任是无情也动人

(Note to self: need a cutesy Shanghai Expo icon to match the Beijing Olympics one...)

Usually, when I travel to China, it's to visit relatives and maybe do a bit of shopping on the side. Thus, I usually only see Shanghai overnight, and then only the inside of shops, before I take the train to Nanjing and basically spend most of my time indoors at home. On this trip, however, I traveled with my aunt and uncle, who are very fond of bombarding our tour guides and any fellow tour-goers who are unfortunate enough to fall into conversation with them with millions of questions about the state of...everything. Thus, I am left with a much more detailed and wide perspective of my motherland.

( Beijing: )

( Shanghai: )

( Pingyao: )

( Xi'an: )

Well, even though we technically still have one and a half more days to stay in our current hotel, I think I've gotten a good feel of it to be able to give it an overview/analysis. All of our hotels on this trip have been four star hotels (my aunt didn't want to chance what China would consider a three-star, especially in smaller cities like Pingyao, and five-star would have been much more overkill/expensive).

We begin with the Central Hotel (王宝和大酒店) in Shanghai. This one is my favorite, mostly for two reasons - there was free internet, and they surprised me with a (free) yummy cake for my birthday. Now that's service. :) On other things, the place was pretty clean and sanitary; no complaints about the bedding or the bathroom from my end. Breakfast was great and varied. The only downside we could have about it was that we weren't able to get our assigned rooms together next to each other or even on the same floor; and, at first, the room they'd assigned me (and one of the twins) was on a smoking floor so the hallway was rather smoky. We were able to switch on the second day to a non-smoking floor, but it was still not next to the other room we had. Ah well, I guess that could be partially blamed on the Expo for filling up pretty much all the hotels in the city.

Next, in Xi'an, we had the Grand New World Hotel (古都新世界大酒店). It was ok in regards to sanitation and cleanliness, and the sheets were warm enough for the cooling temperatures even without any central heating turned on (that I noticed). We were able to get adjoining rooms, which was good since I we all had various levels or the beginnings of a cold around the time in Xi'an. I also noted that was also the best decorated of our hotels, with nice paintings on the walls. The downside was that people were smoking even on the supposedly non-smoking rooms, and my aunt/uncle had to complain to the management about their other next door neighbor. Also, the air in general was bad in the city, and the hotel didn't seem to be too much better than the outside air. The breakfast was decent but pretty monotonous and got somewhat tiring after a while. Also, internet had to be paid for here - 200 RMB for a week.

In Pingyao, we were housed in what I think was called International Financier's Club (云锦城) or something to that effect. Since it was a recreation of the Ming style building, we couldn't help the stone floors or the stiff beds/chairs. I was glad to see that we had sanitized modern bathrooms, even though there was no tub and only a shower stall with wood or bamboo flooring. There was heating, though, which was good since the weather was the coldest in Pingyao during our vacation. Internet, on the other hand, was free and available, which was a surprise to me. On the downside, breakfast was kind of mediocre; and the old style doors with the locks and padlocks were a pain to work with, especially in the dark.

Finally, in Beijing, we stayed at the Capital Hotel (首都大酒店). Again, sanitation and cleanliness were not a problem here. My aunt thought the beds were a little too hard and had them add a layer on top of their bed; but I honestly couldn't feel the difference. The breakfast is definitely both varied and good, though I still think the Shanghai hotel had the better porridge/congee (I guess southerners just have a better way with rice than northerners :P). What I don't like here is that there aren't many outlets to let me plug all of my various appliances in at the same time (laptop, battery charger, phone charger, etc.) Also, they're charging me pretty steeply for the internet (20 RMB per hour).

In general I did want to not that I could've left out half the things in my ziplock bag of liquids/gels for airport security, as well as a few other items. All of the hotels had shampoo, conditioner, body foam, body lotion, shower cap, slippers, and ethernet cable for broadband. I should've just brought the facial wash/lotion, sunblock, deodorant, and hand sanitizer without needing to burden myself with anything else. Food for thought in any future travels, I guess.

Although our vacation in China isn't wholly over yet, the guided portions of it are. So I thought I'd write a bit about the various tour guides we've had on this journey while they're fresh on my mind, especially since they've been the topic of much discussion among my aunt, uncle, and cousins.

Let's start in order with Shanghai. Although we only had one (and a half if you count the trips from the airport and to the airport) day of guided tour with Kathy, my memories of her were generally ok. She did what a tour guide was supposed to do. Her tour of the French Concession area showed that she knew the area and its history well, and could communicate such just fine with English. Overall, our impressions of her were fair, though not spectacular.

