任是无情也动人

This week had daytime temperatures in the mid to high 90s. Thank goodness for AC, keeping my room temperature to around the high 80s. Next week looks to be better.

As an aside, have relatives visiting from China next week. I am ending up their chauffer / tour guide / translator while they're visiting the west coast sites. Temperatures in LA is about the same as here, actually, high 80s at the most.

Grand Canyon is low to mid 90s...

Thu 11 Mostly Sunny 94°/57°F 35°/14°C
Fri 12 Mostly Sunny 91°/57°F 33°/14°C

Las Vegas on the other hand... T_T

Wed 10 117°/88°F 47°/31°C
Thu 11 117°/88°F 47°/31°C
Fri 12 114°/88°F 46°/31°C
Sat 13 112°/88°F 44°/31°C

The theme of the day is paperwork. And the pain of trying to get it done on a holiday.

So first thing in the morning, we went to the local police office. Apparently you gotta register arrival with them as a foreigner coming into China. I don't remember having to do this the last time I visited, but that was over ten years ago, so my experience is dated. Also, I guess if we had stayed at a hotel, they would do this process for the customer. Anyways, at the station, we were told most of the staff is off for the holidays, and we got referred to do the registration online over WeChat. At least that process went through smoothly.

Then we went to the local mobile services office (for China Mobile I think?) in order for my parents to sort out some issues with their phone(s). Mom got hers fixed (I think?). Dad still needs to buy some kind of roaming package for his CN number, or he can't use mobile payment.

Speaking of which, I did test out making a normal purchase with my WeChat and it worked, so that's good news.

After a brief lunch, we went home and rested my poor feet. In the afternoon, my parents went to the bank to sort out their account issues. Unfortunately, all banks were closed for holidays today.

I then went with my mom to the Nanjing south train station. On one hand, it's to verify the steps to get there, and also to get an estimate of the timing I'll need to schedule for on Sunday. On the other hand, I also tried to change for a better seat, but unfortunately there were no other non-B seats available on my train. My parents bought tickets for the 10th, and was able to get aisle seats for both of them. Meh.

Tomorrow, originally we planned to visit my grandparents graves in the spirit of Qing Ming. But my aunt is really superstitious and gave my mom a whole big spiral about how it's inauspicious (unhealthy?) do 扫墓 this year. So I guess we're not doing this this trip. My parents are going to try the bank again. I don't really have anything planned, so will just be resting my achy feet.

Nothing much happened yesterday. Today is the big reunion day and 90th bday party for my grandmother. This morning, my uncle, his wife, and my older cousin arrived first. Then later, my aunt and her husband arrive with their daughter and son-in-law.

We all chatted for a while and exchanged gifts and whatnot, then all trundled off to the SEU restaurant that we had reserved (and ordered ahead of time yesterday).

Lunch was ok. We had turtle soup, which was cool and yummy. The rest was more standard fare. Grandma gave a speech, as did my uncle. It's all on video.

Afterwards, we took a short walk around the university before heading home and everyone basically chatted away the afternoon, catching up on...stuff. I guess.

In the afternoon, us cousins three took a short walk to the SEU campus again, where my older cousin met up with his wife, son (whom we met three days ago), and mother-in-law.

This evening my younger cousin, her husband, and their dad are going to head back to Wuxi. My aunt however will be staying behind for the rest of our stay in Nanjing.

Went with my dad to the Nanjing Museum this morning - the province level museum, actually, despite the name. It's supposed to have the better stuff. Unfortunately, most of the place had been blocked off for renovations/construction, and of the sole building that was still open only maybe half the exhibits were open. It's also slated to be fully closed on the 8th, and wont open again until sometime In 2014, presumably completely rebuilt and expanded.

Of the still available exhibitions, we saw the full jade exhibit - which was cool the ceramic exhibit which only encompassed the Ming to Qing dynasties, a special exhibition on the Duke of Jiangdu (江都王), and another misc special treasures exhibition.

Despite the small selection of halls, there was still a decent amount of stuff to look at, and thus also photos of them. I'm especially proud of my jade exhibit pics, since the ones I took last year at the Shanghai Museum were kinda bad due to not being familiar with the camera, and the ones from the Xi'an Museum were few due to running out of time.

