Xi'An The Terracotta Warriors

We started our day in Xi'An at the Banpo River Village. This is an archialogical dig of a village that is 6000 years old. It is one of the oldest excavations in the world and shows an amazing amount of sophistocation on the part of these ancient people. The village had a moat dug around it to protect the inhabitants from wild animals at night. There was a trench dug from their latrine away from the water source indicating they had at least some knowledge of health issues from human waste. They had huge kilns in which they fired all kinds of pottery, even the earliest known porceline. My photos from there were very bad so I didn't include any here.

Our next stop was the Terracotta Warriors. Since it was National Day, our guide estimated there were at least 30,000 people there when we were. Many of them were foreigh tourists. But most of them were Chinese tourists on holiday to visit one of thier country's greatest treasures. Many looked at us with interest because they came from even more remote places than Xi'An and had not seen many Westerners.

Several things were particularly striking to me. First the size of the dig. It is at least three football fields under roof in the main pit where 6000 warriors are burried. When the warriors are first excavated they still have the vivid colors painted on them 2200 years ago. Unfortunately the color fades shortly after being exposed to air. So, they are not excavating any more until they can figure out a way to keep the color from fading.

The sheer size of this building was a real surprise to me.

This is how they found many of the warriors when initially excavated. But as you can see they have reconstructed many of them and left them as they would have been first burried.

There are three pits that have been excavated so far. However, they have identified 183 more pits that have something burried in them. They are in the process of acquiring all the land that runs from Pit #1 to the burial mound of the Emperor who did all this, the first Emperor of the Qin Dynasty. They intend to excavate all of the pits in the future but have to gather funds to cover the costs and are hoping to have the issue of the paint fading solved before they start work on new pits. There are going to be some incredible finds in the future. It will be interesting to watch what comes out of the new pits.

Xi'An was an interesting town of 7 million people. Being there on a holiday meant it was extremely busy on the streets and in the shops. They had a huge mall of sorts that ran two full blocks square and at least five stories. The shops inside were more like booths in a Mexican mercado. But you could buy anything within those walls. Everything from appliances and water heaters to baby booties. And, boy was it crowded! Another place where I got the sense of just how many people there are in China.

This is the only place I saw what I had expected to see everywhere. . .mothers pulling down the pants of their toddlers to let them pee on the sidewalk. The child I saw was none too happy about doing it right there on the sidewalk in front of hundreds of people but her mom won. They calmly pulled up the pants and went on their way when the child was done, leaving a puddle right in the middle of the sidewalk. We curb our dogs here but they don't even try to curb their children there. Actually I was glad to see it because I had expected to see it more often.

Xi'An is also where I got very familiar with this type of toilet. This is a clean one. At the Terracotta Warriors Mary and I skipped the privledge of using their facilities because they were sooooooo gross. Also, just in case you need this info in the future, take your own toilet paper. None is provided by the management.

Flood and Fires

One of the reasons we haven't left Shanghai in our tour across China and Japan is because of this. Jon and I had been home for five days. . .just enough time to start this blog and begin to dig myself out of three weeks of bill paying, etc. . .when the toilet in the master bath overflowed. There was at least two inches of water through out the entire master suite. It even leaked through the walls to Jon's office. What a mess!

So, when the fires hit Southern California during the Santa Ana winds, we were stuck in an unairconditioned house that had to be closed in 85 degree weather. We'd have had the doors closed anyway because of the smoke and soot. However, adding six big blowers and three dehymidifiers to the mix was quite an ordeal.

Once we mitigate the mold it will be a couple of weeks to put the whole place back together at a cost of over $11,000. Thank goodness for insurance! Of course, the key is when we will get the mold dealt with. I'm just hoping we'll be done before Christmas.



This is what my office looked like for 10 days. Doesn't look much better now but at least the furniture is back in place and the minimal computer damage was repaired yesterday.

So, tomorrow more on China.

Shanghai Yu Gardens

The Yu Gardens gave us our first look at ancient China. Built over 100s of years the gardens have meandering walk ways past coi ponds and rock out croppings that had waterfalls and hidden passageways. There were tea houses and a stage for performances.

Before entering the gardens there were tourist shops and the typical hucksters trying to lure you into their shops. Rolex watches and Coach bags were the most popular come-ons.

It was busy at the garden the day we were there because it was the day before National Day. National Day is like our 4th of July. It celebrates the day Mao took over from the Emperor and created the People's Republic of China. Almost everyone is on vacation for the week surrounding the holiday. There were even tour groups from other parts of China in addition to guides speaking French, German and English.

Coi pond

Pagoda, two or more roof lines. Pavillions have only one roof line.

I was facinated by the roof lines of the buildings. There were so many different designs. Most were carved in stone but some were gilded in gold leaf.

This was the top of a wall that was carved like a dragon or serpent. See the details of the scales?

Note the serpintine back of the dragon.

The entryways were facinating as well. Between the various gardens and walkways there were oddly shaped gateways to the next garden. Some were more plain, just circles set at walkway level. Others were like these.

