A quick trip to China leaves us longing for more

PrincessInOz · Apr 25, 2017

Aussie Wendy said:
I shouldn't say as she is still waiting to get the official paperwork through and sign the contract but all being well she is off to Sweden for her first job (2 year postdoc) - so she needs to get used to that level of cold! (She loves the cold much more than the heat though and was hoping for a job somewhere cold in Europe!)

Awesome news! Hope the official paperwork comes through soon.

Fairy Floss · Apr 25, 2017

PrincessInOz said:
So.....when do we want to go?????

Don't forget me.....

Aussie Wendy · Apr 25, 2017

zanzibar138 said:
OMG how exciting for J! Hope it all goes through smoothly for her.

Thanks Zanzibar138. She is very excited but has heaps to do first like finish her last paper from her PhD and finish off some volunteer work for another research lab here (gaining some more experience in some techniques she'll need). Accommodation looks like being the hardest thing to secure over there and prices on lots of things are much higher than here.

shushh · Apr 25, 2017

It is impressive that the moats and lakes were big enough to create such a massive "hill"! Looking back at the Forbidden City from afar certainly gave a much better idea of scale!

Funny you mention that the temp dropped significantly after the sun set. We noticed that too in Shanghai even when the temps were much warmer. As soon as the sun was gone, it got very very cold very quickly.

Congratulations to your DD! What an amazing opportunity. I'm sure it will be an incredible experience! It is the kind of thing that I wished I did when I was younger. Hopefully everything will become properly official soon! When does she go?

Aussie Wendy · Apr 26, 2017

shushh said:
It is impressive that the moats and lakes were big enough to create such a massive "hill"! Looking back at the Forbidden City from afar certainly gave a much better idea of scale!

Funny you mention that the temp dropped significantly after the sun set. We noticed that too in Shanghai even when the temps were much warmer. As soon as the sun was gone, it got very very cold very quickly.

Congratulations to your DD! What an amazing opportunity. I'm sure it will be an incredible experience! It is the kind of thing that I wished I did when I was younger. Hopefully everything will become properly official soon! When does she go?

On behalf of DD thank Shushh. She needs to be there by 31 July but can't leave more than a week earlier as she wants to go to her graduation ceremony which is late July. Seeing how well established Jingshang park was (of course since its been there since 1600's) made me think how hard it is to tell what is man-made and what is nature when you look at eg UK and Europe and their "mounds".

WanderlustNZ · Apr 26, 2017

Just catching up and loving it. Your hotel looks lovely and has so much more character than some of the big Western style hotels.

Remind me, what camera are you using? Your pics are lovely and clear.

OrangeBirdGirl · Apr 26, 2017

Love all your posts! Makes me get even more excited.

Aussie Wendy · Apr 30, 2017

WanderlustNZ said:
Just catching up and loving it. Your hotel looks lovely and has so much more character than some of the big Western style hotels.

Remind me, what camera are you using? Your pics are lovely and clear.

Pics are a combo taken from mine and DD's cameras - both compact automatic Sony's. DDs is similar to Zanzibar138's only an older version I think (my older one). Mine is the same but a later version PIO tells me. Mine is a DSC-HX90V and was a Xmas pressie. DH got it for me as it has a pop out view finder with my dodgy eyes so I don't have to use the back screen if I don't want to. I find it was great in dazzling light or dim light to see what I was taking but when I zoom the zoom is so good I take a while to find what I am looking for with the view finder - lol! It also has "Optical steady shot" necessary given my habit of shaking the camera a lot when I click these days. It has several presets so you can alter aperture and shutter speeds if you want and has a panorama setting and of course movies but also a manual override so you can get a little creative if you wish. Has a 30x optical zoom and it says up to 60x Clear Image Zoom (have no idea what that means). Good all rounder if you want a compact to fit in your pocket and not carry a dSLR body or similar and multiple lens. It probably has a lot of other features I haven't played with yet!

