Xi'an, China - snake wine, warriors, Muslims

Xi'an, near the center of China, is steeped in history as well as, at least when I was visiting, near monsoon-caliber rains. Though of course, I did get out to see the Terra Cotta Warriors.



It's very difficult to capture in a picture the size and grandeur of this place. You can walk around the outside of the complex, which resembles a giant stadium, and look down on the the warriors inside. There are some places where you can get a closer look.



The Emperor Qin Shi Huang (around 210 BCE) constructed these warriors and had them placed in his future tomb, so that he'd have an army even in the afterlife. Quite soon after they were built, the emperor who ordered their construction died. Not surprisingly, the peasants soon revolted and ended up looting the tombs and smashing all the Terra Cotta Warriors they could find. Some survived, most did not, and almost all that are on display now had to be pieced together from parts.



Not all the warriors were locked up in pits, however. Some had made it out to local bars and hostels in Xi'an - there was one Terra Cotta head in our hostel bar, who gratefully accepted a beer when I offered it. He must have been thirsty surviving for over 2,000 years (not to mention being made of dirt).



Also in that hostel bar was a very interesting jug of ... pickled animals?? Upon closer inspection:



There was a very visible turtle in there as well, don't know why it wasn't mentioned on the list. :P The bartender told us it was medicinal baiju (Chinese liquor). What with the rainy weather, a few guys and I thought it would be a good idea, for the sake of our health, to take a shot. Mmmm ... just what the doctor ordered!



The next day, all rested from my medicine the night before, headed out to explore the Muslim quarter of Xi'an. It was my first visit ever to a mosque.



This one was, to be expected, very Chinese in style - it was very interesting to see the juxtaposition of Muslim and Chinese architecture, Muslim and Chinese writing everywhere.







Also in the mosque, saw an amazing tree!



Next stop - Beijing!

arrived in jeju & busy & lazy

Well I've arrived here in Jeju, South Korea, it's been ages since I updated things here on Teadiaries, mostly because I was busy trying to fit as much tourist-time as I could in Beijing and Tianjin and then when I arrived in Jeju I've just been - lazy. Yep, no excuses. :-D

I took a lot of pictures in China, over 1600 it looks like, I'll be going through them in the next week or so. And I've got almost as many stories to tell, I think. I went through a notebook and a half of journaling, jotting down Chinese phrases, shopping lists, random stuff on the street - all kinds of junk. I can't wait to go through it, and put some of it up here. But for now, let me start where I left off ...

From Dali I journeyed north to Lijiang, the "must-see backpacker mecca" of Yunnan Province. Lijiang is a difficult city to describe, probably because I didn't see too much of the modern city. The "old city" of Lijiang is a maze of cobbled streets, incomprehensible maps, and absolutely no cars. It's glorious and strange at the same time. My first morning in Lijiang I suddenly couldn't eat anything (and for those of you who know me, you know how out of character THAT is. ^^ In this tourist, no car dreamworld, there were no pharmacies, no convenience stores, and a 15 minute walk to a taxi to take me to any of those places. And considering that I didn't know what was wrong with me, or how to explain it in Chinese, I mostly stayed within my cobblestoned paradise. The picture below is from the main square in the Old Town, it was so hard to navigate around, but I DID know that the street which lay between the "Octopus Pill" shop and the "Dried Meat Yak" shop (zoom into the pic to see the names) was my way back to the hostel. Before you say "oh hey look there's a car" - that was a police van, he was seriously the only one I swear. :)



Met a Korean couple and two Korean students on a hike and we roamed all over together (and they actually gave me some medicine as well!).



At one point I got trapped down a well.



Lijiang is famous for its water canals, running all over the Old City. On the restaurant boulevard, I met a very photogenic cat.



And of course I had a cup of tea (ginseng), at a tea shop which overlooks the traditional roofs of the Old City.



My last night in Lijiang, weak from not eating, I realized as I stepped out of the internet cafe that it was in fact Friday night, and the city was alive. Sick as I was, I pulled out my camera and lurched around the streets, feeling like Hunter S Thompson in Fear and Loathing, caught up in the carnival of lights and sounds.



