So I did get to see a panda in the wild! It was a lot harder than I thought it would be though and I turned out to be a lot better at running very quickly through dense bamboo thickets up steep slopes than I ever thought I would be :) - In the end only two of our party of 11 got to see this panda. Two others saw a panda the following morning.
I'll write this up in more detail when I have more time but the hotel bar is calling at the moment ;)
Video of the event is on YouTube here - I didn't take this, it was taken by Justine Lee standing next to me. You can hear my camera clicking away in the background if you listen carefully.
Saturday, 21 April 2007
Thursday, 12 April 2007
Friday 13th: To the Mountains
I'm not sure if friday 13th is a good day, but we're starting or trip out to the mountains in about 90 minutes so this will definitely be the last blog message for a while. Yesterday was spent pottering about Xi'an which is a beautiful and interesting city, much nicer than Beijing to be honest and well worth a visit if you ever go to China.
In response to Chris: if I see pandas, and my camera is pointing in the right direction, and they are not too far away (the last 3 of those are very unlikely and the first is not certain!) then you will see pandas when we get to Shanghai and I get an internet connection again - I think that will be next Saturday, or maybe Sunday, the schedule is not entirely clear to me.
See you in Shanghai!
In response to Chris: if I see pandas, and my camera is pointing in the right direction, and they are not too far away (the last 3 of those are very unlikely and the first is not certain!) then you will see pandas when we get to Shanghai and I get an internet connection again - I think that will be next Saturday, or maybe Sunday, the schedule is not entirely clear to me.
See you in Shanghai!
Wednesday, 11 April 2007
Wednesday: Terracotta Warriors
We had to be up ridiculously early to be on the coach by 5.30am, in order to catch our flight to Xi'an from Beijing airport. Once in Xi'an, an ancient capital city of China and home of the Qin dynasty which was the first to rule a unified China, we had a few minutes to check in to the hotel before driving to the Terracotta Warriors, some distance outside of the city.
The warriors are quite astounding. They were discovered about 30 years ago by a farmer digging a well in his field. The first Qin Emporer (some 2200 years ago) had his tomb built whle he was alive, and had it populated with many thousands of warrior statues, built from terracotta. Each warrior is life-sized, and every one is different in some way. There are even horses and chariots. The Emporer believed that he would need an army when he died, in order to fight off his enemies. However, once he died, his dynasty fell apart and the tomb was sacked. It has lain buried and forgotten for over two millennia until being recently unearthed. The majority of chambers remain buried, because the warriors are all coloured and the colour has faded quickly on those warriors which have been exposed to the air - they are waiting until a a technique can be discuovered to keep the colours in place before digging up the rest.
The site now has world heritage status and rightly so. For once we had enough time to fully appreciate the whole place, which was nice, so I got some good photos.
This evening we drove around Xi'an in the dark to see the town lights - the town has an amazing city wall which is still fully intact, and when lit up at night it is a real sight to behold. I'm enjoying Xi'an much more than Bejing - it has a lot more character.
I might get the chance to do another entry tomorrow, but if not this will be the last one for several days, maybe over a week, since we're off up into the Qinling Mountains on Friday to look for giant pandas in the wild. When we come back we'll have one night in a hotel but then straight off to join a cruise ship on the Yangtse River - I doubt they'll have internet access there!
The warriors are quite astounding. They were discovered about 30 years ago by a farmer digging a well in his field. The first Qin Emporer (some 2200 years ago) had his tomb built whle he was alive, and had it populated with many thousands of warrior statues, built from terracotta. Each warrior is life-sized, and every one is different in some way. There are even horses and chariots. The Emporer believed that he would need an army when he died, in order to fight off his enemies. However, once he died, his dynasty fell apart and the tomb was sacked. It has lain buried and forgotten for over two millennia until being recently unearthed. The majority of chambers remain buried, because the warriors are all coloured and the colour has faded quickly on those warriors which have been exposed to the air - they are waiting until a a technique can be discuovered to keep the colours in place before digging up the rest.
The site now has world heritage status and rightly so. For once we had enough time to fully appreciate the whole place, which was nice, so I got some good photos.
This evening we drove around Xi'an in the dark to see the town lights - the town has an amazing city wall which is still fully intact, and when lit up at night it is a real sight to behold. I'm enjoying Xi'an much more than Bejing - it has a lot more character.
I might get the chance to do another entry tomorrow, but if not this will be the last one for several days, maybe over a week, since we're off up into the Qinling Mountains on Friday to look for giant pandas in the wild. When we come back we'll have one night in a hotel but then straight off to join a cruise ship on the Yangtse River - I doubt they'll have internet access there!
Tuesday: Great Wall
Tuesday was Great Wall day, which I was really looking forward to. Our coach took us out of town, stopping off at a pearl factory (basically a tourist trap designed to get people to spend money) and then to Badaling, one of the best preserved (and busiest!) bits of the Great Wall. We were unfortunately only given an hour and a half at the wall when I could easily have spent all day there, but I managed to walk a fair length of that section and take some pictures. It's really steep in parts! I found a small temple just off the wall called Guizhou, which was very peaceful and away from the crowds.