Aussie Wendy · Apr 30, 2017

Houhai Lakes for sunset

Houhai Lakes area is actually three lakes with Houhai being the largest together with Qianhai and Xihai. Part of the shore around Houhai is lined with restaurants and bars and is a popular nightlife area. It was the terminal point of the Great Canal during the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) when it was a busy prosperous area.

The canal itself is the longest canal in the world running from Hangzhou to Beijing linking the Yellow River and the Yangtze. The oldest parts of the canal date back to the C5th BC but it only became one canal in the Sui Dynasty in 581-618 AD. Historically it went through periods of desolation and disuse with areas silting up or destroyed by flooding. It was renovated in almost its entirety under the Ming Dynasty in the early 1400’s. While its southern parts are still heavily used, today the Beijing end is currently not navigable.

It was a lovely quiet place in the late afternoon for a stroll.

Beside Qianhai Lake looking towards the Silver Ingot Bridge

Qianhai Lake

Famous roast meat eatery Kaorouji

Close up of the bridge

Me with some of the eateries on the opposite side. In summer all the cafes have their roof terraces open which would be nice.

This sign was one of several that amused us

Although it was only around 5pm many places had live performers – some of them were very good. They had windows opening to the street to draw people in.

This boy was very good.

We were in the neighbourhood of the Drum and Bell Towers but didn’t explore as intended coming back – well that didn’t happen! This is a view of the Bell Tower in the background.

Looking down Houhai Lake which is where the Grand Canal must head out of of (or did once)
http://s1203.photobucket.com/user/g...100 the Bell Tower DSC07220 683x1024.jpg.html

Aussie Wendy · Apr 30, 2017

Sunset

Sunset approaches

A crazy swimmer in Qianhai Lake (not just the cold but who knows what is in the lake!)

[URL='http://s1203.photobucket.com/user/gecko290/media/China%202017/103%20DSC02468%201024x768.jpg.html']

With sunset it got VERY cold. We walked back to the Houhai Lake side hoping for some sunset colour over the distant mountains but it didn't eventuate
http://s1203.photobucket.com/user/gecko290/media/China 2017/105 DSC07226 1024x683.jpg.html

DD complained her nose had gone numb so we took some drastic warming action

Night lights

[/URL]

Aussie Wendy · Apr 30, 2017

Being adventurous

We didn’t eat here as I was on the hunt for a place recommended in LP and TA down a nearby hutong. Of course we got lost – I expect we walked down the totally wrong street but this place was busy with locals and we were frozen so in we went.

There was no English menu only all in Chinese and no picture menus. Thinking it would all be too hard wee turned to leave but they came rushing over and showed us to a table and pointed at other tables then fetched their son who spoke a little English. He said “hotpot” pointing to others. We said yes and with much difficulty ordered some beef and some vegetables. He wanted us to order more vegetables like mushrooms (and we should have done this for variety) and noodles but we really weren’t very hungry and it was very hard barely understanding what the choices were.

He lit a burner in the centre of the table and gave us some chopsticks then in came an ancient little old man carrying a steaming, heavy pot and brazier in one. He was very funny making a big show of what muscles he had. Out came a tray of green leafy veggies and wafer thin slices of beef. Seeing others we guessed what we were meant to do.

(I just realised there are pictures of a sort on the wall here!)

Not being as dexterous as DD with chopsticks of course I totally failed not to drop every other piece of food into the pot and then had to try and fish it out with chopsticks.

Stuffing my face. It was really good. The meat tender and tasty and the dipping sauce delicious.

While some more various vegetables if we had managed it would have been nice we were full regardless by the time we had finished. The owners were sitting at a table across from us and kept laughing with us as I struggled along. The old man who was introduced as “uncle” wanted us to share a beer with him - at least that might have been what he was miming. We said no as then we’d need to pee – and where????

