China - Day 4.

Day four... morning in Xi'an, then catch a plane to Shanghai in the afternoon.

Ah, another beautiful morning in Xi'an! You can almost see clear to the next building!

You know, you might have thought that the pollution and haze would have been not quite as bad in the more rural Xi'an than in Beijing. You would be wrong.


We went to see the city walls and the beginnings of the Silk Road, which was kind of cool.


Our last stop in Xi'an was at a Buddhist temple that celebrated the life and work of Xuanzang, who undertook a 17 year journey from China to India to bring back and translate Buddhist theological texts.

Here you can see our guide showing the route of Xuanzang to Sandy.

So on to Shanghai.

On the plane I was pleased to find out there is no drug problem in China.


"Transnational drug trafficking has been effectively curbed, and running big rackets across China's borders made almost impossible, senior police officials said yesterday."

So says the China News Daily. So you know they wouldn't lie.

Riiiiiiight.

I love this pic of Sandy. It cracks me up.

From the airport we went to dinner.

"Shanghai Designated Tourist Restaurant. Shanghai Municipal Tourism Administrative Commision."

We ate, and went to, a lot of officially designated tourist places. No complaints, as the food was always tasty, other than the idiocy of "central planning" that thinks you need officially designated restaurants.

Other than the goofy sign though, it was kinda stylish. Retro stylish, but still.



Shanghai is easily the most westernized and urban of the cities we visited.

After dinner we went to see the skyline of Shanghai at night.

According to our guide, it's one of the top three night vistas in the world.


The others being Las Vegas and Hong Kong.

It was pretty, in a neon-y kinda way.


Our hotel in Shanghai was easily the nicest of the three we stayed at. Of course, it was once again, like the other two, a 3 Star Hotel. Never did crack the code on how three vastly different hotels, quality wise, could have the same rating. It's almost as if they're lying. No, can't be. Mao forbid.

Sandy decompressing after traveling.


I made my Terracotta Warriors fight to the death. The chocolate one lost because, um, well, I ate him. [At this point in China I may have been losing it a bit.]

Check Hotel Rule # 5 - "No flammable, explosive, poisonous, radioactive or other dangerous articles are allowed..."

Good thing I left that Uranium 235 at home.



We had no problems at all, but this on the door doesn't exactly fill you with confidence, ya know?

"If a stranger knock the door. Do not open & call Operator "44" at once."

Important Safety Tip! - [Upper Left Corner] - "Follow no strangers to the fun places."

Indeed.

China - Day 3.

Early in the AM we caught our flight from Beijing to Xi'an.

Xi'an is much more... developing... than Beijing.


It was about an hour from the airport to the "city," per se, and the roads the entire way there were [where you could see through the haze] surrounded by abandoned and derelict buildings.

Even as we got closer to the city, the city had a bit of a run down feeling.



It changes inside the the city walls though.

That seems to be where the development is growing outwards from.

Below you can see some of the development from the center of the city, including a Starbucks.

[Lower Right Corner.]

They were everywhere in China.


So in Xi'an, first we headed to The Huaqing Palace and the Huaqing Hot Spring that served as a winter retreat for one of the emperors.


It's famous for the love story between Emperor Xuan Zong and his concubine Yang Guifei.

"Legend has it that he was so enamored by her beauty that it distracted him from his daily work. The Empire was being threatened and the courtiers threatened to kill the concubine, blaming her for the Emperor's mismanagement of his nation."

So Yang hung herself to save the country and her lover's name.

Man, that is so very Asian.

Also fairly misogynistic, when you think about it. It's the woman's fault for distracting the man. The guy can't keep his mind on his work, so the lady hangs herself.

Yeesh.


That's a statue of the concubine Yang in the background.





Also known for being the place, in 1936, where Chiang Kai-shek was arrested. Our guide was kind enough to show us where his hiding place in the mountains was and where he was captured.

If you blow up the pic you can make out his hiding place a bit better. Pretty much dead center.

Dragon Claw Tree. I dug this pic.

After the hot springs, then lunch.

Sandy was no end of pleased that her tea made a smiley face.

And then onto the big draw of Xi'an, The Terracotta Army.


Discovered in 1974, over 8,000 statues of an army buried with Emperor Qin in about 200BC.

"Their purpose was to help rule another empire with Shi Huangdi in the afterlife. Consequently, they are also sometimes referred to as "Qin's Armies"."


Pretty damn impressive.

The same way, in the same sense, as the Pyramids of Egypt.

Insofar that their purpose, once you get past the amazing craftsmanship, was to fundamentally placate the ego and self importance of one particular shmuck.



[Except of course we all know that the pyramids were really built by the aliens, and the whole "burial tomb" story is a clever ruse floated by the Illuminati.

True story.]

Though all of a clay is brownish in color now, they were once brightly painted... which would have been pretty awesome, actually.


City Wall building, lit up at night.

[Same as in the sixth picture from the top, upper left corner.]


Our hotel, despite coming to a much smaller, less developed city, was a vast improvement in quality over the place we stayed at in Beijing.

Yet still had the same 3 Star rating.

Hmmmmmm.



Why will China rule the world?

Our bellhop could speak four languages.

English, Chinese, Japanese, French.

Bad-Ass.