After that it was off to an enamel factory for lunch (and another tourist trap shop) before heading to the Ming Tomb. The tomb itself is vaguely interesting but it is really just another collection of temple-type buildings and I think I saw enough of those on Monday. We didn't have time to stop off at the lines of stone animals lining the way to the tomb, which was a great shame as that would have been more interesting I think.
After that it was off to an enamel factory for lunch (and another tourist trap shop) before heading to the Ming Tomb. The tomb itself is vaguely interesting but it is really just another collection of temple-type buildings and I think I saw enough of those on Monday. We didn't have time to stop off at the lines of stone animals lining the way to the tomb, which was a great shame as that would have been more interesting I think.
Monday: Beijing
The tour guides are really packing stuff in - today was almost too much at times. After starting off in Tiananmen Square we walked through to the gardens outside the Forbidden City, where the WWF have their main headquarters in China. As the tour price includes a contribution to the WWF they invited us in for a short tour of the office and a presentation on what they are doing in China. Generally they are trying to ensure that local people are in favour of environmental improvements by giving them money-making opportunities (e.g. eco-tourism) or improving their livelihoods by, for example, cleaning polluted waters so that there are more fish to catch.
After that we walked through the Forbidden City which is a vast area of temples and other buildings originally created so that the Emporer could walk around his own town without meeting any commoners. Lunch was in the Hutong district, an area of town where there are local houses that are quite old and in a Qing dynasty style, with lots of narrow twisting streets. We took a cycle rickshaw through the district, stopping off to go inside someone's house - I found this a bit awkward. Walking through the rest of the Hutong district we came to the Drum Tower and the Bell Tower, the latter of which contains a huge bell, the biggest in China. Then back to the coach for a long trip through the Beijing rush hour to Tiantan, the Temple of Heaven.
All in all a very full day leaving me exhausted.
[I can't actually see the blog site from here - it's not available on the Chinese internet. I'm posting via Flickr, so I hope this all looks OK but there's not much I can do if it doesn't..]
After that we walked through the Forbidden City which is a vast area of temples and other buildings originally created so that the Emporer could walk around his own town without meeting any commoners. Lunch was in the Hutong district, an area of town where there are local houses that are quite old and in a Qing dynasty style, with lots of narrow twisting streets. We took a cycle rickshaw through the district, stopping off to go inside someone's house - I found this a bit awkward. Walking through the rest of the Hutong district we came to the Drum Tower and the Bell Tower, the latter of which contains a huge bell, the biggest in China. Then back to the coach for a long trip through the Beijing rush hour to Tiantan, the Temple of Heaven.
All in all a very full day leaving me exhausted.
[I can't actually see the blog site from here - it's not available on the Chinese internet. I'm posting via Flickr, so I hope this all looks OK but there's not much I can do if it doesn't..]
Sunday, 8 April 2007
Arrival
Well, I'm in China! So far my experience has been mostly of Shanghai's Pudong Airpot, where we had to wait for several hours for a connecting flight into Beijing. It's an amazing modern building and these picture don't really show the scale of the thing - it's absolutely huge. I'm suffering severely from lack of sleep - yesterday was nearly 30 hours without sleep and my body clock decided it was a good idea to wake up at 3am this morning so I'm not doing too well - hopefully I'll adjust soon!
Rather annoyingly the plane from London flew right over Beijing, but it was another 8 hours before we actually arrived there. We flew over Mongolia and Inner Mongolia (the northern part of China) before that, which gave some amazing views over the desert and mountains of that region. Very brown, bare and bleak.
As you can tell I have got internet access - it claims that it's free but I'm not entirely sure - might be costing me a fortune. I'll find out when we check out on Wednesday to fly to Xi'an. It's currently 7am in Beijing, and I'm about to go down to find out what the Tiantan Hotel (very nice!) has for breakfast.
Rather annoyingly the plane from London flew right over Beijing, but it was another 8 hours before we actually arrived there. We flew over Mongolia and Inner Mongolia (the northern part of China) before that, which gave some amazing views over the desert and mountains of that region. Very brown, bare and bleak.
As you can tell I have got internet access - it claims that it's free but I'm not entirely sure - might be costing me a fortune. I'll find out when we check out on Wednesday to fly to Xi'an. It's currently 7am in Beijing, and I'm about to go down to find out what the Tiantan Hotel (very nice!) has for breakfast.
Friday, 6 April 2007
Year of the Pig
So, I'm finally going - off to Heathrow tonight then flying out tomorrow. I seem to be taking all my worldy posessions with me, but hopefully my new (massive!) suitcase won't be over the weight limit :)
I'm hoping to have enough internet access to update this blog occasionally - assuming I can get through the Chinese firewall to it. I should be able to put a few photos on Flickr as well, with any luck.
I'm actually quite nervous - it's a long way to go by myself and I don't really know quite what to expect on the other end. Still, I'm looking forward to it - if nothing else it will be very different from anything that I've done before.
I'm hoping to have enough internet access to update this blog occasionally - assuming I can get through the Chinese firewall to it. I should be able to put a few photos on Flickr as well, with any luck.
I'm actually quite nervous - it's a long way to go by myself and I don't really know quite what to expect on the other end. Still, I'm looking forward to it - if nothing else it will be very different from anything that I've done before.
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