December 31, 2012

According to my daily pre-trip To Do list, today is packing day. And since today is Monday and we're not leaving until Friday, this is uber pre-trip planning. As per usual Jim has assembled his 40-day wardrobe in about 4 minutes: shorts, golf shirts and sandals for day, khakis and sport shirts for dinner and blazer, slacks, dress shirt and shoes and ties for formal nights. It took me two days just to organize toiletries and beauty aids. The eternal question: how much shampoo to take for 40 days?

Meanwhile I've downloaded countless books to my Nook and assembled knitting, needlepoint and quilting projects for the twenty sea days. Jim has a couple of books. Do we notice a pattern here?

This is a test blog to see if I can post it myself or will have to email it to son Jay to do the honors. Shipboard internet is notoriously expensive and slow. EVERYbody complains about it but at 25 cents/minute it's quite the profit center for the ship. Ditto laundry service, but better than spending hours doing it yourself in the self-service laundry. Plus the little elves carefully put the hanging stuff in your closet and the folded stuff is ironed (including socks!) and wrapped in tissue in a willow basket placed on your bed. Worth every cent! (editor's note: I'm doing the last loads of laundry before packing and the 18-year-old Maytag dryer is making a very funny noise. Just in case I'm ready with a bag full of quarters to dash over to the most-unglamorous Kennesaw Coin Laundry to use their dryers.)

Well, this is not getting that packing done, so au revoir for now. The next message will be from the ms Amsterdam, departing Fort Lauderdale at 5 pm on Saturday, Jan 5. I've scanned the itinerary and will endeavor to post.

Susan

Hard Beds, Big Noses and Cow Oil

Hard Beds, Big Noses and Cow Oil
 (this is the final posting for this trip.)
  
Tuesday evening On board UA 436 five hours from Shanghai somewhere over the Aleutians  

Just as I was falling asleep last night my eyes snapped open as I thought, "I've packed all my shoes!" Thank heavens our luggage wasn't to be picked up until the next morning so mini-flashlight (thanks, Cass) in one hand I frantically dug through my bag with the other until I managed to unearth two matching shoes. Oh, yes. It's time to go home.  

Instead of just taking our trusty bus to the airport, the tour company (in other words the Chinese government) decided to have us take the MagLev train (magnetic levitation) to the airport instead. This is a 30 km route built as a show case for the world's fastest train. So they put our checked luggage on the luggage van to the airport and us and our carry on onto the bus to the MagLev station. It's a big (what else) modernistic building that serves just two trains that go back and forth to the airport. The trains run precisely every 15 minutes. You stand by a gate on the platform and suddenly, swoosh! There it is. The arriving passengers leave through doors on the other side and then attendants open the doors and gates on your side and on you go. Two minutes later, you're off and the train goes faster and faster until it reaches 300 km per hour (there is speedometer in each car so you know when it's hit 300). The scenery is just flying by and 7-1/2 minutes later the train glides into the airport station. It seemed like a Disney ride.

 Even more miraculous: the bus w/ our carry on was at the curb alongside the pile of our checked bags. I have no idea how this worked but it did. Then it was good bye to Kevin and Alex and hello check in. Once through immigration and security (I was prepared to have them search for that stupid invisible knife again in my purse, but evidently it had vanished) we dedicated ourselves to spending the 84 Yuan we had left, about 16 bucks and managed to unload all but five Yuan bills and two 1 Yuan coins, about $1. Even in China you can't get much for a buck.

 I've enjoyed writing about this trip. It's helped me keep track of what we've seen and done each day. As I look back, we really covered a lot of territory and checked off a lot of those bucket list items as we encountered some interesting, amusing and just plain crazy things.  

Even though you see lots of short dresses and short shorts on young women, the Chinese culture prefers a more modest, covered look, even in their food. Our local Shanghai guide Alex said that while we put our toppings on top of our pizza, the Chinese prefer their fillings hidden inside their dumplings.