Despite my sickness, whatever it was, while I was in Lijiang I took the bus out to Tiger Leaping Gorge and did an overnight trek - more on that next time!

head west, young man - Dali, Yunnan Province

I took the train from Guilin to Kunming, then a bus northwest to DALI! But first, the last night I was in Yangshuo I went cormorant fishing - and I guess the old bird took a liking to me.

Dali is famous for its Bai people (one of the minority cultures in China), there are about 1.3 million of them living in the Dali area. I had the good fortune to attend a renactment of a Bai wedding, so much fun!

Apparently they have a tradition of ass-pinching the bride throughout the ceremony!

The Bai tea is amazing, we got to taste three cups at the ceremony - the first is bitter because when you're young you have to work hard, the second is sweet because after working you can enjoy the fruits of your labor, and the third is flavorful (like chai actually) because old age is full of memories. I bought some of each to bring home. This picture is the sweet one, there's milk and a bit of almond in it.

A giant medallion of TEA!!

In one of the Bai towns, you could walk around and poke your head into families' houses, which felt really weird, but we did it anyway.

These noodles were the best I've EVER had, hands down. There's actually 4 or 5 different types of noodles mixed in there, and the sauce is soy/chili. That's my second bowl.

They cut the yellow noodles from this big block which looks like cheese.

Silk worms sitting (festering?) in a basket in front of someone's house.

Couldn't wait to eat me some crayfish and bullfrog! Yep, they put them on skewers. there's grasshoppers there too if you zoom in.

On every street corner, in every park, behind every cash register people are playing Chinese chess or card games. There's a wonderful laid-back energy here, people don't feel like they have to pretend to be professional at all - though sometimes you do have to wake people up to pay for something.

And lastly - colorful chicks!!

lost in the mountains of Yangshuo

I've left the cities of Hong Kong and Guangzhou behind and traveled west to Guilin and down the Li River to YANGSHUO!, a little backpacker town with dozens of bike trails and villages in the surrounding countryside.

Buddhist carvings and a fisherman on a bamboo raft, in Guilin.



On the Li River cruise from Guilin to Yangshuo.



Hanging out with some Japanese moms on tour! They loved to hear me practice my terrible Japanese.



At the exact spot on the Li River that inspired the back of the 20 yuan bill (Chinese currency).



Biking in the countryside outside of Yangshuo, rice paddies and karst mountains.



My bike crosses the Yulong River, shut up, I know it's a girl's bike, it was cheaper. :P



I got a little lost on the wrong side amongst little village roads in the afternoon, and then I turned a corner and instead of just saying a friendly "ni hao" to me, the villagers started saying "Hello, bamboo boat!!" trying to sell me passage across the river, and lemme tell you, I've never been so happy to be pressured by touts. :) Thought I might not be able to reach Yangshuo in time for the night show, but this raftsman saved me.



That night I went to the Impressions Yangshuo night show, which is a music, dance, and light show performed right on the Li River in bamboo boats - absolutely stunning. The director also did the Beijing 2008 opening show for the Olympic games.




I met a professor at a local university who was interested in practicing his English and hung out with him and his friend and climbed one of the local mountains. And we umm ... pretended we were King Kong?



They were amazing ... and they treated me to "beer fish", a local specialty.



It's weird not to see a convenience store. Even in the most rural parts I traveled to in Korea or Japan there was always a 7-11 or a FamilyMart nearby - here, they still have them, but they're small family-run stores (one was actually called "Small Store") and you have to act horrified when they overcharge you for a bottle of water so they'll lower the price. Ohhh how they love fleecing tourists.

I'm really used to uploading all my pictures all at once to Flickr and it's strange to have to choose the best ones. I'm uploading 24 right now, and it looks like it's going to take about an hour or so. Hope you guys enjoy them, more to come! Tonight I'm going to join some fishermen on a cormorant fishing tour (the cormorant birds actually go underwater and catch the fish and bring them back to the boat!) and then tomorrow night I'll be taking the overnight train to Kunming in Yunnan province, then onward to Dali City and Lijiang in the foothills of Tibet.