Afterward, we went to the shopping center I saw the Pizza Hut shop last time so I can experience the Chinese pizza experience. We did not predict the huge line outside the place, and the expected hour wait for service. According to the waitress managing the queue, there were 2 other Pizza Hut stores nearby. The next one we found "only" had a half hour line, so we ended up eating there. Also, price-wise, this place is possibly more expensive than pizza places in the U.S., and maybe even slightly more than the gourmet Italian places in the States, even. Very odd, especially considering the much lower prices at the nearby KFC or McDonald's; not to mention the lack of lines. I took photos of the menu. Hee.

So today we visited the Beijing Capital Museum and managed to stay there until we were kicked out at the end of the business day. Y'see, to my aunt, museums are "serious business". :P

The shape and layout of the museum itself is kinda interesting. It seems to be still a work in progress though, since from the upper floors we could see they were still building something inside the museum that had already been completed on the first two floors or so. There was also a round exhibition hall on the other side of the building from the normal exhibition hall that we couldn't figure out how to get to until we eventually wandered into it by chance.

To start off, we spent about 1.5 hours in the largest exhibit, which was of the history of Beijing on floor 2. I kinda like the setup of the exhibit. The path proceeds from pre-historic times in chronological order all the way to the establishment of the PRC. Along one side of the path are the artifacts on display, of various stuff that have been excavated from around the Beijing area (or replicas and images thereof) of the time period in question. On the other side of the path are listed major events occurring in the rest of the world, including tibits of things related to China that were found or occurred in foreign lands. Occasionally on the artifacts side, there would be a small cranny where you would step in and see a life-size model or a brief movie of some particular time/place/event. Interspersed on the other side, were world maps denoting the major powers in the world during that century.

After that, we took a short lunch break, which just consisted of getting some drinks and cookies at a nearby cafe. We also stopped by the bookstore on the basement floor where the food was. My aunt/uncle bought a children's book version of Journey to the West, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, and the 36 Strategies for the twins. They were rather cheap, which kinda surprised me. (Of course, the museum admission, sans the special exhibits, was free - so I guess this museum is not looking to be a tourist trap but a serious learning establishment, I guess.

Then came the ceramics exhibit on the fourth floor, where we actually entered through the exit and made our way backwards through time through history. Of course, all the pretty stuff were nearer to the later time periods anyway, and I took some pics of the pretty pieces I saw.

Last on that floor (not counting the round hall we couldn't find the way into yet) was an exhibition about Buddhist statues, which we went through quickly. There were a few pieces there of two figures in...embrace/kissing positions, which made me wonder if they were about the tantric thing. >.>

Eventually, we found our way into the round exhibition hall. The first exhibit we saw there were of bronzes. Nothing too special there. After that, we saw the jades exhibit, which was cool. I tried to take better quality photos there since a lot of the pics I took of jades from the Shanghai museum all came out pretty blurry. It's rather hard to get good focus on the jades for photos since they reflect light so much, which messes with auto-focus.

We had to finish up the jade section because it was near closing time. As it was, we were only able to do a partial glimpse of the exhibition of writing utensils (文房四宝) before we were being shooed out by the museum staff.

We returned the same way we came to the museum - by navigating the subway metro system. It wasn't as hard as my aunt feared, and we were able to get everyone back to the correct exit without any problems. For dinner, the twins insisted on duck again. We tried our luck at the 前门东全聚德 restaurant, but unfortunately there was an hour's wait for service there. In the end, we went back to the other 全聚德 that we'd gone to previously and had peking duck there. The girls were happy and I am of course stuffed. :P

Tomorrow is our last tour day of Beijing before we return home!

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.

Started off this morning at the Pingyao city walls, supposedly dating back to Ming Dynasty. While there, we bought gloves from the local vendor cuz it was kinda chilly up there. I was wearing three layers (including a sweater), so it was just the fingers and toes freezing stiff.

Following that was a visit to the local temple to Confucius, one of the oldest of such temples still in existence - it was built originally during Han and then rebuilt during the Jin Dynasty. My uncle joked that the twins will need to make a prayer there for blessings on getting into MIT; I noted that I was glad to be done with the whole school thing (though I guess I could have used some luck/blessing in passing my CCIE lab exam/certification, I guess). While there, my aunt had a...um...slight 'incident' at the toilets, which required us to rush through the rest of that site and then make a stop back to the hotel.