 They consider English the common language of the world and study it from early childhood yet they readily admit that although they can read and write it most don't speak it well at all. The Chinese characters on store signs, billboards, street signs are spelled out in ABCs. The guides were constantly spelling out Chinese names and words. Kevin taught us a new Chinese word or words every day but it works both ways; some words we just could not pronounce. Like school kids we gleefully cried out "knee-how" to greet him every morning. Yup, after two weeks, Hello was the only word we could say with confidence.  

And now for hard beds, big noses and cow oil:  

The Chinese like hard chairs, hard beds, hard pillows. In fact, throughout their history they've used "pillows" made of wood or ceramic, even jade. While we get "into" the bed they go "on to" the bed. At our last hotel the beds were so hard they had special soft  mattress pads available for westerners.  

The Chinese generally have round, flat faces without much of a nose. They think westerners have 3-D noses (much better for keeping glasses on) thus the nickname, Big Noses.  

One day Kevin was explaining the difference in the preparation of some foods. One was made using peanut oil and the other...he stopped, searching for the word and finally said, "You know, cow oil." For ever more I will see butter and think cow oil.  

When you go to China and you really should, train hard running up and down steps and pack lots of kleenex (Thanks, Chris) and Wet Wipes. You can never do too much of the first or have too much of the latter.  

A big thanks once again to Jay for posting all the blogs for me.  

I'd say good bye in Chinese but I just realized that we never learned that!        

Plum Rainy Season

Monday, Shanghai

Looking east across the river from the Bund to 21st century Shanghai

A headline in this morning's Shanghai Daily announced: "Plum Rainy Season Begins Today." You got that right. From our perch on the 17th floor of the Sofitel Hotel all we can see is grey and gloom. Oh, well. It's our last day in China and we have sights to see.

We all broke out our rain gear and hit the road running. Our first stop was the beautiful Jingan Park right in the center of Shanghai. I think the rain made it lovelier. Like all the parks in China, it is at the core of socialization for seniors. Despite the weather, some were strolling, others doing Tai Chi. And like all proper Chinese gardens it contained rocks, water, plants and a gazebo. And like the others it seems to have been there forever instead of designed and installed within the last 100 years.

Next we visited the Jade Buddha Temple named because it contains a six foot tall Buddha carved from one piece of white jade. The Buddha was brought from Burma in the early 1900s and has survived wars, both military and cultural, often through the cunning of the chief monk. The Temple is a strange combination of religion and tourism.  While the devout are praying, the visitors are taking it all in. Our local guide, Alex, did a wonderful job explaining the religion as we admired the Buddha and other icons. And now to reach enlightenment...

There are so many dying arts in China and too often because of the physical toll they take on the artisans, such as the silk rug makers. Our stop at the silk factory was one of those items on the itinerary that turns out to be so much more than expected. I had no idea that a single cocoon yields 1,000 meters of silk thread. The cocoons are separated into those containing either single or double worms. The singles are put into water and swished around with what looks like a little whisk broom until the end of the thread appears. The cocoons stay in the water while the thread ends are attached to what looks like big bobbins...the number of threads per bobbin depends on the end use of the silk thread. For instance, a scarf uses fewer threads than a pillow cover. Anywho, the cocoons bob away in the water while the thread spins onto the bobbins overhead. They know how many cocoons it takes to make a scarf or garment or pillow case.

The double worm cocoons are popped open, the worms removed, then instead of unwinding the thread, the entire cocoon goes into water where it is stretched over a small U-shaped bamboo form and then that is transferred to a larger form until the silk is seven layers thick and then it is stretched by four people into a large rectangle and placed in a pile which eventually becomes a silk comforter. They are absolutely light as a feather but as warm as a goose down comforter. And like those comforters, they come in different weights from summer light to winter warm. Nearly everyone, including the Fishers left with one. Less than US$ 150? You better believe we all bought them!

But it was the silk rugs that were the show stoppers. These are hand-knotted from a few hundred to 1,000 knots per inch. The women (men's fingers are too large for the task and it's felt they haven't the patience) sit on a bench in front of a loom following a color chart much like a cross stitch or needlepoint pattern. Their hands just fly but in eight hours they will only finish three centimeters. The high count rugs are tiny, maybe 18 inches square and are done by women in their homes. It will take a master a year to make just one piece. But these women want their daughters to have a better life so aren't teaching them to carry on the art. We learned that they can only tie for so long before their eyes give out. And did I mention that the women tying the rugs do it mostly from the natural light pouring in through the large windows? I counted maybe eight fluorescent fixtures in the entire room, none over the women. And I can't thread a quilting needle without enough wattage to perform surgery.

