Lonely mountain in Tai An

Before the biggest city of Beijing, we decided to go to a very small city, Tai An, to climb the holy mountain of Tai Shan.  We took an overnight train from Nanjing to Tai An, which was an adventure in itself.  We slept in little rooms with two bunk beds that had three bunks each.  Our cheap tickets got us the top top bunks, so we got super cosy with the ceiling and tried not to fall eight feet down to the ground as the train bumped its way north through China.

China has a lot of interesting public service announcement posters, like this one in Tai An

We arrived early in the morning to Tai An and went straight to a “fancy” hotel, the Tai Shan Grand Hotel.  It was huge and looked like at one point it was grand, but now it’s very worn and VERY empty.  We got our room for half price because March is extreme low-season for them.  The draw of Tai An is the holy mountain of Tai Shan, the most sacred of five Taoist peaks in China.  Twice a year the city fills up with people who climb the mountain, but the rest of the year it’s pretty calm.  I don’t think many non-Chinese tourists ever come to Tai An, though, because we got stared at by every single person in the town.  My favorite moment was when I was walking back from a bakery and I passed by three old women sitting around a little table on the sidewalk.  They stared, and I smiled and said “ni hao” (hello).  One of the women went wide-eyed and exclaimed “NI HAO!” with a huge smile on her face, shocked that I had spoken words she understood.  If there is one thing I will remember most about China it is the constant wonder that we bring to the Chinese, just by being in their country.

Tai Shan, the mountain we did not climb, with the temple below

When we arrived in Tai An, Jon came down with his first case of traveler’s diarrhea, something that we were told would have happened much earlier in our trip.  It wasn’t horrible, but it was bad enough that climbing a mountain was out of the question.  So the lonely mountain stayed lonely as we hung out in the town below, where really the only thing to do was visit the Confucian temple.  We have visited A LOT of temples in Asia, which I guess is equivalent to seeing lots of cathedrals in Europe.  We saw the elaborate wats in Thailand and Laos, and now we are seeing an extremely different style in China, the simple Confucian temples.  My favorite part of the Confucian temples are the giant dragon tortoises, which carry poems on their backs.  The only real difference I can see between a tortoise and a dragon tortoise is that the dragon tortoises have scary faces with big fangs.  But that makes them cool enough for me.

dragon tortoise!!!!!!!!!

Since we had an extra day left over from not climbing Tai Shan, we took a quick bus ride down to the town of Qufu, the birthplace of Confucius and the site of his most important temple.  The city’s wall is completely in tact and surrounded by a moat, and less than 80,000 people live in the entire city, making it the smallest city we would visit in China.  The temple is peaceful and takes up a huge part of the old city, and we spent a long time wandering through its many buildings.  Outside the temple we felt closer to Southeast Asia than we had felt in a long time.  Qufu (pronounced chuh-fuh) has bustling small-town charm and gives the feeling that most of what you see has not changed in a really long time.

The wall to Qufu, leading to Confucius's temple and home

Birthday cake in Nanjing

China is not only huge, and it not only has huge cities that we’ve heard of like Beijing and Shanghai, but it also has dozens of big cities that most of us have not heard of with populations in the millions.  Nanjing is one of those cities.  The capital of Jiangsu Province, Nanjing used to be the capital of China. It also happens to be the sister city of St. Louis; the two cities were the first pair of sister cities between the US and China!  I knew I loved Nanjing for a reason.  It is a very modern city with a great subway system, many universities, and great shopping and restaurants.  It is also surrounded by natural beauty and holds many cultural sites since it was once the national capital.

Nanjing lit up at night along the canal by the Fuzi Temple

We stayed in a super cute hostel (nearly every hostel in China is super cute and clean and fun) right by the Fuzi Temple, a Confucian temple, so we went there at night to see it all lit up.  We’ve learned very quickly that the Chinese love to light things up, including religious sites.  I took a billion pictures at Fuzi, but I had to restrict myself for this blog post.