The dragons are on the top of an arch that led to another part of the garden. The walkways intersected each other and led through a confusing maze of tea houses and reading pavillions.

And finally the zig-zag bridge. Chinese superstition says that evil spirits can only go in a straight line. Therefore, they put zig-zag bridges in their gardens to foil the evil spirits when they were around.

Shanghai Architecture

Shanghai has been a major city in China for centuries. However it's first big growth came in the early 1900s when the port was opened to foreign banks and trading companies. The Bund was built then in European style. For some reason I don't have any good photos of The Bund in daylight. So here are a couple of shots to give you an idea of what it looks like.

All the buildings have interesting tops. This one looks like a crown and is painted gold so it glows in the daytime as well. The buildings are all lit from about 7PM to 11PM everynight. They really like their neon over there!



























About 25 years ago Shanghai made a comittment to modernize. They put together a plan that eventually will touch every part of the huge city. The Bund is on the west side of the river. The new area is called Pudong which literally means west of the river.These photos show the mock-up of what currently exist and what they plan to build. There is an entire museum dedicated to explaining what is planned. Of course, they have a real advantage in their development plans. . .no one owns the land or buildings so if the government wants to tear it down and build an area like Pudong, they just take it.

In the photo on the right you can see Pudong. Most of the buildings shown here are already standing. However there are still several to be built. Pudong in the photo on the left is just across from where Mary and Jack are standing. The rest is a model of what will be built in the future.










This building is called the Pearl of the Orient. It has no real purpose except as a tower for tourists to visit. We passed on taking the ride because our hotel room on the 72nd floor gave us a much better view that we could have gotten from the Pearl.

This is our hotel, again at night. The bottom floors are offices and have completely different entrances than the hotel which is on the 54th through 88th floors. The Shanghai Grand Hyatt is one of the nicest hotels I have ever stayed in. Being new helped but it wasn't just the room. It was the way the employees treated everyone as if they were special. Guess that's what you expect from a 5 star hotel.



In spite of the modern buildings being built using modern techniques we saw many buildings with the traditional bamboo scaffold. Doesn't look all that sturdy to me be they have been using it for centuries.

















This was in the Urban Planning Musseum. You can see the bulb of the Pearl of the Orient in the middle. Our hotel building, the JinMao Tower, is on the right.

So, I'll be back with more cool stuff from Shanghai tomorrow. . .if the toilet doesn't overflow again. But that's another story.

Shanghai Special Olympics

This is my first posting in my first blog. Hope you all enjoy what you read here and that I can actually get this thing to work. I started the blog so I could share my reflections on our recent trip to China and Japan. I'm starting with the Special Olympic Games that started in Shanghai the day after we left for Xi'An.



There are six photos attached to this blog. Two are of signs that are representative of the many signs we saw throughout the city. I really like the one about a more civilized and harmonious society. The banners like this one were worded in equally stilted English.

The photo of the women wearing red pants, white shirts and red sashes with drums was taken in a small community of Shanghai. They were preparing to welcome the Danish delegation with a parade and performance. We were in the neighborhood to meet the community volunteer coordinator (a communist appointment).

Madam Wong was taking us to meet with Madam Yi. Madam Yi is a typical Chinese woman who opens her home to tourists to see how "real" people live in Shanghai. She lives in an old French Concession mansion that has been converted into apartments. The photo of the house is not hers but is very similar to how her apartment looked from the outside. The photo of Jon and I with our traveling companions Mary and Jack Norberg with Madam Yi was taken inside her apartment.

Madam Yi as lived in this apartment for 40 years with her husband and son. Her husband died a few years ago and her son has now started his own family and therefore qualified for his own apartment. The apartment is two rooms, bedroom and living room. The bathroom and kitchen are in one room of a small shack outside with a small courtyard that is all hers. She probably has 200 square feet not including the shack outside that houses her bath and kitchen.



Madam Yi was a lovely lady who spoke no English but welcomed us into her home with hot - and I do mean hot - tea. The custom is to offer tea to guests if they are welcome. The glasses she served the tea in were so hot we could hardly hold them. As soon as we sat down she started another pot of water heating. If she offered us more hot water for our tea it meant that we were welcome to stay longer. She did top off our glasses making them impossible to drink but the interpreter assured us that we didn't really need to drink all the tea just sip it to acknowledge her kindness. When we left she gave us hand made gifts, minature fans like the ones used in some of the Chinese theater and a paper penquin. We only had chocolates to offer but she seemed pleased enough with that.



Back to the Special Olympics for a moment. The night before we left the opening ceremonies were held on the Huangpo River front. Over a million people came into town for the event. Govenor Schwartzenager was on hand and there were fireworks and festivities of all kinds. The roads and tunnels were closed from 4PM to 11PM so we found ourselves stranded on the wrong side of the river from our hotel. But eventually we were able to grab a cab and return to the hotel a full 11 hours after we had left.



The final picture on this posting is of a sign at a cross walk in the city. Not many actually followed the directive unless there was a crossing guard but I thought you'd find it funny.



I'll have additional photos and reflections as the days go by. I hope you'll stop by to check them out.