Next was Jessie from Xi'an, who was by far the favorite of the twins and the rest of us. She gave me the impression of a peer much more than Kathy did, though our ages are all about the same, and she could certainly relate to children the best. When the girls joked around about the mistranslations on one of the museums near Yongtai's tomb, Jessie was able to laugh and contribute to the joke. She was also the most loquacious of our guides. On the car trips to/from our tour spots, and even during the tour, she would engage in long and deep conversations with my uncle about every topic under the sun - politics, religion, economy, history, China's place in the world and in the eyes of the people. She wasn't afraid to give her own opinions of everything, and it was very obvious that she loved learning and was a very wide-read scholar as well as well-traveled young lady. She also went above and beyond to accompany us through my aunt's very serious and detailed examinations of every item in a museum even though she must have been walking her feet off much as we had felt the first two Expo days. In fact, even after we left Xi'an, the twins kept comparing the following two tour guides against her and found them wanting. Well, I have to agree...

In Pingyao, our guide was a young man named George. Coming from a much smaller and poorer town, it came as no surprise that his English was not as good as our previous two guides. There were several times where I had to play translator myself between my uncle and our guide. However, he was pretty honest about when he didn't understand something we said. He also put the extra little effort to finding us good restaurants for dinner in the two days we spent there, even though dinner was not included in the tour arrangement we'd originally paid for. My uncle figured that he probably got a kickback from those diners. He was also the only tour guide to actually join us for lunch without a separate receipt (meaning the tour agency paid for his part of lunch too, which is technically against regulations). But since we were happy to find decent (and sanitary!) eateries in such a small town like Pingyao that we really didn't mind the small perks he got out of things. The man did give a general impression of earnestness...

Finally, that brings us to our last tour guide in Beijing, Selena - she who has been the topic of many a dinner conversation. At first impression, she seemed to be very fluent in English and had a pretty impressive resume (lived in Vancouver a few years; lead tours to or in foreign countries). However, the more time we spent on her tours, the more it seemed like...she really isn't suited to her job. Even ignoring the incident at the Forbidden City, and her attempts at talking my aunt to changing her tour program from Mutianyu and Suzhou Street... there are the small things. She would very often lapse into Chinese whenever she wanted to get a point across quickly, despite repeated reminders that we all spoke English as our primary language. She usually addressed only my aunt (half in Chinese), even if it had been my uncle who'd asked the question - as if she expected my aunt to do the translation to the rest of us for her. She hardly spoke a word to the twins and when she spoke to me, it's as if to a high-schooler on a homework assignment rather than an adult vacationing on her own time and money. As well, she would often say that she'd wait for us at such and such a spot for us to be done with taking photos or visiting Such-and-such Hall or climbing a nearby hill to see what was there. She also had a tendency to get picked up in the morning by the driver after we were picked up first, and get dropped off before we were dropped off at our hotel. These are things none of our previous guides had done; they'd always accompanied us no matter where we were dragging them, and saw us from/to our hotel from beginning to end. It just didn't seem quite professional here, since, well, just who's paying for who's time?

I've overheard various other small tour groups with only a few foreigners and an English-speaking tour guide. Most of them act more like Jessie (or Kathy) than like Selena. I guess we just had some bad luck with our last guide. Honestly, I think she'd do better at a desk job arranging schedules than in the field. Other than the last one, I think we had a pretty fair run of guides on the rest of our trip. Anyway, in the end, it's going to be our wallets talking when we do the tipping, and we already know what the math is going to be there.

But, in case anyone else ever thinks about ordering a tour from CTS for Shanghai, Xi'an, Beijing, or with CITS for Pingyao, hopefully this will help you make decisions or know who to request/avoid. :)

TGIF in China! Well, I think I've worked off all the duck that I stuffed myself with last night today. :)

Got up early today for the drive to the Great Wall as our guide said that traffic on Fridays were murder in Beijing. My aunt had signed up for the Mitianyu section of the wall as that was said to be the best/most scenic of the three open wall segments. They day was nice and clear, and it was actually quite balmy even up on the wall, so the twins ended up shedding their coat and I ended up shedding both my sweater and my jacket - thus wearing only two layers - by the end of our hike up. Of course, we'd hiked a great amount of the way westwards on the wall, nearly to where the end of the way of the walkable segment...taking pictures all the way of course. We only stopped before the last great incline since we were running out of time (we'd already agreed to skip lunch).