The Fuzi Temple was filled with light-up displays, which I think were made of silk

We’ve found that lots of the cultural sites in China are extremely expensive, so we’ve really had to pick and choose what is important to us.  In Nanjing, I really wanted to visit the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Museum, which taught us all about the Japanese massacre of the citizens of Nanjing in 1937.  Within about three months, 300,000 people were slaughtered and about 80,000 women and girls were raped by Japanese soldiers.  I remembered learning about this in high school, so it was really amazing to be in the city where it happened, and to think about how recent it was that the city was in shambles.  The museum was huge and covered basically everything about the (uncomfortable) relationship between China and Japan.  We learned a lot about China’s status during WWII, which is not something we are taught about in the US.  The coverage of the massacre was extremely moving, and I could see that some of the Chinese visitors were very emotional while viewing it.

part of the memorial complex at the Nanjing Massacre Museum

The other important site we chose in Nanjing was the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum, mostly because I was hoping to see another embalmed Asian leader.  Unfortunately, he is held in a tomb and we could not see his body.  But the site and the surroundings were beautiful, and we counted every single one of the 392 steps up to his tomb.  Sun Yat-sen is considered the father of modern China, but the mausoleum didn’t teach us much more than that, because it assumes all the visitors are Chinese and already know why he is important.  But basically he was the first political leader after the dynasties were done ruling China.  He died in Beijing in 1925 but wanted to be buried in Nanjing to have a more simple tomb.  Too bad!

climbing the 392 steps up to Dr. Sun's tomb

And one more thing happened in Nanjing…my birthday!  It was really cool having my birthday in China, mostly because I’m on vacation, and that’s the best way to spend a birthday.  But also I got to help myself to the greatest baked goods in the world.  I never knew this about China, but there are bakeries on every corner and everything they make is delectable. I picked out a chocolate sponge cake with creme swirl and green tea cookies and had a mini party with…Jon.  There really are so few people who understand English in China, I couldn’t create a birthday party for myself without knowing a bit more Manderin.  So to make up for the lack of a party, I went out and bought myself a pink coat for $8.  We had a yummy Chinese dinner at a place with an English menu (a rarity) and hung out in the hostel despite the showing of “Twilight” in the background.

my 24th birthday: cheap Chinese beer, sponge cake, a new pink coat, and the satisfaction of fulfilling my 23-year-old resolution to take more risks (aka go on this trip)

West Lake stroll in Hangzhou

Happy Buddha, covered in tiny children, on the walking street in Hangzhou

Hangzhou started off really awful because it was raining and we thought we came into the main train station, but we really came into the east train station.  A lot gets lost in the language barrier.  But we were so lucky to be approached by a nice woman who had a good grasp of English, who helped us get a taxi to our hostel.  When the rain died down, we found a walking street that had fun street food and a very happy, fat Buddha.

One of the many fun murals near the preschool on the way to our hostel. Do not touch the dinosaur bones!!!

The reason tourists go to Hangzhou is to see West Lake, a lake that has appeared in numerous paintings in Chinese history.  It is surrounded by willows, hills, gardens and temples.  The rain disappeared and we spent our (four year) anniversary strolling around the lake.  My favorite part of West Lake was the local people just hanging out, especially all the people doing Tai Chi by the lake.

