Intro: Mom and dad came to visit. We did Shijiazhuang, Xi'an, Shanghai, and Beijing. (Shannon joined us in Beijing) I'm skipping SJZ, but we did go to the zoo and it was lovely.
Xi'an
For the whole holiday vacation I had an absolute blast. They say for Old China go to Xi'an and Beijing, for current China go to Shanghai, and for future China go to Shenzhen. For 3 history majors, this meant that Xi'an was absolutely the place to start. The primary goal of this part of the trip was to see the terracotta warriors, and they are absolutely worth it! Pit 1 (wow archeologists are so creative) is the large room with lines and lines of reconstructed soldiers. Each face is that of an individual, and I couldn't help imagining ancient squads being called for "picture day" except picture day is doing that horrible plaster mold of your face with two straws sticking out of your nose so you can breathe. The sheer size of the space, 4 separate pits, 3 of which have warriors in different battle formations (although only the first and third pits are significantly uncovered for preservation reasons is awesome. For the history buffs, the cooler part is the fact that most of the sculptures had been busted and burned by a peasant revolt against Qin Shi Huang's (1st emperor of China and the one whose tomb is guarded by these guys) son. It just reminded me of how much these historical artifacts were once living history. And, they are kind of living history today, because 2 of the 5 farmers who discovered the original terracotta warriors is still alive today. I got to meet him (his life appears to be saying hello to tourists and enjoying a cigar and nice liquor) and he signed his book for me which was super cool!
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The Whole Regiment
01033701.jpeg Individual Faces
In Xi'an, we also visited the Giant Wild Goose Pagoda, the summer retreat of the emperor and took a cable car to some of the mountain temples surrounding it, and walked the ancient city wall at night. Because of New Year (the year of the Fire Horse) the entire city wall had light displays and lantern displays (mostly of glowing horses that all the kids obsessed with Spirit as a child would love.)
Wild Goose Pagoda
Magical Horses on Ancient Walls
Shanghai After Xi'an, we made our way back east to Shanghai. It is probably my new favorite city in China. Everything about Shanghai I absolutely loved. We stayed on Nanjing Road East, right near the Bund with a view of the financial district. Simply walking along the river would've been enough to enjoy Shanghai, but we also did many other things. We took a night cruise with an incredible tour guide who was happy to share both Shanghai history and the border relationship between Shanghai, China, and the world. We had dinner at the top of the Shanghai tower (formerly the tallest building in China, still the tallest building in Shanghai.) We did a bus tour (thank goodness for simply getting to sit down for a while). Went to the aquarium, You Gardens (historic Chinese garden) and had lunch and a walk through the former French concession. Shanghai's mix of areas, its gorgeous river waterway, and frankly the weather being slightly less cold than it had been, all added up to make me absolutely love it!
The Bund Left and Right Side
Yu Gardens
Beijing Finishing a few days in Shanghai, we made our way by bullet train back to Beijing. (From a travel standpoint we did BJ-SJZ train, SJZ-Xi'an train, Xi'an-SH plane, and SH-BJ train). Because of a mix up with planning the only seating options were business class and standing, so I splurged on some business class tickets and we got to ride in the fancy area with the lie-down seats. I could've stayed on that train for days. Arriving in Beijing, we met Shannon that evening and then did all the big Beijing activities. We saw the Forbidden City, did a tour of the Great Wall, Summer Palace, Panda House, Temple of Heaven, Tiananmen Square, Ditan Park (closed for New Year's preparations unfortunately), ate all kinds of different food, had a New Year's dinner, and saw the CCTV tower lit up for the holiday. All around, it was once again a history buff city, definitely not my favorite of China's cities, but I had seen a lot of the city before and this was more for culture and history than lifestyle purposes anyway.
Forbidden City
Great Wall Big
GreatWall Again (dad doesn't like heights and the Great Wall didn't have walls)
New Year's Eve
The Symbol of China
Closing thoughts Shanghai is worth it one billion times over.
Terracotta warriors worth it. (If people complain about it being touristy look at them like they are dumb because it SHOULD be touristy)
High speed passenger trains need to be built into US infrastructure immediately, airplane companies and car companies lobbying against deserve nothing good.
Playing translator is actually very fun now that I'm much more confident in my Chinese. - my dad says I sandbag the tour guides on purpose but I don't know how to say I speak Chinese without bragging oops
My main recommendations for the Great Wall are go far away. Do not do Badaling or even Mutianyu (we went out to Gubei Watertown (fake town) area) and basically had the wall to ourselves.
As always, more high quality photos on instagram.