We had a fun convo as we left, mostly by mime as they were laughing at all our layers of clothing (it was toasty and warm inside) – we got across we were from Australia so found Beijing very cold. In retrospect we should have got a photo with “uncle” – he would have loved to have one with us I am sure.

Anyway it was an unexpected fun way to end the day.

On the subway home there were lots of these humourous posters following a theme. I don’t understand them but I liked them.

We got out at Dongsi station to save changing lines again. It was a bit further to walk down Dongsi Sth St from here than to walk up it from Denshikou subway station. There was a Wumart supermarket here and we had discovered earlier that day an upmarket and very expensive but delicious looking cake and bread shop. I didn’t take any pics as I would have liked as we didn’t want to spend the money paying 5x the price of something compared to other little bakeries. As always there were a group of women practicing Tai Chi here every evening. (Very bad picture)

Heading home down the hutong

PrincessInOz · Apr 30, 2017

WOW! What a great outing. I can see why you headed in that direction. I would have loved to have explored that area.

And how funny that you found the Grand Canal! That's just so coincidental. I wonder if the bit of water you saw flowed down to Suzhou by the time I got there? (And yes, I do know that they aren't really connected now....but it's fun musing about it).
Even if you didn't get sunset colour, that's a nice golden glow you've got in your pics.

Lucky you....getting pictures on the wall of what was on offer at the Hot Pot restaurant. :thumbsup2

darrenf67 · Apr 30, 2017

Great spot! We were there early in the morning so there were very few people.

Aussie Wendy · May 1, 2017

Day 3 To the Wall

Sights en route

We were up at 7 this morning for another delic breakfast then off in our private car to Mutianyu. We paid more for hiring through the hotel but it made so easy to just book it with reception and as we walked up a little before our agreed time of 8am he was waiting.

It took about 1hr 45 to reach Mutianyu given Beijing morning traffic though it felt that surprisingly quickly we were out of the city and surrounded by fields.

I tried snapping a few shots out of the car window. We passed an area of interesting city architecture but I wasn’t quick enough to get pictures of some of the more interesting buildings.

This bridge looked cool.

We did notice how easy it was to see all the birds’ nests in the trees when they are bare unlike in Australia when you never notice them.

The mountains we are heading towards

This is an interesting entrance to a town

In the rural areas horse and carts share the road

These little cars were everywhere in Beijing too

Pseudo Greek entrance to a property – why not?

And a grand statue at another

[URL='http://s1203.photobucket.com/user/gecko290/media/China%202017/Mutianyu/5.%20DSC02617%20800x584.jpg.html']
We passed the Green Emperor Picking Garden where you could pick your own berries in season. Then we saw this – it took us a few minutes to realise yes it was a frozen waterfall we were looking at.

[URL=http://s1203.photobucket.com/user/gecko290/media/China%202017/Mutianyu/7.%20Frozen%20waterfall%20and%20lake%20DSC02500%20800x567.jpg.html]

As we passed closer we could see the lake at the bottom was frozen and people were gathering to skate on it I presume. This pic from the internet taken a couple of weeks earlier gives a better idea as from the car we struggled to photograph it but was what it looked like as we passed it on the way home

[URL='http://s1203.photobucket.com/user/gecko290/media/China%202017/Mutianyu/5.%20DSC02617%20800x584.jpg.html']
We passed under this bridge that looked like an aquaduct as where it met the cliff there was no sign of any obvious opening so I am presuming pipes went through.

[URL='http://s1203.photobucket.com/user/gecko290/media/China%202017/Mutianyu/5.%20DSC02617%20800x584.jpg.html']
And then we were there in the big undercover parking station by the Visitors Centre. It was very quiet still. You can just see the wall on the far right behind the ‘Laker’s’ sign.