The rugs cost tens of thousands of dollars, but, oh, do they feel wonderful. No rugs for us, but I did get a scarf or two to remember the experience. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

On our last day we had a detour from the usual Chinese and had Mongolian barbecue for lunch. That even sounds silly as I write that sentence but, trust me, being able to put what we wanted into that bowl was a big deal! And now, only one more Chinese meal to go. I like Chinese food and we've had some fabulous dishes but after fourteen days I'm done with it. The current "parlor game" on the bus as we travel about is what we're going to eat at the airport in Shanghai: Dunkin' Donuts, Pizza Hut or Burger King!

After lunch we went to the extraordinary Shanghai Museum. To begin with, the museum building is a work of art. It is situated directly across the People's Square from the City Hall, yet another example of the banal Soviet Block building from the 50s. Inside are the treasures of China on four floors that wrap around an atrium flood with light from a glass-domed ceiling.(Square building with round dome = earth and heaven) And, altogether now, what is the material used on a every wall and floor? If you answered
anything other than marble, you just haven't been paying attention. We didn't have a long time so concentrated on the bronzes that are thousands of years old and the ceramics that range from BC to the 1800s. Every piece is beautifully displayed and labeled. The museum is only six years old but looks like it opened yesterday. The young women at the entrance are a bit bossy but put a Chinese person in any type of uniform and suddenly they have importance and authority no matter what the level.

The rain eased as we made our final stop of the afternoon on the Bund, Shanghai's grand waterfront boulevard. There is a broad, paved walkway along the river that gives an eye-popping view of the eye-popping skyscrapers across the river. And there is even a railing to keep the people on the dry side of the water. This is not always the case in China. Personal safety is your responsibility. In a whacky way, Libertarians would love this country except for that silly communist stuff about no private property, fixed wages, etc. We all took a zillion pictures of the Pearl TV Tower that looks like an ornament you'd put on the top of the Christmas tree, the Marriott that looks like a giant bottle opener, a "gold" faced tower that becomes a HUGE TV screen at night and on and on. Meanwhile, there is a constant parade of freighters coming and going. Shanghai is now the busiest port in the world.

As we stood looking at the architecture of the 21st century, behind us is a stretch of elegant colonial buildings that house the ultra five star hotels along with Chanel, Prada and the like. Look across the river and it's tomorrow; turn around and it's yesterday. Kudos to whomever for not paving paradise and turning it into a parking lot.

This co-mingling of past, present and future is what makes Shanghai so appealing. Unlike all of the other major cities we've visited, the older, two or three story residential buildings are still in use. This gives the eye a break from the monotony of skyscraper after skyscraper as well as making the city pedestrian-friendly. Every Chinese city has trees on every street, highway and major road. You can tell that this is a major effort because often these urban forests are newly planted. And not little saplings, but fifteen or twenty foot ginkos, magnolias, poplars and on and on. I'm not sure that this air exchange will make a dent in the pollution, but the green softens the cement and, well, it's just pretty!

And now it's time to pack up everything and head east to the Western world. It's still hard to believe that we are in China. It's been an amazing adventure. We've seen so much and learned so much. The wall between China and the rest of the world is still coming down. With television and movies and the internet (despite the blocked sites), there is no way that the leaders of China could keep their people isolated. The younger people seem to accept the system as they work it. They strive like mad for an education which is really their only path to a better life.

Time to go. No wifi right now, but maybe at the airport. I'll while away the 13-1/2 hours writing a final blog about more of the quirks and oddities. Our favorite sign yesterday: "To toilet go downstairs and walk backwards."