According to our tour guide, Shanxi (山西) province is actually predominantly Daoist, which I found surprising since I'd thought that Daoism wasn't that seriously practiced as a religion anymore in favor of atheism and Buddhism. I did note the signs saying there was a local temple to Erlang Shen though, and of course, being the fangirl that I am, I requested to see it tomorrow morning before we leave for Beijing. Tee.

After lunch, we took a car to the Wang Family Compound, which while was not as famous as the Qiao family, was much larger. We spent pretty much 2.5 hours walking through the place. It was *big*! I agree with the comparison that it was like visiting one of those old castles in England. The place was built like a fortress, except also prettier, and according to the various Chinese tours I overheard, practically all the carvings on the floors, eaves, columns, etc. had some symbolic meaning or other. The compound was built against a mountain, so the top/north wall could overlook everything. There was also a huge crane there, ostensibly in the construction of a new 5-star hotel that will be connected to the compound. I guess we know what Pingyao's (neighboring town's) development plans are. :P

Tomorrow we hit a few more spots nearby before heading back to civilization (Beijing). :)

Woke up with a lot of mucus and a small case of the sniffles. Decided to start taking the Tylenol to head off the cold. The younger of the twins also had a slight fever and had to stay in the hotel with her dad to see if she could recover by tomorrow (since the girls really wanted to see Princess Yongtai's tomb, so much that we'd actually switched from our day of touring Famen Temple to visiting Qian Ling instead). So today's tour just consisted of me, my aunt, and the elder of the twins.

This morning we went to the 大唐芙蓉园 (Tang Paradise), which is a man-made park showcasing the Tang style architecture. There, we caught several shows - a short intro dance, a drum performance, and a lion dance atop a series of raised platforms. Our tour guide was actually very surprised since even though she's lived in the city all her life and had visited the Tang Paradise before, she'd never even known those shows existed.

The coolest thing we saw at the Tang Paradise was a 3D model map of the city during the hey-day of the Tang Dynasty, with labels of where areas such as the Daminggong, etc. were located. I had fun tracing the waterways that were channeled to the city by probably man-made canals, and which created the city moat, flowed down one of the major streets, and also channeled into several man-made lakes in the parks of the original city.

(Caption: View from 'north' side of the original pre-Daminggong palace 'south' toward the rest of the city. The gate with the sign in front is the original Xuanwumen.)

There was also a bunch of cranes caged in one area of the garden. The cage wires played merry havoc with the camera autofocus while I was trying to get a pic of any of the birds flapping. Oh well; we'll see how well they turn out.

Lunch was at a vegetarian Buddhist place. Food was mediocre, I guess, for vegetarian. Had fun rearranging the fruit/desert dish given us into cutesy patterns.



After lunch, we went to the old city wall (just the south gate portion; we weren't about to circumnavigate the inner city). According to our tour guide, most parts of the city wall dates back to the Ming Dynasty, though there are still some parts dating back to Tang. The tourist area, of course, was modern. :P

It's a pity we couldn't go back and see it at night. The light are supposed to be spectacular.

Last day in Shanghai! We went back to the Expo, this time at a much more leisurely pace.

We took a cab to a west bank entrance at around 11-ish, since the busiest entrance times are in the early morning, and the west bank pavilions (the corporate pavilions) are generally less popular than the east bank ones (the country pavilions).

First we went to the Xi'an case pavilion, which was supposedly a scaled down replica of 大明宫. Hopefully we'll be able to see the real thing next week in Xi'an, assuming they've actually opened it for tourism in early Oct like they were planned to. We ended up waiting outside for quite a bit of time for what turned out to be only a 6 minute movie of some of the sights in Xi'an (some of which we'd be visiting).

After that we decided to take some pics at the Chengdu case pavilion because it was just so darn pretty. The kids wanted to go to the Pavilion of the Future, but my aunt kinda nixed that; or maybe she just didn't hear them. Again, skipped lunch. I'm beginning to notice a trend here...