[/URL][/URL][/URL][/URL]

Aussie Wendy · May 1, 2017

We will get there eventually

Our driver without asking procured us tix but he got us return on the cable car – I was only going to go one way on the cable car. A different company runs a chairlift up and chairlift or flume ride down and I was going to come back on the flume but it was too hard to organise after the fact – I figured we could wear the difference if we decided to go down the flume and buy up top. The chairlift goes to Tower 6 whereas the cable car goes to Tower 14 which I knew I wanted to start from.

We used the bathrooms and found a mix of squat and western toilets (as we had everywhere so far) with soap and water but no toilet paper – we were prepared with tissues, and they were very clean, then we walked up through the tourist “village” (very reminiscent of the Big Buddha area in Lantau in Hong Kong). Though we were rugged up well it was actually really warm – we figured the sellers of panda beanies were not going to sell many today. The shops were only just opening up so we weren’t hassled as we walked past.

At the “top” of the village there is a shuttle bus to take you up the hill to the departure point for the chairlift and cable car. You can walk but it is about 3km from the Visitors Centre.

This map near the cable car and chairlift shows you the area.

All about this part of the Great Wall

The cable car was steep and fast – good fun. This shows how rugged up we were. We had feared we would experience the cold biting wind of the previous day and being higher in the mountains thought it could be colder than in Beijing.

A view of Mutianyu below.

Our first glimpse of the wall

Emperor Qin Shi Huang (or Zheng) unified China in the 3rd Century BC and transformed the defences of the northern frontier into the ‘Wall of Ten Thousand Miles’ as a means of preventing incursions from the ‘barbarian’ nomads into the Chinese Empire. He became the First Emperor of the Qin Dynasty. Later the Han, Sui and northern dynasties repaired, rebuilt or expanded sections. But other dynasties let it fall into disrepair. The concept was revived under the Ming Dynasty in the C14th mostly against the Mongolian tribes. They built the wall using bricks and stone so construction was stronger and more elaborate than some of the earlier versions. Up to 25,000 watchtowers were constructed and as there were constant Mongol raids, the Ming devoted a lot of resources to repair and reinforce the walls. The Wall helped defend the Empire against the Manchu invasion around 1600 although they eventually succeeded. One source says that though it never really prevented invaders from entering China, it came to function as a psychological barrier between Chinese civilisation and the world.

Another view. You can see the towers along the distant ridgeline as well.

On the arrival terrace

Walking up the short distance

We’re up and it’s so quiet!

WanderlustNZ · May 1, 2017

I'm so impressed by how quiet the wall is. That last pic is awesome.

Also, great sunset pics.

PrincessInOz · May 1, 2017

Oh Wow! That car ride was so worth it!
And how awesome to see this part of the wall with hardly anyone there.

Aussie Wendy · May 1, 2017

Walking the wall

The ramparts of the wall were widened during the C16th to allow for up to 5 horses to walk abreast. The wall extends approx. 8852 km from the Yellow Sea near the North Korean border to Jiayugua in the far west. The watch towers were close enough to allow an early warning system of torches and smoke signals.

From reaching the wall near the cable car we chose to turn left towards Tower 23. We've made it to the Great Wall of China - yaay!

Views to the south west

Our first watchtower, Tower 14, is unusual in its shape.

Inside they have installed graffiti boards to encourage people not to deface the wall

So we added our names with my trusty biro

Next to some other Aussie’s and Hogwarts!

Views through the window

The wall climbs up and over the ridges. Note a little snow still in the protected NE lee of the wall.
http://s1203.photobucket.com/user/g...27 Adding our names DSC07277 800x533.jpg.html

Because it is just after the snow has melted it is brown and drab. Pics in summer show this a swathe of greenery – have I mentioned how empty it was this morning!
http://s1203.photobucket.com/user/gecko290/media/China 2017/Mutianyu/29 DSC07287 533x800.jpg.html

DD in the north arched gate (built in 1404) that now allows wheelchair access to a small section of the wall.
http://s1203.photobucket.com/user/gecko290/media/China 2017/Mutianyu/29 DSC07287 533x800.jpg.html

An arrow opening