The twins had a great time running up and down the wall like maniacs, when they weren't being pressed into photos. They must have run twice or three times the distance the rest of us had walked, and the rest of us walked 1.5 hours roundtrip. But all in all, I didn't mind the hike, and it was much more fun with the girls there to imbue excitement into every little thing and explore every little cranny in the Wall. ^^

On the way down in the cable cars (to get to the hiking part of the wall in that section, you had to take cable cars up/down), we were rather surprised to see the inscription on the glass informing us that this was the same car as used by Ex-Prez Clinton when he came to China years ago! I know my aunt mentioned that she'd researched that this place had been visited by Clinton, but it was some stroke of luck to land us in the same car! I even got a pic (cuz it didn't happen if there's no proof, ne?):



After the Wall, we drove over to the Ming Tombs. Took a gander around the front hall/museum at the info on Emperor Yong Le of the Ming. Then drove over to the sacred way where the twins did their level best to mount all of the stone animals that they could climb on top of. Needless to say - I got lotsa pictures (which will have to wait for when I get back to the US to upload them all).

The drive back to our hotel took about 2 hours, showing us ample proof of just how bad the traffic was on Fridays in Beijing. By the time we got back, it was dark and the city was lit up with lights strung over the streets. Since those lights weren't there the previous nights, I can only assume the city does a little extra on weekend nights to celebrate not having to go to work in the morning. :P

After the long day (with no lunch), I was pretty starved by the time we got back. We had dinner at a muslim hot pot place (东来顺 - such a typical name). It was better than the hot pot we had in Pingyao - no surprise, it was more expensive too - and we managed to polish off a set hot pot dinner meant for 5 adults. What can I say? The girls LOVE lamb/mutton, which can't be said for many of the Chinese foods we been trying to get them to try on this trip. I liked the soup that was left afterward, so it was all good.

Tomorrow is the summer palace, as well as quick drive-by of the Olympic buildings for some pictures. That's the last day of our arranged tours. The last two days have been left free for us to arrange as we wish. I know I want to do the 王府井 pedestrian street on one of them, both for checking out some of the book/video stores and for the food. Another possibility are the various museums in town. My aunt also mentioned the temple to Confucius and something about Llama/tantric Buddhism... er... we'll see, I guess.

On the first day of our tour in Beijing, we started out with the 天坛/Prayer Hall for Harvests in all its touristy glory. (Personally, though, I have to admit that I am slightly biased toward Han/Tang era building styles than I am the Ming/Qing styles.

Compare:
Qing style vs. Tang style

Afterwards, we went to the Museum of Ancient Architecture (a place where it appears that is almost unheard of by tourists given how empty it was :-/) and looked at pics of the other cool buildings that we weren't able to see on this trip. It also had cool stuff such as a model layout of the city of Beijing in the Qing Dynasty (similar to the one of Chang'an we saw at the Tang Paradise), which was awesome. And yes, Beijing was larger than Chang'an was, though it didn't have Chang'an's perfectly grid-like streets. Also somewhat annoying were the lights on the map, which interferes with the auto-focus function of digital cameras. It's one place where an old style film-based camera would have been better, I guess.



Lunch was eaten at another vegetarian Buddhist place. This place was better than the one we had in Xi'an though. The dish with several types of mushrooms in it was good. The faux-fish soup dish also had 'jellyfish' in it made out of vermicelli, which was cool.

After lunch, we went to Beihai Park (actually, just the Jade Islet part of it). The twins of course wanted to climb anything that went up, so we found ourselves hiking all the way to the top where the pagoda hat thingy was (couldn't actually go up that pagoda thing cuz it required separate tickets). Explained several pics on the eaves of the corridor to the girls. Also visited the Pavilion of Ancient Works on the islet, where houses the writings of Wangxizhi (actually, just the rubbings of the original tablets that were there are displayed nowadays).



Finally, the last item of the evening was a kungfu show that we'd actually added at the last minute (this morning, in fact). It was a combo of martial arts, dancing, and some acrobatics. I thought it was ok; definitely touristy though.

We came back to go anywhere fancy for dinner, so we just ate at the food court of the New World mall nearby our hotel.

Tomorrow is the Forbidden City, and hopefully we'll be able to make the duck place that cashew suggested in the evening. Would it be ok to reserve at that place in the morning? Or do they need to reserve even further ahead than that?