Blogger Bombards Readers With China Photos (Part 2: Beijing, Xi'an, Chongqing)

Lama Temple









I end up in a Chinese Prison



Summer Palace









We were staying in this cute little hutong in Beijing. Hutongs are the city's famous little neighborhoods, made of narrow alleyways and side streets, where extended families often live together around courtyards. Our hutong was so darn charming that we decided to go on one of the city's organized "Hutong Tours" via rickshaw.



The "Tour" was the bullshittiest bullshit ever. While we had walked through some very colorful and fun hutongs on our own, the "Tour" brought us through areas that had all been redone. Everything was new, painted a uniform gray, and bo-ring. Aside from aesthetics, though, it was really sad, because it was apparent that the government was destroying people's homes and their way of life. We saw rubble everywhere...





(If you're interested, Peter Hessler's book, Oracle Bones, has an interesting segment about an old man who is trying to save his home from being demolished in one of the city's hutongs.)

Moving right along... you may note that the picture below was taken from right in the middle of traffic, a place we unfortunately found ourselves in quite often. This particular picture was taken while we were riding the rickshaw.








I guess we booked our train tickets to Xi'an a little bit late, because there were no sleeper cars available. We ended up on a hard seat for the overnight train ride. It was so terrible it was hilarious. People were loud, slurping noodles, kids puking, impossible to get into a comfortable position to sleep, hot, stuffy, stinky, bright lights on all night, people sitting and sleeping in all the aisles, legs tangled with the passengers sitting in the seats facing us, seats too close together and obviously not made for long femurs. Honestly, if there were only a few chickens and a goat on board, the experience would have been perfect. For all of the above reasons, we were delighted that we ended up traveling hard seat. It was fun to be among all the Chinese, and it was so bad it was great. Who needs to sleep, anyway?

Oh! And security! This was a hilarious joke. Thousands of people streaming into the Beijing train station. Literally. It was like a U2 concert. Everyone tossed their bags on the security screening thing, but it was obvious they weren't checking, since the bags were piled three wide and four high, and everyone was walking right through the security screen without stopping. I don't know why they even bother, it was hilarious. There were like 100 people walking through the thing every minute, I'm not joking. Total zoo.

Anyway, we had made a friend in the train station the night before, and he asked us if we had brought any food along, which of course we hadn't. In the morning, he walked down to our car and gave us a moon cake and this amazingly huge grapefruit-like thing, which was super delicious (you can see how huge it is from the segment in his hand).



So, we arrived in Xi'an, home of the tomb of China's first emperor and the terracotta warriors. Our trip here was a complete debacle, and for reasons I would rather not get into, we did not get to see the warriors.



Except for this one, which was outside of a bank or hotel or something.



And then, Chongqing! A wee little village of 31 million people. Why hasn't anyone heard of this place? It is so huge; I have never seen anything like it in my life. High-rises as far as the eye can see, for miles and miles and miles. Our minds were officially blown.