Afternoon - we pretty much spent the entire time at the Pavilion of Footprints. That's the place where they imported all the really old pieces of history from various museums across the world. There was a piece of the Gate of Ishtar from ancient Babylon (donated from...Iran?), various pieces from Sumer, Greece, Egypt, etc... and of course there's stuff from China itself. There were also a lot of very cool animated stuff/movies/mobiles/etc which unfortunately didn't translate all that well onto photos. I liked the one that was a full room (360 degrees plus two pillars in the room) movie showing historic sights of celebrations through-out the ages (Ancient Egypt, Mayans, Ancient Rome, England, Times Square). Hopefully my aunt got some of that one on film. There was another one of the development of Chinese society done entirely with animated paper-cuttings. That was cute, but unfortunate it was moving too fast to get good photos of, and I don't think my aunt noticed that one.

After the footprints pavilion, we were originally planning on taking the ferry across the river to see the European pavilions. While in line, we saw the amusing side of lines of five PLA/military security acting as the cordon between each group (about a boat's worth of people) in the line. Then, whenever a boat docked and the next group boarded, each line of soldiers would march forward and move the rest of the groups in line forward. Hey, why worry about moving around rope cordons when you can get guys in uniform to do it instead? And this way, the 'cordon' can even watch out for people trying to cut in line! XD

Halfway through the wait in line, though, we decided we were way too tired to make it to the east bank and look at the European pavilions. Oh well. So instead we just grabbed a dinner at a local noodle place and started on our way home.

Of course, as we were on our way to the exit, we ran smack into a parade that was coming down the road. The floats were generally space/robot-themed, so I guess the twins got to see their 'pavilion of the future' after a fashion, after all.

We took one of the special Expo cabs back to the hotel. Due to these cabs actually having to follow the law that other cabs can somewhat ignore, we had to split up into two cabs to avoid too many people per car. The driver I had was particularly chatty, and I had a particularly interesting conversation with him. Apparently, all of these Expo cab drivers are pulled from the five major cab companies in Shanghai. They're chosen based on their experience and record (no accidents, complaints, etc.) so that these are pretty much the best veteran cab drivers available. Thus, they know all the shortcuts and alleyways to get around the jams on the major streets of Shanghai (a situation exacerbated due to today being a weekend and the expo). These drivers themselves get shortchanged, since as an official Expo driver, they can't pick their own customers, and they are forced to drive through the most congested parts of the city to pick up their customers. My driver had started working at 3 and only had 3 customers before me since then (this was at around 8). He's hoping they'll get some extra compensation from their companies after the Expo is over, but doesn't think it's too likely. However, when I asked if he resents the Expo and hopes that it's over, he was rather adamant that the Expo is a great thing for the country and it's a matter of national pride for him to make some small sacrifices in the interim for the good of the country. Food for thought there from the minds/mouths of the average modern Chinese citizen.

Finally, we got back to our hotel, and I got one last surprise on entering my room to find a birthday cake there. At first I was suspicious that my aunt had ordered it from room service. But on interrogating my uncle and the kids (who really suck at keeping any secrets), I determined that it really wasn't her. Also, the fact that the card was addressed to my full legal name makes me think that it might have been the hotel itself that sent it, based on information obtained from my passport. Ah well.

Least I could do is fill out the hotel questionnaire and give 'em high scores, right? The first section of the questionnaire made me break down laughing though. It asks me to rate the following Reception categories on a scale: Doorman, Bellman, Receptionist, Cashier, Telephone Operator, ......and Toilet. *snicker* I'm assuming they meant the thing in the bathroom and not some person performing the function...ok I didn't need that mental image.

Anyway, I have to get up at an ungodly hour of the morning tomorrow for the flight to Xi'an. I guess the cake will make for our breakfast since we'll be gone before the cafeteria opens. :P

Bai bai, Shanghai, you never cease to amaze me. ^^;

Belated edit to add: I'm now curious about what was in the movie at the Cisco pavilion. Colleagues who'd gone told me it wasn't worth seeing. But the lines for that pavilion was over 4 hours, being put into same category as the Japan and Saudi lines. There's gotta be a reason it was so popular.

Here's our front yard, after much reworking. (I footed the bill for the plants to avoid having to actually do the work planting them. :P) It looks especially nice due to the long extended rainy season we've been having over here.

( pictures )

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