Rain, Rain, Go Away

Sunday, Suzhou

Kun Opera singer in a Sunzhou teahouse

Today was a culture day in the most interesting city of Suzhou (sue-chow). We began in the morning with a cruise in a small canal boat on the Grand Canal and then on some of the smaller canals. First you motor by lovely gardens and apartments and then all of sudden the canals are edged by older one or two story houses that look a bit worse for the wear. The residents do their laundry on the steps leading down into the water (brownish, brackish and full of floating debris) and then string the clothes on bamboo poles which are hung outside for drying. Lots of mop buckets being filled from and emptied into the canals as well as a number of little open air restaurants, tea houses and people selling everything from fruit to chicken feet from wooden carts on the canal banks.

Back ashore we zigged and zagged through narrow streets not ten feet wide until we reached the Garden of the Master of the Nets, a perfect manifestation of a Chinese garden first designed a thousand years ago. It's been burned and restored a number of times in the interim but contains the four requirements of a true Chinese garden: rocks, water, plants and gazebo. It's not large by any sense of the word, but is a true gem appreciated by resident and visitor alike.

Then it was off to a silk workshop where artisans work decades to become masters in the art of double-sided embroidery using the thinnest of strands of silk. The prices of the finished pieces reflect the skill and time (often over a year) needed to complete them. I left with a little silk scarf, Made in China...

It started to rain as we walked to a teahouse along one of the canals to learn about and listen to songs from the Kun Opera performed by a woman in full make up and costume who accompanied herself with some antique Chinese instruments. No one was really too excited about this, but it was actually great fun. She first explained the story told in the songs and I swear they could be country songs. The Kun Opera is softer sounding than the Peking Opera which can make your ears bleed.

****

Suzhou train station

It was raining even more as we headed to the train station. It took a solid two hours to go by bus from Shang Hai airport to Suzhou yesterday but today we were making the  reverse trip in just 29 minutes on the bullet train. The train station was just madness. It's a vast open space with thousands and thousands of people milling about and then suddenly heading to gates when announcements were made, only in Chinese. The bullet trains now run to the capital cities of every province in China. They're sleek and white on the outside and like first class airline compartments inside, except with more room. At exactly ten minutes before departure, the turnstiles to the gate are activated.  You feed your ticket into the machine, the little gate opens, you dash through and then grab your ticket as it pops out, much like a subway. Then down an escalator to the train platform where you stand on the number of your compartment. The train comes in with a swoosh, the doors open, you get on and less than a minute later the train takes off again. It was such fun to ride at such speed that we were sorry our ride ended so soon. The station we used in Shang Hai was, of course, vast, but also a well-organized transportation hub for buses, trains, subways and even airplanes.

The bullet train

Of course we had to ride another hour through stop and go traffic by bus to dinner and our hotel. I'm sure we could have taken a subway and gotten there much sooner but it took four local guides and two AAA reps from the US to make sure all forty of us got on the right train going the right direction. No way were they going to tempt fate with the Shang Hai subway!

So now we've traveled by jet, bus, pedi-cab, cruise ship, pea pod boat, canal boat and bullet train. Tuesday we're going to take the world's fastest train, the MagLev, to the airport. It makes the 20 minute if-there's-no-traffic trip in 7 minutes! Would that the airplane could MagLev it's way to Chicago as fast. It's 13-1/2 hours from here to there and then another couple of hours to Atlanta. Tuesday is going to be a long, long day AND we go back across the international dateline so even though we leave here at 4 pm on Tuesday, we arrive there at 4:30 pm on Tuesday. The day that will not end.

****

Aboard the bullet train en route to Shang Hai

We're all about ready to finish this adventure. It's been a fabulous trip, but frankly, we're pooped! Our wake up call comes at 7 am every morning and we're rarely back to the hotel before 8 pm at night. Oh, does that make us sound o.l.d.

We're also counting down the number of Chinese meals left--just two more to go. Each lunch or dinner has had at least one dish that was just delicious but we're all about riced out. Today I found myself wondering what United would serve us on the way home...please, God, nothing stir fried.

Back To The Future

Saturday in Xi'an

We checked out of the Golden Flower and then headed to the airport by way of a lovely park surrounding an ancient Buddhist pagoda. The Chinese are not stingy with urban parks. They are everywhere in every city from little vest pockets to huge meandering acres of green. And the parks are used for Tai Chi, walking babies, or just enjoying a cool respite. There are also trees along every road, street and highway. The city buildings are pretty gray and ugly with the occasional spectacular architectural feat.

