Liew's Views

So this city is made up of flat land…mostly. Once in a while you’ll see ONE giant hill in the middle of nowhere. These are mausoleums for dead emperors and for items which they saw fit to be buried with. death hills, I like to call them.

Anyway, this part of the China tour has consisted mainly of visiting historical sites and museums to learn about the many dynasties. One famous thing you might have heard of are the Terracotta Warriors. There are over 8000 infantry, archery, and calvary men (along with their horses) that were made out of terracotta (a type of ceramic) as burial objects for the first emperor of China. These were built life-sized.  ya, that’s right, the first emperor had these made so that they could be buried with him in his mausoleum. The reason? Chinese people believe that after death, we go to another world- and whatever you bury with you in our world will travel with you to the ‘other’ world.  If you’ve ever heard of Chinese people burning paper houses, “hell money”, paper cars, etc., it’s the same concept. Whatever is burned with you at your cremation is carried with you to the other side. I think the burning paper concept is much more efficient than the burying concept.

Anyway I think I’m becoming allergic to museums. I love knowing about history and all that…but I hate looking at the same/or similar things over and over again. Thanks to our tour guide for helping out in the boredom department though – he allows me to skip out on reading plaques and plaques of information.  Seriously though, a museum a day for 3 days straight is not my thing.

On another note, I’m dumpling’d out. I went to a Dumpling Banquet and ate too many. no more dumplings please.

I won’t be updating this for a couple days due to a mini-cruise I’m taking…where I doubt they will have the internet.

Cheers, all.

P.S. Try warm rice wine!

This entry is not going to be very comprehensive for those who can’t follow my random train of thoughts. I’m not going to write things in any particular order. I’m not categorizing. Fair warning.

June 17 and 18, 2007 (remember, I’m 12 hours ahead of Toronto)
Never drive in China. Really – don’t. Unless you have guts – serious guts.  You’ll have to get used to a 3 lane road being turned into a 4 lane road by the drivers; multiple turning lanes (marked or unmarked); crazy bicycles and pedestrians; tons of traffic everywhere; and minimal braking by drivers (they have right of way apparently). Those are only a few things you have to worry about. Road rage doesn’t exist here – because it doesn’t help. Aggression won’t do anything. Fearful people shouldn’t even cross a road in Beijing, let alone drive. If you can drive in China, you can drive anywhere in the world.

Tian’anmen Square: Nobody here talks about the massacre. There are plainclothes police all over the square. I guess silence is supposed to help people forget it ever happened.

The Forbidden City: A place where Emperors and their royal families resided away from the public. It’s ridiculous how much money was spent on the palaces.  I guess when you’re the rich leader of a country, you can do anything.

China is always smoggy. It’s kind of disgusting.

Summer Palace: one Empress had a place built for her seasonal dwelling…oh and she had a man-made lake put on the property. Yup, her own private lake took 8 years to build.

I climbed the Great Wall. And it was tiring. Yea, they’re just stairs…very steep and uneven stairs. They measure how much you’ve climbed by how many watchtowers you’ve passed. I think I did 4 (up and down in less than an hour). If I don’t have wicked legs by the end of this trip, I’m going to lose faith in walking and climbing exercises. But it felt damn good getting to the top. Now my legs feel like jelly.

Chinese tea is a good addiction right? I think it’s one of the things that I’ll retain from my culture throughout my life (without the parents bugging me about getting in touch with my own culture).

I didn’t want to bore you with historical facts about all the places I’ve been. I didn’t even mention all of the places I’ve visited – just the ones you’d know, maybe. 

Good night! (10:00 pm Beijing time)

For all you curious folk and for those who are meeting me on my travels.

June 17 – June 27 : Beijing & Shanghai, China
June 28 – July 2 : Singapore, Singapore
July 2 – July 9 : Kuala Lumpur & Kajang, Malaysia
July 9 – July 11 : Singapore, Singapore
July 12 – July 18 : Kowloon, Hong Kong
July 18 – August 1 : Seoul, Korea