Women practicing tai chi with fans by West Lake

beautiful West Lake

Rainy days in Shanghai and Hangzhou

We basically added an extra day to our time in China by flying from Xiamen to Shanghai…for $30 (it would have been the same price but a 24 hour trip by train).  Shanghai was never a place I had on my list, but once again I was awed.  The city is huge, yes, but it has tons of character.  The subway system is vast, and we were “lucky” enough to experience insane rush hour and what a crowd in China really means.  The buildings are all very old, mostly European style, and run along the Huangpu River.  We really loved walking along the pedestrian area of Nanjing Road, where we found super expensive clothes but super yummy dumplings.

beautiful Shanghai by night, when it finally stopped raining

It rained a lot in Shanghai, so we spent a long time in the Shanghai Museum, trying to learn as much as we can about the history of this enormous country.  One thing that fascinates me about all the Asian countries we’ve visited is their collection of historical currency.  Since the United States isn’t very old, we don’t devote nearly as much museum space to currency as Asians do.  This museum had half a floor displaying money!  We also paid a long visit to an urban planning museum, where we saw all of the “green” plans for Shanghai.  We definitely noticed pollution there (although it was not as bad as anywhere in Southeast Asia) so I really hope they are true to their green promise.

the biggest model i have ever seen in my life!

Along with models of what the city is going to look like down the road, we saw a lot of information about the upcoming world’s fair (or as they call it “expo”) in 2010.  They are building like crazy to prepare for the event, and many countries will also have buildings to showcase…something.  We never really had a good explanation of what exactly people will be presenting at this world’s fair.  But we did learn all about the mascot and what he stands for.  Something about water and bringing people together.

me with a big stuffed mascot for the expo 2010. i followed the rules and did not touch him!

We only spent two nights in Shanghai, making us really want more in the future.  The city will be even more spectacular after all the construction for the fair is done.  We took a quick train from Shanghai to Hangzhou, a city with a famous lake that we were told to visit.  We only spent one night there, and that was fine with us, because beyond the lake, there isn’t much to do there.  Our hostel was quite a trek from anything interesting, too.  The lake was nice, and clearly a big tourist spot for the Chinese.  I took some really nice pictures that I will post later on.  But for now, I have to get away from a cute cat who is cuddling with me and who I am probably very allergic to.

Learning how to pronounce Xiamen

(“Sha-men.”) This morning we flew on Xiamen Airlines to Shanghai, and I slept through the whole thing, except for two minutes when I was eating the breakfast dumplings they served us.  One of the things Jon has learned about me over the past six weeks is that I can and will sleep anywhere.  Shanghai is awesome, but I already miss Xiamen.  Here are some photos to show you why!

Can you tell what this pretty restaurant is? Oh yes, it's the most gourmet Pizza Hut you will ever see! Why don't we get these in America?

This is the puppy (with his mom) who lived at the hostel, who I stalked.

The biggest attraction in Xiamen is Nanputuo Temple, a large complex that houses many Buddhist monks.  We showed up thinking it was going to be a peaceful experience, much like the rest of the temples we’ve seen in Asia.  Not so!  There were literally hundreds of people there, all Chinese, carrying flowers and incense like I’ve never seen.  Many of them had bags full of papers and other gifts to the gods.  (Papers represent gifts for the gods in the next life, and they are burned so that they can reach the gods.)  It turns out that one of the gods of the temple had a feast day, so many people came to pray and give gifts.  We were very lucky to be there on such a busy day!

one of the buildings at Nanputuo Temple

Just one of the many piles of bags filled with gifts for the gods

What we loved the most about Xiamen was the slower pace of life compared with what we expected from China.  This was especially apparent on the small island of Gulang Yu, which is just a short (free) boat ride away from Xiamen Island.  There are no cars allowed on Gulang Yu, and it is mostly filled with gardens and green space, along with the required restaurants and tourist shops.

On the edge of Gulang Yu stands Koxinga, a national hero who conquered Taiwan and is now the biggest sculpture of a historical figure in China

Without cars, Gulang Yu is a great place to wander around the narrow streets. Doesn't look like what you'd picture as China, eh?

Our friend who worked at the hostel told us that Xiamen is consistently ranked as one of the top three happiest cities in China.  It’s easy to see why: beaches, islands, adorable puppies, gourmet Pizza Huts, bubble tea for fifty cents, and a huge university with multiple soccer fields.  (We found a soccer ball and played a bit before most of the students woke up!)