There is a museum in the park and for the life of me I can't remember the name but there's a good chance the words "revered heritage" would be in there. We strolled by some statues from various dynasties and then went down to the research level. We sat around a large table covered with red felt and then the young professor in charge gave us each a pair of gloves with pebbly palms so we could handle some of these antiquities. We passed around a selection of items of bronze and even a very old and very rare ceramic box. Kevin is such an archeology buff that it seemed he knew as much as the professor. It was a rare treat to actually touch things so old and we got to keep the gloves as a souvenir. I think they'll be perfect for to use while machine quilting.

I did learn that during the Tang dynasty the standard of beauty did a 180 from the willowy creatures of the Hans. The most beautiful and prized women were plump with round faces and double chin. Hello????? Tang princess right here.

And then it was time to leave the ancient city of Xi'an to head into the future: Shang Hai.

At the airport the Chinese TSA guys once again rifled through my purse looking for the knife they see on the X-ray screen. And once again, I have no knife. I must say that the TSA-ettes have a much lighter touch than their Atlanta sisters when it comes to the pat down. Our plane to Shang Hai was only 30 minutes late which is as close to on time as it gets in China. A 737 this time and the usual lovely box with unidentifiable snacks inside. We must have taxied for ten minutes from runway to gate and then the endless march through the concourse in Shang Hai (we landed at gate 220. You do the math.) All this walking and climbing is starting to weed out the weak ones in our group. One of the Dragons went down in Xi'an. A few of the other LOL's (in this case, Little Old Ladies) are slowing down quite a bit but are still hanging in there. One of our Panda group is pretty much staying on the bus at every stop. Then waddles to a snack stand for a Coke and M & Ms. No sympathy for that doofus.

Contrary to popular belief, everything is not free in China. The government picks up about 30% of medical costs once you wait in line for whatever procedure. There is no social security. You must buy into a pension plan while working and then the pay out is about 100 US$ per month. Remember, people must retire at 55 and 60 and then their children are responsible for their care, thus the multi generational living. The parents work while the grandparents keep house and watch the child. Education is free only for the "minorities" who make up less than 10% of the population.

Ah, but there is a vast underground capitalist system in play. For instance, teachers who earn a set amount (500) per month supplement this income by tutoring their students after class. The grandparents minding their grandchild (remember the one child policy) will find somewhere to plant a garden and then will sell the produce themselves by just throwing a blanket down and hawking their vegetables or will wholesale to little produce markets. And then there are the street vendors...

We rode a bus for two hours through Shang Hai, the financial and shipping center of the country, to Suzhou, the Venice of the East, a city of only 8 million. We didn't arrive until dinner time. Our hotel, a Holiday Inn, is a high rise right smack dab in the middle of the action. Jim and I are on the 24th floor in a corner suite. Great view and wifi. Too bad we're here for only 13 hours.

Tomorrow we're seeing whatever Suzhou has to offer and then will take a train back to Shang Hai. We've picked up a local guide, another 30-something year old named Alex. He's already told us that the traffic is so bad in Shang Hai (as to differentiate it from every other car clogged city????) that the government discourages private ownership of cars within the city limits. Public transportation is prolific and cheap (2 Yuan, about 20 cents fare on bus or subway) while parking is very expensive as is the license plate fee---thousands of dollars. Only the very rich can afford to own a car. We've already determined that you have to be nuts to drive here. Someone asked why there aren't endless traffic accidents and was told, "They don't go fast enough to cause any damage."

Another Fun Fact: There is only one time zone in China. They call it MST, Mao Standard Time. Dawn and dusk are the usual times in Beijing. It gets more interesting for those who live in the far west.

Hello and Goodbye

Atop the inner city wall of Xi'an

Thursday

As promised, in Chongqing (pronounced Chong-ching) we literally walked from the ship to the bus and then were driven straight to the airport. Well, it wasn't THAT easy. We sailed up river all night in pea soup fog as opposed to the usual grey mist. We tied to another pontoon dock and as the fog lifted to a thick grey mist, we discovered we were two pontoon boat docks and about 100 yards of floating pathways from The (inevitable) Steps.

