Well, I just arrived back in Shanghai from a four day trip to Beijing. Lovely city, much more historical and traditional than Shanghai. We hired a tour guide and visited four of the biggest tourist sites in Beijing: The Ming Tombs, The Great Wall, The Forbidden City, and The Temple of Heaven. I've included pictures of each plus a sweet picture of me on top of the great wall. We stayed in a nice international hostel that had, oh be still my beating heart, a Western Style breakfast. Scrambled Eggs, Ham, Hash browns, Toast, and good old fashioned black coffee. I may as well have been draped in the American flag, singing the national anthem. As an added bonus, I got to spend a substantial amount of time watching Chinese Television. There is no better way to interpret a culture than by what they watch. And this culture, HATES modernity. God as my witness, 50% of the shows on t.v. were period dramas of some sort set in China's far distant past. It's as if deep down every Chinese wants to be sitting around in silk robes, practicing calligraphy and dropping dudes with gnarly swords. That's as maybe, it was still entertaining.
The Ming Tombs were uncovered in an archaeological expedition in the 50's. The portion we visited consisted of an underground palace made of marble and stone that housed the Emperor and his two wifes. Pretty lush abode for a dead guy. The tomb wasn't explicitly lavish but beautifully constructed and sculpted. Amidst his burial grounds, the emperor lays below earth that houses trees that are over 500 years old. Its pretty remarkable to view a tree that has outlived empires.
As for China's ubiquitous Great Wall, that superlative is not hyperbole. This structure is, in the truest sense of the word, awesome. Its maintenance and construction has been a primary charge of emperors since the Qin dynasty, the first dynasty in Chinese history. It spans well over 6000 Kilometers or for those using imperial measurements, somewhere in the neighborhood of 4000 miles. It is a sight to behold. Good old Mao once said, as translated by myself, "If you don't reach the top of the great wall, you're not a real man." SO we trekked for about an hour up to the highest point we could see from our portion of the wall. Plenty of Chinese asked to take pictures with us so we obliged them as much we could. After one hell of a climb we visited an overpriced jade market and we home for the day.
I'm writing this entry rather late so I think I'll retire to more comfortable accommodations and regale you, my faithful readers, with tales of the forbidden city and other such marvels tomorrow.
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