that is mentioned in several Chinese legends.



Huaqing Chi is also famous because Chang Kai Shek lived there during World War II after the Japanese overtook Nanjing and he retreated to Xian. There were displays of his old office, bedroom and bathroom, and of course the Taiwanese in me had to take a picture (you can see the Taiwanese flag in the background).


After leaving Huaqing Chi we went to visit the grave of Qing Shihuang, who was the Chinese emperor during the Qing Dynasty. Although his empire only lasted 17 years, Qing Shihuang is known for unifying China through creating a uniform language, system of weights and measures, roads, and connecting the Great Wall into one piece. His mausoleum is actually one big hill, with tons of stairs to hike up in order to get to the point sitting directly above his coffin which is buried underground. Those stairs were quite a workout.


After visiting Qing Shihuang's grave, we finally made it to the Terra Cotta Warriors, which Qing Shihuang had built during his reign so that they could be situated around his grave in order to serve him in his afterlife. The warriors are spaced out into 3 pits, and two of the pits actually have most of the statues covered in order to prevent the terra cotta from being damaged by the sun. One of the pits, however, had row after row of warriors for tourists to look at. The craziest thing about these warriors is that they were discovered by a local farmer who is still alive, and now sits in the Terra Cotta Warrior museum signing autographs for tourists who want to meet him.


We ended our day with a bike ride on the Xian city walls. This was probably the most enjoyable part of the day, since the walls were almost empty by this point and we could just ride bikes down a straight, smooth, and wide path. Too much fun!


This coming up weekend is CET's cultural immersion weekend, where we will visit peasant farms and give presentations about American life at a middle school in an area just outside of Beijing. Looking forward to getting out of the city for yet another weekend!

To heaven and back

It has once again been much too long since I last updated. There are only 3 weeks until I take finals and leave Beijing - so much to do in so little time! A while back, my friends and I finally visited the Temple of Heaven, which is actually one of the closer historical monuments to our school (with the exception of the Forbidden City). Contrary to our usual luck, we actually picked a beautiful spring weekend to visit the temple and therefore felt like we were in a fairy tale as we wandered through the gardens on the way to the actual temple.


Being the tourists we are, of course we had to take the token waiguoren picture in front of the actual temple. Unfortunately we forgot to recreate our Charlie's Angels poses that we like to do in front of historical monuments.


Last week the 300 and 400 classes took a field trip to "Shijitan", which, directly translated, is the Beijing Centennial monument. This museum began construction in the year 2000 and has fake historical exhibits from all over the world. However, before we actually entered the museum, we got a special treat by the front entrance, where there was an Olympic exhibit that showed the actual torch they'll be using in the Beijing 2008 games. Soon this torch is headed for a world tour, where it will be displayed in Olympic exhibits in museums in every continent. The most exciting part - the torch's only stop in North America is nowhere else but home sweet home in San Francisco!


After the Olympic exhibit, our classes went to visit the actual museum and spent the majority of our time in the China section of the museum, since our lessons are currently focused on famous Chinese historical figures such as Confucius and Sun Yat Sen. The exhibit was pretty incredible - famous scenes and people from Chinese history were carved out onto stone walls in a huge circular room. I'm not quite sure who the stone figure in this picture is depicting, but nonetheless my fellow classmates decided to pose with him.


Outside the museum there is a huge timeline that documents the basics of all Chinese history starting from the beginning of the dynasties thousands of years ago. The timeline is designed so that when you stand at its end in the year 2000, you can see directly all the way to the Beijing railway station.


I decided to be really cool and take a picture with my zodiac sign in the year I was born. Since I was born at the end of the ox year on the Chinese lunar calendar but born in January on the western calendar, my zodiac sign was actually listed in the year 1985. As you can see, I have a wrapped up toe which I managed to stub when I tripped in the grocery store.


While on one of our dinner escapades last week, we passed by the hospital where my great grandfather used to work before the beginning of World War II. It's called Beijing Xiehe hospital and located in the Wangfujing area which is now a ritzy shopping district with lots of foreigners. Amazing that my family's history is so close to me right now!


This past weekend was CET's Great Wall camping trip! We hiked 6 miles from the Simatai to Jinshanling area of the Great Wall and camped out at night on the wall at Jinshanling. Despite my stubbed toe I actually managed to keep up!


We set up tents on the wall but many people chose just to sleep outside in sleeping bags under the stars. It was amazing to see stars for the first time in about 3 months, since Beijing is too polluted in the city to ever see stars at night.


Most people managed to get up early and watch the sunrise the next morning, but being the lazy sleeper that I am, I didn't wake up until the sun was fully up (In Phil's words, I was "burning daylight"). Anyways, I appropriately bought a shirt saying that I slept on the Great Wall, because that is indeed what I did.


This weekend I'm headed off to Xian to see the famous clay soldiers. I think we're all starting to realize that time is running short and we have to squeeze in as much as possible on the weekends (and weekdays) to make sure we get the full China experience before leaving. Should be fun!