The "bang bangs" are porters who look like they're anything from 20 to 100 years old. They put a heavy bamboo pole behind their neck and over their shoulders and then hang baskets, bags or whatever from the end of each pole and start walking or climbing. They schlepped our big checked bags across the floating pathway and then up the 100+ cement stairs to the baggage bus. We each grabbed our carry on and followed suit. By the time I reached the top of that endless flight of stairs I was sucking wind and wishing Mr. Otis had made his way to the exotic East to teach them about the elevator.

This was taken about 8 AM just before we left the ship.  We had to walk across the pontoon path and then up the flight of stairs to the bus.  This is about as bright as it gets in this city.

Chongqing is monstrous, or what we could see of it. Imagine a San Francisco built entirely of 30+ story buildings; hundreds and thousands of them. The visibility was maybe a mile. Maybe. The combination of humidity along the river, pollution and 32 or 33 million people makes for air you can chew and no sun. Kevin told us that girls from Chongqing are thought to be the most beautiful in China because they're never in the sun and thus their skin is like porcelain. It might make for lovely skin but this gloom is not so good for those of us of Scandinavian descent who are always looking into the
abyss.

We took a one hour flight to Xi'an and then walked and walked and walked through the endless and wide and empty concourse to baggage claim. Chinese airports are enormous and as far as I could tell, underused. And in every city they seem to be building more terminals. The international side of the airport at Beijing (as a opposed to the domestic side) has three HUGE terminals, A, B and C. However, only A and C are used. B was strictly for the athletes to use during the Olympics and was closed after the Games.

The afternoon was spent at the Han dynasty tomb and museum. The emperors built entire cities in their tombs for their afterlife. These underground cities have mountains and lakes, armies and animals, chariots and wagons. The figures in the Han dynasty tomb are small, a bit smaller than half life size. These tombs look like hills from afar. The tomb was excavated (they are referred to as pits), everything put in a series of rooms and then completely covered with earth. There has been a good bit of tomb raiding and destroying when enemies attacked or the peasants revolted, but hundreds of the terra cotta  figures have survived. Xi'an was the capital of China for hundreds of years and many dynasties so a lot of emperors' tombs are in the area which is now farmland. The famous Terra Cotta Warriors were not discovered until a farmer was digging a well in 1974 and hit antiquities instead of water.

Besides the historical center of China, Xi'an is also the dumpling capital of China. Dinner that night was a feast that featured 20 different types of dumplings, all about bite-size. Vegetable, pork, chicken, fish, shrimp, abalone and even a couple of sweet ones. The dumplings are shaped to look like the ingredient inside: ducks, pigs, fish, etc. All are steamed and just delicious. And as at every meal so far, slices of watermelon for dessert.

Street traffic in Xi'an

Xi'an "only" has four million people but it is bustling. We're starting to look forward to our bus rides here and there if only to watch the bicycles, scooters, cars, buses and pedestrians jockey for position on the roads. It seems that the biggest has the right of way, but that doesn't mean the smaller vehicles won't challenge this law of the pavement jungle! The drivers change lanes at will and without warning and will straddle the white line to get "there" first. Pedestrians will cross multi-laned roads at corners, in the middle of a block, wherever, dodging the cars and buses and scooters that do NOT stop for them. And the roundabouts are an E ticket ride at Disneyland! The centers are beautifully landscaped with trees and flowers, and the cars treat the road like a race track. No one stays in his or her lane. They all want to be closest to the center and then they cut wildly across traffic to drive on another street. And then there is always a pedestrian or scooter or delivery bike (a three wheeled bike with a flatbed over the back wheel for freight) going against traffic to liven it up a bit. And seat belts or helmets? Fuggetaboudit.

We're staying at the Shangri La Golden Flower Hotel. It's lovely, the staff is gracious and the rooms are huge. Our local guide, this itty bitty creature named Coco, has told us that it was built on the site of a palace an emperor built for his favorite concubine, the Golden Flower. The emperors each had one wife but hundreds of concubines. They were forever building palaces for the latter. The empresses knew what was going on but that didn't mean they were going to tolerate having these women in THEIR palace. There are endless stories of the craftier concubines bribing the eunuchs who guarded them to put them at the top of the emperor's list. There are eunuchs among the clay figures in the tombs. All the figures were once clothed in silk robes which have rotted away. As Coco put it, you can identify the eunuchs because "they don't have parts down there." Like a big ole pile of Ken dolls!

Tomorrow the big event.

It Takes An Army

Terra Cotta Warriors in Xi'an

Friday in Xi'an

Xi'an has loads of tourists along with its citizenry. Tourism is a big part of their economy so they make it easy to access the interesting places and keep them nice and tidy.  Way back when, the city had three walls: inner, outer and second outer. Over the  centuries they've been burned and then rebuilt during the Tang and Ming dynasties.  Today only the inner wall is still standing and surrounding the original city. It was first  erected using mortar made from kiwi juice and mushy rice. You use what you have. It has been resurfaced with more modern materials. The wall is a square with big guard houses at every corner. There is a moat adjacent that is now a series of parks. You can walk, bike or ride in a golf cart along the length of the top of the wall, 14 km. It's only 76 stone steps up (we're all counting steps by now) to reach the top. Once there it's a nice, smooth surface maybe 50 feet across. Inside the wall there are height restrictions for the buildings but outside, anything goes. (more on that later)

A special welcoming ceremony had been arranged for us at the North Gate. We had no idea what to expect and were speechless when we were each given a key to the gate of the wall, a passport to meet the emperor and then an honor guard of soldiers dressed in Tang era gear to escort us through the gate and into a large parade ground where we were entertained by dancers and drummers all in gorgeous costumes and then met the emperor and empress. Quite a way to kick off the day. Those peons on the top of the wall were looking down, taking pictures like mad and wondering who in the world we were to rate this big hoo-hah.

And then by bus (same crazy street madness to entertain us en route) to the main event: the pits of the Terra Cotta Warriors. There is a big (toll) highway leading out there past farms and wheat fields and then, through the gate and into a three ring circus of shops and vendors and restaurants and flags flying and noise. Always in China, noise. We got a ride out to the pits on trams, about half a mile or so and then into the building housing Pit #1. I'm typing this on our flight to Shang Hai so can't look up the exact dimensions of this building, but it is at least as large as an indoor football stadium. There is an elevated walk way around the perimeter where you can look down on the Terra Cotta Warriors. It is an astounding sight. So much so that the visitors are almost quiet. The soldiers standing in ranks were all in pieces when uncovered and have been put back together. Ditto for the horses. The chariots were wooden so have long rotted away. Every person and animal is life size and distinctive. It took 700,000 laborers four decades to create all this.

There are two other pits also covered by buildings. The archeologists have been able to determine which figures were infantry or archers or officers or generals. In many areas of the pits, the broken pieces lie in situ so you can see what they looked like before restoration (a big jumble of broken pieces covered by yards of dirt). The Chinese government doesn't have the funds or knowledge to uncover, protect and restore any more. The figures were originally brightly painted but that fades quickly when uncovered and exposed to the air.

There is quite a complex of buildings and museums and shops around the site of the tomb. As one guide book I read put it, at last a destination in China that really lives up to the hype. It was quite hot (there is sun in Xi'an!) and we walked a lot (for some reason, the trams that take you TO the pits return empty leaving you to hoof it back to the entrance) but it's definitely the highlight of our trip. And everyone likes the city of Xi'an.

Back to the hotel for 45 minutes to rest and regroup for the Tang Dynasty Dinner Theater. Much to our surprise, the food was excellent and the show was spectacular. A 30 piece orchestra playing strange and old Chinese instruments accompanied a troupe of 30 or so singers and dancers in fabulous costumes recreating dances once performed in the Tang court. It only lasted an hour or so which was just right.

Tomorrow we're finishing up in Xi'an and then flying to Shang Hai and on to Suzhou, the Venice of the East.